Testing for new Messages App?

[gfwilliams]

I've just been playing around with a new message ui for displaying messages.

The old gui displayed a fullscreen message, and you could tap it to get a scroller:

And I think @thyttan suggested this but I couldn't find an implementation - I made some changes that go straight to displaying the message in a scroller so if the message is too big you can swipe up/down immediately:

Widgets are hidden, but swipe left/right markers are still shown at the bottom. Swipe up/down for next/prev message works too (as long as you're at the top/bottom of the current message).

I think it works quite well, however:

• Not tested on Bangle.js 1
• Widgets are hidden, so you can't see if the screen is locked! (I guess I could add a new lock widget in the bottom?)
• I still need to do work on the scroller with different font sizes (it assumes a 25px line spacing, which'll be wrong for the biggest/smallest fonts)

But it'd be great if some of you could give it a go and let me know what you think. You can go to my app loader at:

https://gfwilliams.github.io/BangleApps/?id=messagegui

And install from there - and to go back you can just go back to the normal app loader and install that one

[thyttan]

Interesting, will try!

And I think @thyttan suggested this but I couldn't find an implementation

My effort here below, I closed the PR since I felt there were more to fix than I cared to work on for now :)
espruino/BangleApps#3685

[thyttan]

I'll push my version to my app loader again in a bit.

[thyttan]

I merged it into my app loader again now. Won't link directly to it here so I don't confuse it with @gfwilliams's version. But it's linked in the closed PR i referenced above.

[gfwilliams]

Thanks! Right, I think I see what your plan is there - so the messages are displayed in one scroller and you can just keep scrolling through them?

That's very cool, but also I can see quite a big change to get right (and possibly a bit divisive for some people?).

Really makes me wish I'd split up music/navigation into separate apps/libraries as at least then we could have had separate apps for this without duplicating a bunch of work (I guess we still could do that?)

[thyttan]

[...] so the messages are displayed in one scroller and you can just keep scrolling through them?

That's very cool, but also I can see quite a big change to get right (and possibly a bit divisive for some people?).

Yes 👍 But my implementation made the scroller a bit choppy while scrolling. So I was actually thinking of making it like you have, loading one message at a time but add swipes for navigation at top/bottom 👌

Really makes me wish I'd split up music/navigation into separate apps/libraries as at least then we could have had separate apps for this without duplicating a bunch of work (I guess we still could do that?)

Yes I also lean towards wanting the more modular approach. But maybe lets not change that now?

Overall I like your version here better than mine 👌🙏

[gfwilliams]

Thanks! I'm sure someone will complain it's changed, but I think on the whole it's going to be a big improvement over the current version without being jarringly different

But maybe lets not change that now?

Yes - definitely!

[thyttan]

Hm - I wonder if your app loader points to the branch with these changes on, @gfwilliams? 🤔

[gfwilliams]

Sorry, my bad. I think it should be there now if you refresh - 0.86

[thyttan]

Yes now it worked! 🙂

[thyttan]

@bobrippling you may want to try this? I think you're not so often here on the forum (?) so I thought I'd tag you 🙂

[bobrippling]

Yeah I'll give it a test - I'll be a week or so, currently not at a PC!

[thyttan]

My feedback as a thread.

[gfwilliams]

Just updated (same version no., though). I feel like it's a decent improvement now, and not having to mess with the widgets makes it a bit less hacky.

It works on Bangle.js 1 too - it's a little hacky there because each item in the scroller is highlighted with a while box, but I think it's still an improvement over the old arrangement

[thyttan]

When swiping between messages we should probably skip over e.g. music entries? I think I get stuck on them and can't swipe up/down from that screen to go to other messages.

[gfwilliams]

Thanks, yes, that's a good point (same with nav?). Although I guess that's behaviour left over from before as well.

Or can you think of any reason we couldn't make music/navigation change with swipes too?

[thyttan]

same with nav?

I would guess so but didn't test that yet.

Or can you think of any reason we couldn't make music/navigation change with swipes too?

For music at least - no, that should work as well!

Navigation I'm not too familiar with the implementation and what would work good or not.

[gfwilliams]

Ok, just updated - you can now swipe from nav/music too. I haven't bumped the version number but if you refresh and reinstall that should be sorted now

[kingcharles1666]

Please keep the old behavior as an option. I use the clock widget to tell me the time when a message is in the screen. So I can still see the time while I wait to deal with the message.

[gfwilliams]

Would just having an option to keep widgets shown work for you?

[kingcharles1666]

Yes, absolutely

[gfwilliams]

I've just merged this in to the development app loader: https://espruino.github.io/BangleApps

I've been using this in my daily watch for a while and it seems like a big improvement.

Not perfect if you have the International font installed (as it uses that by default for everything) but still

[WhelanB]

I really like the new scroller behaviour, but spotted one small issue around message rendering while testing something unrelated:

When opening this message from the message list, it renders as follows:
GB({"t":"notify","id":1575479860,"src":"Whatsapp","title":"A Name","body":"This is an example of a really short message"})

if I swipe down to another message with a larger font in the body, for example:
GB({"t":"notify","id":1575479861,"src":"Whatsapp","title":"A Name","body":"This is an example of a short message"})

when I swipe back up to the original message, (1575479860), it now renders differently, using the font from the previous message(?) instead of the original smaller font, requiring scrolling:

[gfwilliams]

Thanks for those lines to reproduce it!

Just fixed I hope - I think it was whether it thought it had widgets or not (which changes the amount of space it thinks it has for the body text)

[sonicityV]

Could an option be added to remove the [X <-- --> ✅] bar? I feel like after a while for some (if not most) users, it become ingrained into muscle memory and a reminder is no longer needed. It would also add a decent amount of vertical text space (perhaps 1 extra line of text) if the user decided that they would rather have that. Of course, the default would be set to on.

[thyttan]

Those look good to me - nice!

I had a go with triangles:

[elcste]

What about arrow-like triangles at the top?

[sonicityV]

I am more bias towards the triangle in the message body compared to being in the header or the arrows. The arrows look a bit confusing as it looks more like page controls (like moving/swiping between messages).

Just to state what I'm hoping for. The main reason for this option would be to provide a less prominent reminder for users that have gotten more used to the UI/UX. for example: if you just got a bangle you would need the [X <-- --> ✅] bar to know what to do with notifications but after a while, people might choose to go with a more minimal version so more screen space is available (either to allow widgets again without hurting message space too much, or bigger/more text)

@gfwilliams what is your opinion on this?

[gfwilliams]

Depending on the message, we have two options for right-swipe - there's a general acceptance, or the option to reply - so maybe we need to see which one those are as a possibility?

I've got to say for new users it doesn't feel very helpful though - what do red or green even mean, and it's not even obvious you have to swipe? I feel like it should be an option, not the default. If it's an option then I feel like the triangles in the corner could be good as they don't really take up much space, and maybe if you turn it on you don't care whether right swipe just accepts or replies?

(the left hand one)

[sonicityV]

I feel like it should be an option, not the default.

Yes, exactly.

there's a general acceptance, or the option to reply - so maybe we need to see which one those are as a possibility

Depending on the graphical/performance. Maybe the reply option could be the green corner with a dot in it.
Or, if that not possible, if the message can be replied to, maybe a menu can be pulled up with the option to: accept/ok, reply (canned) and, reply (keyboard)