Implemented [Suggestion] Personal Conversations / showing Avatar of person initiated the conversation

erich37

Well-known member
when clicking onto "Inbox / Show all", then we see the list of all Personal Conversations we have had.

I was just trying to find a certain Private-Conversation in my Inbox.

It took some time to look for this, as the subject-title of most of my messages are very similar.
Also at most of those, my own Avatar is showing-up - as I assume it is always showing the Avatar of the person who started a specific Conversation.

As I have started most of the Conversations, it is showing my own Avatar on most of my Inbox, which does not help to find a specific Conversation.

BTW: looking onto the Inbox-Drop-Down, it is also showing my own Avatar. It does not help to see my own Avatar there, it would help in a big way to see the avatars of the users who are talking with myself.

Suggestions:
For the Inbox-Drop-Down-box, I would suggest to show the avatars of people who I am talking with, but not show the Avatar of myself (just because I had initiated the Personal conversations).

For the Inbox-list, I would suggest you show the Avatars of ALL people who participated in a certain conversation.
 
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What if there are several people in one pc. Whose avatar would be shown?

no idea, probably the one Avatar who posted the last message / answer.

But as it is currently, showing-up my own Avatar (just because I initiated the Conversation) does not help.
Well, I anyway know that I have participated in a certain conversation (hence it is showing in my Inbox), so what is the benfit of seeing my own Avatar in the Inbox-overview ?
 
Moving this to suggestions. This is a fairly sizable change (though I'm actually going to put it in smaller features, because it's not standalone).

Well, I anyway know that I have participated in a certain conversation (hence it is showing in my Inbox), so what is the benfit of seeing my own Avatar in the Inbox-overview ?
Having it in your inbox doesn't necessarily mean you've actively participated in it though. (Starting the conversation would mean this, of course.)
 
Moving this to suggestions. This is a fairly sizable change (though I'm actually going to put it in smaller features, because it's not standalone).


Having it in your inbox doesn't necessarily mean you've actively participated in it though. (Starting the conversation would mean this, of course.)

Can you just use the Avatar of the last person who posted the message ?
Only show my own Avatar when I initiated a Conversation, but have not yet received an answer ?
 
I don't think that would necessarily solve it, and it would create a big inconsistency with the meaning of the avatar in that position.
 
I really don't care how it is done, but if I start a PC, and I am the last person replying, the only clue I have as to who may be in the conversation is the title, and my terrible memory. It would be good if there was some way of improving that.

Search for user or phrase in "my pc's?", hover over title and have the first 3 peoples name show up?, the first few name as part of the PCs description?
 
In terms of receiving conversations, the starter avatar is better because it will often be different. In terms of starting conversations, it may not be ideal because you can't see who the conversation is with very easily.

The last poster avatar makes sense in certain situations, though it requires restructuring of other data. We did actually have it using the last poster avatar in the inbox drop down, and that created a situation where you would just see your own avatar with a lot of nondescript conversation titles. That goes back to the receiving vs starting distinction though.
 
the idea of Abomination above seems like to be simple but effectful:

when hover over the Conversation-Title, show the avatars of all participants in that Conversation.

the same hover-stuff as you do have for the Forum-description at the Homepage.
Just instead of the description, put in the Avatar-images of the people participating in that specific Conversation.

This would be also consistent with the overall design of XF.
 
We did actually have it using the last poster avatar in the inbox drop down, and that created a situation where you would just see your own avatar

it is the same effect now, I see my own avatar in the drop-down, as I have started the conversation......although there are replies available.
 
when clicking onto "Inbox / Show all", then we see the list of all Personal Conversations we have had.

I was just trying to find a certain Private-Conversation in my Inbox.

It took some time to look for this, as the subject-title of most of my messages are very similar.
Also at most of those, my own Avatar is showing-up - as I assume it is always showing the Avatar of the person who started a specific Conversation.

As I have started most of the Conversations, it is showing my own Avatar on most of my Inbox, which does not help to find a specific Conversation.

BTW: looking onto the Inbox-Drop-Down, it is also showing my own Avatar. It does not help to see my own Avatar there, it would help in a big way to see the avatars of the users who are talking with myself.

Suggestions:
For the Inbox-Drop-Down-box, I would suggest to show the avatars of people who I am talking with, but not show the Avatar of myself (just because I had initiated the Personal conversations).

For the Inbox-list, I would suggest you show the Avatars of ALL people who participated in a certain conversation.

I pressed [Like]. Never realized that it is true what you are explaining, so thanks for bringing this up! It would do wonders for the ease of use indeed your suggestions (or something along the lines which is best in M&K's eyes)
 
I pressed [Like]. Never realized that it is true what you are explaining, so thanks for bringing this up! It would do wonders for the ease of use indeed your suggestions (or something along the lines which is best in M&K's eyes)

sometimes I also think it is not true what am seeing/saying, but it seems it is ;)
 
or just put an hyper-link over the 'Partecipants' which allow us to check who's in this particular PC ...

[No, thanks] <--- just kidding :p! Realize... when we have to mouseover something to see something that is important for us to see immediately, then it doesn't serve the purpose.

Why just not (for the time being) display ALL the participants usernames underneath (or next) the little grey username (the one who started the thread) in this list: http://xenforo.com/community/conversations/

That would solve it more or less. I mean the number indicating how much participants a PC has, is a bit useless isn't it? WHY do I need to know how many participants a PC has? I want to know WHO those participants are, that is much more important.
 
yeah, just show the participants names as links underneath the Conversation-title.

Much nicer would be this:
show SMALL Avatars (size 20px by 20px) of ALL participants underneath the Conversation-Title.
Same SMALL avatar as is already used for the Mini-Me stuff.
 
TBH, I feel that having the private conversation feature is great, and being able to invite others to it is fantastic. It's a new and innovative feature, miles ahead of private messaging.
Personally, I hope that they put this on the back burner for a future release. There are a few more important things to do to get this ready to be released.
NOT saying that this suggestion is not important. They all are. But the guys still have alot of work ahead of them to get XF ready to release, and I would prefer that they concentrate in that and get it on our hands. :)
 
Personally, while that avatar idea of some type would be nice, my personal concern is with somehow knowing who the conversation is with, or what is about. Especially when the conversations are years old. Some members will not use a good title on the PC.

The PCs could in fact be used for communications within groups, for anything. There could easily be hundreds of important PCs on our site each with their own set of participants.
 
TBH, I feel that having the private conversation feature is great, and being able to invite others to it is fantastic. It's a new and innovative feature, miles ahead of private messaging.
Personally, I hope that they put this on the back burner for a future release. There are a few more important things to do to get this ready to be released.
NOT saying that this suggestion is not important. They all are. But the guys still have alot of work ahead of them to get XF ready to release, and I would prefer that they concentrate in that and get it on our hands. :)

totally agree with you !

I want XF in my hands as soon as possible and I do not care if there are a few bugs or features in there which can be improved.
All and every software is not working 100% perfect from the beginning and this is just normal.
I am not expecting to have all kind of features build into XF and all bugs being cleaned from the start.

Just give me the chance to buy XF as soon as possible and being able to start building my own community-forum.
There is still enough time to iron out those few bugs on later updates.

Yeah, and the private-conversations-feature is absolutely great and I can live with the described issue for the beginning, as I am sure M&K will have some ideas of how to improve it a bit in some later versions. As said, nobody can expect to have everything just 100% perfect, as no software in the world is perfect - not even WordPress, Microsoft or FaceBook is perfect software.

I think XF is PERFECT now to be released.
 
I do a lot by visual pointers, especially when the text next to it is so small.

Having the avatar change in the conversation makes it hard to recognize it. I no longer look at that. I solely look at the title of the inbox alert, and that's all.
 
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