Lack of interest Different Visual Style for Conversations/PM

[Akesson]

Simple but nice solution from the Discourse team.

 

[Paul B]

In the meantime ...

WhatsXFessenger

Tired of conversations looking exactly the same as threads? Didn't think so. Members getting confused between threads, conversations, and profile posts and keep posting embarrassingly private stuff in threads? No, mine neither. Ever felt that...

xenforo.com

 

[beerForo]

 

[Mendalla]

My writing boards went to a new messenger in that format and we nearly had a riot. The sites' original PM systems used an email paradigm so you had a Sent Items and could sort messages into folders and things like that. Having it be chat-style was not what some people wanted even though that's kind of the norm for forum and social media sites anymore. It didn't help that there was another message system in between the original and the new one that sucked so badly, even I was upset. Couldn't even message more than one person at a time.

Anyhow, I tried out WhatsXFessenger in dev but never pulled the trigger in production for reasons. Does what the OP wants, just not sure it's what my board needs/wants.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I have always treated XF's private conversations like they are private threads, which is really what they are. I used WhatsXFessenger and applied some styling tweaks--everyone likes it since there is no confusion as to whether they are replying in a public thread or a private message.

I can't say I miss the days of vB's private messaging. Having messages and replies split up resulted in endless clicking when there were multiple exchanges in a single conversation. I first saw this threaded private messaging in SMF (Simple Machines Forum) and was very glad to see it in XF when it first launched.