Add "All streams" link on the top-left similar to "All messages" and "Private messages"

[amartin3225]

Zulip currently allows users to view all of their messages via the "All messages" link on the top-left or all private messages via the "Private messages" link, but there is no way to see all stream messages. Would it be possible to add an "All streams" link to the top-left which would show all streams (but not private messages)? Some users have expressed a desire to distinguish between private messages and stream messages, and this would provide an easy way to achieve that effect. Thanks!

[timabbott]

Cam you provide more motivation for how this would be used? We already distinguish them visually in both the left sidebar and message feed, and I don't think this is the kind of thing we'd want to clutter the left sidebar area for everyone unless a lot of folks would use it.

(I think there an issue somewhere for configurable pinned views, which we'd look on more favorably as a feature to build for an uncommon use case)

BTW I think searching for -is:private will get you that view (e.g. https://chat.zulip.org/#narrow/-is/private).

[zulipbot]

Hello @zulip/server-sidebars members, this issue was labeled with the "area: left-sidebar" label, so you may want to check it out!

[ghost]

There may be more use cases, but two that come to mind for my use case:

• streams have public content, but PMs may have sensitive information; in meetings, it may be useful in some instances to scroll through all streams and not worry about showing sensitive information
• some users have complained that because they cannot leave group PM chats, that at least hiding PMs until they want to see them will allow them to filter out non-critical chatter

The -is:private search result is the desired view, but the hope would be to add a button to the left-sidebar to allow this view to be more accessible and visible.

[themrwilliams]

I would find this feature particularly useful.

My default mode is to leave Zulip on the All messages view and periodically scroll through (down) my messages, which automatically marks them as read. This is wonderful but problematic when I have someone in eyeshot of my screen since it includes PMs.

Using -is:private gives me the view I want, but as I scroll past those messages they are not marked as read, which I think is unfortunate.

What OP described would be the "best of both worlds" for me.

[alya]

Ah, thanks for noting that. We should mark messages as read in the -is:private view. I filed #25113 for this change.