Duplicate 'Someone is typing a comment' indicator

[RobinHood]

Just noticed this for the first time on Facebook (desktop), similar to any mobile chat app, it seems they have an animated indicator now to show when someone is typing a comment.

Could be neat addition to both threads and private conversations. Shows that there's at least one other live person about to interact with the thread your on, or in the conversation chat you're in.

 

[James]

9 times out of 10 I've seen this indicator and it's appeared because I'm on the comments typing, not because someone else is.

I'm not sure this would be performance friendly to be honest? I could see merit in a thread block that shows who's currently viewing the page but not a specific typing indicator.

 

[RobinHood]

I would love this in conversations, as it's essentially instant messaging between two users most of the time, or just a small number of people. As so much of my xf usage is on mobile these days the experience would be very similar to using iMessage or WhatsApp and this feature would very useful.

If it's implemented there it would be a nice toggle to also activate it for threads for small boards.

Speaking of conversations - do they have the notifications that new replies have been posted like threads currently do? I was testing a new board the other day and I wasn't getting notified of new responses as I composed mine.

 

[Martok]

There could be a privacy issue here with conversations if they are between two people, or on profiles where a member has chosen to allow people to view their profile posts but not allowed them to post on their profile (so only the profile owner can post). In both situations, if a person has chosen not to show their online status or online activity, then the "someone is typing" indicator is a giveaway that they are online and what they are doing. So in these situations (possibly others) there would either need to be an option for users to disable this for themselves (in which case if many users decide to do this its usefulness is lessened) or it has to be programmatically disabled based on the user's other privacy options (which of course then adds another level of complexity into the software).

I'm not saying that it should or shouldn't be added, I'm just saying that things are a little different on XenForo than on Facebook when it comes to some of the privacy settings and therefore there are additional things to consider.

 

[RobinHood]

Yeah, you might have a point about appearing offline, but that would really only apply to 1 on 1 conversations.

In any other public part of the site or any kind of thread with more then 2 people it could be anyone typing. It does't say 'Martok is typing a message', just 'Someone'.

Additionally, if they're at the point where they're actually writing a message then chances are it's going to be submitted and viewable for all to see very shortly, especially on profile posts where you can only write 140 characters. Kind of pointless trying to keep it private there.

 

[Martok]

In any other public part of the site or any kind of thread with more then 2 people it could be anyone typing. It does't say 'Martok is typing a message', just 'Someone'.

Indeed, which is why I didn't mention posts, only conversations and profile posts in specific situations.

Additionally, if they're at the point where they're actually writing a message then chances are it's going to be submitted and viewable for all to see very shortly, especially on profile posts where you can only write 140 characters. Kind of pointless trying to keep it private there.

It's still a privacy matter nonetheless, whether we may think it pointless/trivial or not. It may not bother us but you can bet that it will bother someone. Therefore it's something that would have to be considered by the developers if the suggestion is to be implemented.

 

[Alpha1]

Same suggestion here: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/show-x-is-typing-a-reply.75156/