Option to disable Spaces bar #18898
Comments
SimonBrandner
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A-Spaces
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Related: #8733 |
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Related: #19191 |
daniellekirkwood
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X-Needs-Product
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What about optionally relocating the spaces bar next to the room directory button? Mockup:
Clicking the button would reveal available spaces. If the option to "minimize spaces" is selected, it should probably imply that " |
Yeah, I had a way to hide it (the fixed-width bar with 2 icons on the left) but this option is said to be deleted in the near future. |
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This would come in handy for everyone with tiling window managers. Another idea would be autohide (shown on hover, hier after x seconds )/disable/always show |
For Element Web, you can also use the uBlock Origin extension to add a rule to hide the bar. This works well for now and spaces can still be accessed by links. i That being said, I think the idea from cbs228 above makes a lot of sense to get quicker access to re-enabling it |
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We just upgraded our deployment to a version of Element that enables Spaces for everyone (though we are not using spaces right now, and were not using Communities before) and this was an immediate complaint from users. |
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I had same experience - people don't want/need it. It would be useful for some users, if user can define own grouping (with drag'n'drop, like in Discord). For now I just added |
SimonBrandner
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the
O-Frequent
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Hi 4nd3r, where can I find bundle.css on the macOS install? |
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I don't know, I use Element in browser. |
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Does anyone know how default css can be edited for for Element Desktop in macOS? |
It can't really. You'd need to edit files inside the asar package. |
Sorry, I can't follow. What does "switch to Communities in Settings" mean? In Settings > Preferences > Communities I only see "Display Communities Instead of Spaces"... |
Yes, showing X instead of Y implies switching from X to Y. |
Snarky, but thanks. It's here: Settings > Prefs > Display Communities instead of Spaces |
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Until there's a preference for this, there's a hacky workaround for web users with uBlock Origin extension on. Right click in the Spaces area, select 'Block Element', then click 'Create' (to create a new record for a blocked DOM element). You may need to do it twice. |
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@rufuskahler removing X-Needs-Design means anyone can just start it with assets already provided in the issue, (e.g. community) - that does not appear to be the case, maybe you meant to remove |
t3chguy
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X-Needs-Design
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X-Needs-Product
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The spaces bar can be removed as-is. What additional assets could you possibly need to remove something? |
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@thany the product team doesn't want it removed, they want the functionality to be available elsewhere, so the UX to switch behaviours and the alternative behaviour need designs. Similar to Element X (EX) |
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A checkbox should suffice. |
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@thany that doesn't explain how a user can manage spaces they are in without the space panel |
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Then they check the checkbox. If you're not using spaces, uncheck to remove it. If you are, then check to reveal it. It's as simple as that. |
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Simply hiding spaces & invites is very unlikely to fly, they'll need exposed via alternate means, like a dropdown more akin to EX |
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Spaces don't need to be exposed at all. If a user hides Spaces, it's for a reason. I can only really speak for myself, so when I hide spaces, it's because I don't use them and I don't want them taking up any space (especially not when they expand themselves at the whim of increasing window size, which I have to do every time Element starts because it's not able to remember its own size properly). Users who do need spaces, can keep them visible. I really, honestly, genuinely don't see the problem here. Just hide the bloody thing, or don't. How hard can it be? Either way, in my case, what would be my advantage of still having access to spaces? |
That's up to the Element Product team |
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No, it should be up to the users. Otherwise can you please loop in the "Product Team" so they can explain themselves here? |
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Indirectly it is, but not up to the vocal users, but up to the wider userbase. The vocal minority often do not match the average. |
Maybe they can also answer this, because I can't think of anything. |
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Can someone please point me to the overwhelming user feedback that says "please don't let anyone hide the Spaces bar I want every user to have to see it" |
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I suggest waiting to see what the Product & Design teams have planned in this space rather than demanding a given solution. Users present issues & feedback, they don't get to drive the choices and implementation. The product is free. You're always welcome to fork it and make it work exactly as you hope and dream. |
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So users don't really drive the choices made by the Element team. Well, thanks for being honest at least. |
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You can say "the contrast is bad", but not pick our colour palette. Just like here you can say you want a way to get rid of the stacked space panel bar taking up your valuable space, doesn't mean you can decide that there'll also be no way to manage spaces alongside that. If you want your own software designed just like you want it, try freelancer or fiverr. |
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I have tried making Spaces and been reading about them and still can't wrap my head around them at all. Is there a tutorial somewhere out there? I find the explanations on the blog extremely confusing. At its core, what even IS a "Space"?? Is it like a custom collection of users and rooms specific to one's user account, or what? I made a new room in my test Space, and it doesn't show up in Home. So is it self-contained or not, or in between? So confused. I can't imagine many users understand what they are, given the lack of introduction and how different they appear to be from other common chat app features. |
Not a great example, since the Element team has actually gone in the right direction regarding theming and given users the ability to pick whatever color palette they want. Similarly, I think it is reasonable to give users who aren't interested in seeing or managing spaces a way to hide the interface intended to facilitate that. |
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At the end of the day a space is a room, if you're in a space and something happening in that space makes your push rules trigger, you'll need to see it otherwise you'll be getting pings/notifications without an ability to see them. You can't disable push rules for spaces in the spec today. Equally a space could create a lot of /sync bloat due to being filled with state events, so you would want to retain a way to leave it without needing to reconfigure your client. Again can't filter out spaces in /sync with the filters provided by the spec. |
The Spaces rollout seems quite poorly planned from a UX point of view, from the feature explanation to making irreversible codebase and unalterable UI changes that waste large portions of real estate. |
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I think /sync returning unnecessary data if the UI were disabled is a separate issue that shouldn't necessarily block this feature request, and I wonder how many users would even be aware that it was occurring. As far as push rules go, I think the only notifications triggered by default for spaces is invites? I can see why you wouldn't want users getting an invite notification to a space and then not being able to view it, that seems like a legitimate concern. On the other hand, for users not interested enough in using spaces to have the UI visible, it seems minor enough that the Space bar toggle could be added as a Labs feature until someone might be willing to put in a spec PR to improve the /sync filters. On that train of thought, would a PR implementing such a Labs feature even be considered for merge, or is this really "fork it" territory? |
It is unlikely to be accepted given the product team has it in their sights, unless the author was willing to shape the PR into whatever the product & design teams had in mind |
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Personally, I find Spaces somewhat useful (even if we don't have user flair back yet!), but the large and ever-present UI obnoxious. So for me this feature request is more like "let me hide it while you guys brainstorm something better" rather than a final solution, hence considering a Labs flag. But I suppose if there's resistance to even adding a stop-gap solution, that's a dead end. |
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We're just averse to adding yet more unmaintained labs flags which are poorly covered by tests and increase tech debt. If someone wanted to revive matrix-org/matrix-react-sdk#7128 and leverage our Netlify builds to keep it hosted that could be an easy interim solution |
and others
Your use case
When using a vertical monitor or using Element in a vertical window, the Spaces bar on the left can take up a lot of unnecessary space. There is a way to disable the communities bar, but not this new Spaces one.
There should be a way to hide the bar. Once disabled, Spaces would either need to be accessed some other way or have the bar re-enabled when there is a need to access them.
Have you considered any alternatives?
Currently Spaces can be kept off and aren't used so for now I'm leaving it off but eventually this will be enabled for all.
Additional context
No response
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