Features request. Or Things I'd love to see in Wire!

[Namnodorel]

Hey,

recently discovered Wire, and it's great! It has already the most important features for an instant messaging app, and got a ton of optional things, too! Probs for that, before anything else.

But - nothing is perfect! I've found a few things I'd really like to see in Wire. Not that big features, but they do make a difference. They're listed here, in no particular order:

• Read indicators. it would be really useful to have those! But not an ugly solution like WhatsApp has. I think something like a small profile icon floating left of the last message that user has read would be much better.
• Online status: Online, Offline (or fake-offline), busy can be really useful, which is why most messaging apps have them in some way! Or am I just overlooking something?
• "Last seen..." I think you know already what I'm talking about. Just like we know and either love or hate it from WhatsApp ;) Would be nice if it could be disabled in the settings in case a user doesn't want other people to see that.
• [Desktop version] More chat functions. Smileys, voice messages etc. are only working on mobile as far as I can tell.
• One of the few things I disliked when testing Wire: Data collection is opt-out. No matter how anonymized, it should always be opt-in! Or at least ask the user on first startup or something. But don't simply assume that I want it!
• Although pretty complicated, a feature where you could click something, and then get into a mode where you can capture areas of the screen and send them to others would be really cool.
• "Call logging" A nice message in the chatlog at points where I called someone would be nice.
• Clearer (and complete) markdown. Not everyone knows that ** makes a message bold. Or _ italic. I don't have found out how to make a message underlined or strike through it, yet (if there is a way).

Looking forward to hearing from you!

P.S: I might post additions here in case I find any

[iwconfig]

I can participate in here also :)

It would be awesome to download the chat log from (the) other active session(s). Don't know if this is a sake of security but if it's not it would be a nice touch. If already active sessions can sync with each other, why not a newly established one. Also give the user the ability to choose if they want to do it.

Something like

1. [INIT new sesson]
2. [ECHO Hi do you want to sync chat log? [y/N] :)]
3. [USER Yes please]
4. [ECHO Dinner served]

Other than that, and not to shove it on you but your UI is a little too flashy (menus fading and stuff). This is of course almost entirely subjective, but take it down notch and it will be perfect in my opinion.

And of course, thank you for this awesome software :) 👍 💯 hugs

[Namnodorel]

@iwconfig As far as I know, that is not possible because the old messages are encrypted, and the new device doesn't know the key for the previous messages. So it is a security thing, yes. And it means, that even if someone gets your account info, they won't be able to access your chatlogs except they got your device, too.

[iwconfig]

Oh, alright then. That explains it. That's a good thing! :)

[wmengli]

Hi @Namnodorel, @iwconfig

Great to hear you like Wire and thanks for contacting Wire to share your feedback.

• Regarding Read indicators, Online status, "Last seen...", [Desktop version] More chat functions
  We have received similar suggestions from other users. We are considering them for the future roadmap but don't have a concrete date yet.

• Download chat history
  History backup (and potentially transfer) is not currently part of Wire, though we have it planned for the future. But please know that this feature is also important to us, and we hope to have a solution out soon.

• Call logging
  If you are using iOS, we have an option to enable call history sharing with Apple. With that you can find the call logging under "Phone". For other platforms, we only show the system message of the missed calls in the conversation.

For other points, I will share them with our product team

Thank you again for taking the time to send us your comments, and please feel free to contact us again if you have additional questions.

Best wishes,
Wire Support Team

[lainy]

+1 to Online status & "Last seen..." - really missing these in Wire, but otherwise love it.

[pteron]

+1 to all of these!

Online status, read receipts, last seen should all be per contact.

Download/saving of history - yes please, really missing this after moving from whatsapp

Also, I'd like per contact configurable sounds - even better if you can pickup the already assigned notification sound from the contact app on ios.

Wonderful app though, really enjoying it and I trust you more than I trust facebook!

[xatgithub]

conversation attrs: ID, description, picture, url, and private/public.

[Namnodorel]

I got another one:

• An option for No(Current)/Infinite/1...100 retries to send a message if it failed.

[Namnodorel]

• Related to named conversations with fewer than 3 participants #10: Rename other people (for myself only, of course). When texting someone I got to know online, I want to be known as "Namnodorel" by default, but some private contacts of mine might find it easier to rename me locally to my real name...

And an addition to what @pteron suggestes: When implementing custom sounds, why limit it to sounds? I personally don't use sounds, I like custom vibratio patterns more. Like, you get a popup where you can tap/tap&hold the rythm you'd like to use (and then maybe buttons "Confirm", and "Play"(to check if it sounds right). I don't really know how complicated this would be, but I bet there are some good APIs out there for that purpose!

[pteron]

@Namnodorel that's a great idea - I already use it on iOS by creating morse code vibrations for various things - e for email, s for sms, the first letter of key contacts names etc

[Namnodorel]

• Well, I have partly mentioned this before, but we need an overall constistency. The Wire Apps have many more features than the desktop applications/the web client. And then, we have something only working with desktop applications - on my android phone, I only see underscores where a text should be italic. This can get confusing.
• Again linked to the previous: Better GIFs for desktop. At the moment, the phone version looks nice and is easy-to-use, but the desktop one... is not that great. It is definetely not intuitive, and the 'here are some random GIFs, pick one' thing is really weird... I like browsing for GIFs much better than pressing "New GIF" over and over again, hoping that somethign might fit. I also don't really get what advantage one might get from only showing the GIF-button when a message has already been typed...

[seafox]

• timestamp on mouse over / touch shows full date
• timebomb settings have timeout 30 min, 1 hour, 8 hours, 1 day, 1 week, 30 days/1 month
• password on new device adding/removing and on sessions/archive manipulations
• PIN and/or fingerprint app lock with timeouts: off, 1 day, 8 hours, 1 hour, 5 mins, 1 min, immediate lock icon
• transparent background (instead of white) on desktop app tray icon; disconnected state as greyed out W; colored circles on the end(s) of icon W sign instead of the current red triangle (?), customizable colors for pings (violet), new msgs (green/blue on p2p/groups), orange/red on missed calls/video.

[anatoli26]

@wmengli, the "Download chat history" feature could be activated (e.g. with a button or chat history becoming automatically available) once all other active devices mark the new device as trusted. This way there'll be no security issue as you already have access to chat history on other devices.

The technical implementation could be that trusted devices all share some master key with which the history is encrypted so you just share it with the new device once it's trusted (and the encrypted history is on the servers).

Same way the contact list (and labels for each contact) could be stored on the servers and shared between the devices.

[wmengli]

Dear all, thanks for all the suggestions and comments! They are brought to our product team and recorded in our feature request list. To make the feature request inventory easier, we would like to close this thread. Please open new feature request in a new ticket.

Once again, thank you for all your suggestions and we will keep working to make Wire better.

[Namnodorel]

So, shall I open new issues for each request mentioned here? In case of any updates, you could comment on those issues then.

[wmengli]

@Namnodorel You don't need to open new issue for each request already mentioned. I could post the update here in future

[khaytsus]

It really surprises me that there is no PIN etc on many secure messengers. Obviously one needs to adequately secure their phone, but layers of security is good.

[emirson1]

Would you consider adding an option to access (with the potential goal to re-read or re-send) "hearted" messages? Instead of scrolling however long to find the hearts, how about simply having somewhere where these can be accessed, so pictures, sound files or simply messages can be used again