Chat Improvements: PLR, input field and message collection

1 Initial Problem

• With ILIAS 6.0 we get a new design thanks to the Page Layout Revision. The current OnScreen-Chat stands out in this design as rather old-fashioned.
• The input field is very small. The button also takes up a lot of space. The Emoji icon gets a whole line and wastes space. The actually important one, the area for the text, is too small. In addition, the input field does not scale with multi-line inputs.
• A lot of space is wasted per message, in which the avatar, the user or real name and a time info are delivered with each message.

2 Conceptual Summary

• The current OnScreen-Chat should be adapted optically to the new design. Only a little CSS-magic should be used for this. See screenshot below.
• The input field will be revised.
  • The input field gets the entire width.
  • The "Send" button is abolished. A return leads to sending the message. (Return + Alt = new line) (Is this okay from the accessibility point of view?)
  • The input field can grow to a maximum of four lines if space is required. (Default = one line height) »» already current behavior, but with full width.
  • The Emoji selection will be integrated into the input field. (As for example with Slack)
  • See screenshot below.
• The avatar, the user or real name and a time info are displayed only once per communication path. If a user writes several messages one after the other without interruption, the messages are listed directly among each other. Only if another user of the same chat writes something in the meantime will the avatar, name and time info be displayed in the chat window. For successive messages in the history, only the time of the first message is displayed - i.e. the oldest. See screenshot below.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

OnScreen-Chat Panel
Repository-Chat

3.2 User Interface Details

None.

4 Technical Information

{The maintainer has to provide necessary technical information, e.g. dependencies on other ILIAS components, necessary modifications in general services/architecture, potential security or performance issues.}

5 Contact

• Author of the Request: Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila]
• Maintainer: Jansen, Michael [mjansen]
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

6 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• Technische Hochschule OWL

7 Discussion

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 08 APR 2019 : We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule it for 6.0. We prefer to show the timestamp of the latest posting when several postings are stacked for one user. And we accept only to show Last name, First name when public profile is activated.

Jansen, Michael [mjansen], 08 NOV 2019: We suggest to introduce a horizontal line with a centered "Date Presentation" text, if one communication path is continued by the same person on another day.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 18 NOV 2019 : We accept the suggestion introduction of a date presentation within the chat discussion. Timestamps for posting older than one day are not necessary. Please use a less prominent formatting of the date presentation (no bold) and use a HR to separate all postings of a day.

8 Implementation

Implemented as described above and decided by the JourFIx (see: comments).

Test Cases

Test cases completed at 2019-11-22 by Jansen, Michael [mjansen]

• C12981: Chatnachricht abschicken
• C12982: Chatnachricht mit Smiley/Symbol abschicken
• C31976: On-Screen-Chat Layout Chatfenster
• C31977: On-Screen-Chat Darstellung Kommunikationspfade

Approval

Approved at 2019-11-26 by Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila].