Show recently viewed channels when channel switcher opens

[mattermod]

Current:

Proposed Solution

• Before anything is typed, show a list of channels you are a member of sorted by Recency (last viewed at time). Currently the switcher shows unread channels when opened but we want to change this to show recently viewed channels.
• Cap the number of channels shown here in the default state to maximum of 20
• If there is no recent channel activity (in the case of new users), show an alphabetical list of channels showing ‘My Channels’ first and other ‘Public Channels’ next - still maxing out at 20 for the default state
  

---

If you're interested please comment here and come join our "Contributors" community channel on our daily build server, where you can discuss questions with community members and the Mattermost core team. For technical advice or questions, please join our "Developers" community channel.

New contributors please see our Developer's Guide.

JIRA: https://mattermost.atlassian.net/browse/MM-24335

[TheDarkestDay]

I would like to take this one.

[hanzei]

Awesome, thanks for taking a shot @TheDarkestDay 👍

[TheDarkestDay]

I'm not sure which place is better for requirements clarifications but let's try it this way.

As far as I can see, currently channel switch modal displays unread channels in case when input field is empty. So, the question is how should we combine this behavior with the requirements of this task? Or should we really drop displaying unreads in favor of displaying simply list of channels with most recent activity?

[hanzei]

@esadur Can you help with these questions ☝️

[TheDarkestDay]

I'm sorry for the absence of progress so far.

The point i wanted to bring up - I am having vacation during the next two weeks therefore I will not be able to work on issues until 17th of July. It might have sense to un-assign me for now just in order not to block it because of me. Sorry about that.

[esadur]

@hanzei I believe you meant to tag @esethna, let me know if I'm mistaken.

[esethna]

Thanks @TheDarkestDay, removed you for now but feel free to ping here if you want to come back to this!

To answer your above question, yes, the goal here is to show recently viewed channels instead of unread channels

[hanzei]

@hanzei I believe you meant to tag @esethna, let me know if I'm mistaken.

Yes, indeed. Sorry for the ping. 😕

[sridhar02]

@hanzei can i work on this ?

[esethna]

Thanks @sridhar02!

[sridhar02]

@esethna, I have a suggestion that instead of only recent activity, we can try to implement in this manner like discord

• In this method we can show the Last seen channels, mentions and unread channels. About the limit of channels per section, I am not sure but that in this way we can give more functionality to users.

[esethna]

@sridhar02 thanks for the feedback. I'm open to trying it. Perhaps we can do 3 recent channels in a "RECENT" section and then have an "UNREAD" section. Good point that we don't want to fully remove that functionality.

@andrewbrown00 any thoughts?

[andrewbrown00]

Thanks @sridhar02 for the feedback and suggestions 🙂

@esethna 3 RECENT channels works and keep UNREAD with mentions sorted at the top. I think we should also include DRAFTS and always promote those to the top of the if they are present. It's a fast and obvious way to scan for channels with a drafts in a single view.

Note we are going to explore the DRAFTS concept in a separate ticket to think through the multiple use cases/conflicts with recent channels, unread, and drafts.

[sridhar02]

@esethna, I have understood the flow of the redux to the modal component via providers, I want some help on how to get data of the recent channels, is there any function present in the redux or I should have to implement it from scratch? can u give me rough outline for getting the data?

[esethna]

@sudheerDev any thoughts on this?

[sridhar02]

@esethna, I have a small doubt regarding the following

1. whether to include mentioned and muted channels in the recent channels list or just have to list recent three channels from all the channels above the unread channels.
2. what should happen on search do I have to show any recent channels in the search list or same functionality of showing all the channels in alphabetical order is enough.

[esethna]

@sridhar02

1. Yes you can include unread channels, channels with mentions, and muted channels in the recent list
2. We have a separate ticket for the behaviour after a user searches, we can tackle that separately than this ticket if you're interested in working on it: https://mattermost.atlassian.net/browse/MM-22854

[esethna]

Hey @sridhar02, how's this going, can we help at all?

[sridhar02]

@esethna I understood the problem and redux selectors are also ready ,I will try to fix it as soon as possible.

[esethna]

Reopening up for grabs, anybody interested in this ticket please see the work started here: mattermost/mattermost-webapp#6198

[AshishDhama]

@esethna please assign this to me

[glunardi]

Allow me to start by writing that I am a big fan of Mattermost. Our organization uses it on a daily basis and we love it! We have our own plugins and integrating everywhere we can (using bots and more). I maintain by own broken Android version of the app for my personal needs. Thank you for your great work and doing so much in the Open.

Changes implemented as a result of this (and https://mattermost.atlassian.net/browse/MM-22854) are directly against the 25 votes expressed on your own Uservoice (I did not vote):
https://mattermost.uservoice.com/forums/306457-general/suggestions/17828368-sort-channel-when-switching-with-ctrl-cmd-k-by-unr

I personally feel the usability of Mattermost has been terribly reduced with these changes.

Unread messages with a mention should be listed first, always. This fancy prioritized recently viewed channels can be there, but the unread messages with a mention should be listed first.

Being able to navigate between unread mentioned messages (through a dozen teams, hundreds of channels, and 20+ direct messages at any given time) is crucial to my personal ability to reply to people.

Please consider adding back the feature that unread messages with mention be sorted at the top.

To be clear, these shortcuts do not help:
Previous unread channel: Alt Shift Up
Next unread channel:Alt Shift Down
Recent mentions:Ctrl Shift M

Use case:
Being able to just "Ctrl + K" and got "arrow-down" through the 10 or so unread messages with mention to the one that needs a reply next is the fastest way to navigate mentions.

Please consider adding to this feature that unread mentioned messages should be listed first at the top. Will create a separate issue. Thanks again.

[esethna]

@glunardi thanks for the feedback. We are revisiting this in a design here: https://mattermost.atlassian.net/browse/MM-37714