Pin Chat Feature: Keep Chats Accessible

Enhance Chat Experience with Pinned Conversations

Improving Chat Accessibility: The core issue addressed in this feature request is the challenge users face in managing multiple active chat sessions. When you're juggling a bunch of conversations, it's easy for the important ones to get buried. You end up wasting time scrolling through a long list just to find the chats you use most often. This "Add Pin Chat Functionality" is designed to solve this problem by allowing users to pin up to 3 of their most critical conversations. This keeps them at the top of the session list, making them instantly accessible. It's a simple, yet highly effective way to boost productivity and ensure that the conversations that matter most are always within easy reach. The idea is to streamline your workflow and make your chat experience smoother and more efficient, allowing you to focus on the conversations that truly need your attention. Implementing this feature aligns with the best practices of modern messaging applications, where prioritizing conversations is a key aspect of user experience.

Motivation Behind the Feature

• Prioritize Important Conversations: The primary motivation stems from the need to prioritize specific chat sessions. When users have numerous active chats, essential conversations can easily get lost, leading to missed information or delayed responses. The ability to pin chats ensures that these critical conversations remain visible and easily accessible. Imagine being able to quickly jump back into that urgent project discussion or the chat with your key client without having to hunt through your entire chat history. This feature significantly enhances the user experience by providing quick access to essential conversations.
• Improve Workflow Efficiency: Pinning chats streamlines the user's workflow. It reduces the time spent searching for specific conversations and minimizes distractions. By having frequently accessed chats at the top of the list, users can quickly switch between them, improving their ability to manage multiple ongoing conversations and enhancing their overall productivity. This is particularly beneficial for power users who manage numerous concurrent conversations as it offers a quick and convenient way to stay on top of the most important discussions. This feature reduces the cognitive load required to manage conversations, allowing users to focus more on the content of the chats rather than the management of the chat list.
• Match Industry Standards: This feature brings ChatBox in line with other popular messaging applications, such as Slack, Discord, and WhatsApp. By adopting a similar pinning functionality, ChatBox provides a familiar and intuitive user interface, making it easier for users to adapt and utilize the application effectively. This also enhances the overall user experience by offering a consistent and reliable way to manage and prioritize conversations, mirroring the functionality users are accustomed to in other platforms. This consistency minimizes the learning curve and provides a seamless user experience, making ChatBox more competitive in the market.

Current and Expected Behavior: A Comparison

Currently, the ChatBox application displays all chat sessions in their default order, typically based on creation time or last activity. There is no existing method to mark or prioritize certain conversations, which means users must manually scan through their entire list to locate the chats they use the most. This process can be time-consuming and inefficient, especially for those who manage multiple conversations. The current limitations directly impact user efficiency and the ease of managing important conversations. The user experience is hampered by the lack of customization options for chat arrangement.

The expected behavior introduces the ability to pin up to 3 chat sessions, which will be visually indicated and remain at the top of the session list. Pinned sessions will stay at the top, regardless of recent activity, ensuring that the most important conversations are always easily accessible. The user experience will be enhanced through clear visual cues, such as a filled pin icon for pinned sessions and an outlined pin icon for others. Users should receive feedback when they attempt to pin more than the allowed limit (3 chats), ensuring they understand and comply with the usage guidelines.

Reproduction Steps for Current Behavior:

1. Launch Application: Start the ChatBox application.
2. Create Sessions: Initiate several chat sessions, approximately 5-10, to simulate a typical user's chat environment.
3. Identify Importance: Consider which of these conversations are the most important or those you access frequently.
4. Observe List: Observe how the sessions are arranged in the list, noting that they are arranged chronologically or based on recent activity, without any provision to prioritize any specific conversation.
5. Experience Frustration: Notice how the important conversations can get lost among less-used ones, highlighting the inconvenience and the need for the pinning feature.

Implementing the Pin Chat Feature

To ensure a seamless user experience, the implementation will incorporate several key elements. The design will include an interactive pin button next to each chat session, allowing users to quickly mark a conversation as important. The design will also include the use of visual cues, such as the use of an icon that changes between an outlined and filled-in pin to indicate the pinned status of a session. The application will need to manage the pinned sessions by always displaying them at the top of the list, regardless of their recent activity. It will also enforce a limit of 3 pinned chats, preventing the interface from becoming cluttered. These functionalities will work in harmony to give users the tools they need to easily manage their conversations.

Key Technical Aspects

• User Interface: Implement a pin button (pushpin icon) next to each session item, providing users with a clear and intuitive way to pin or unpin chats.
• Visual Indicators: Use visual feedback, such as a filled pin icon for pinned sessions and an outlined pin icon for unpinned sessions, to clearly indicate the session's status.
• Pin Limit Management: Implement a limit of 3 pinned chats, and display a toast notification when users try to exceed this limit, providing a clear indication that they have reached the maximum number of pins allowed.
• Sorting Logic: Modify the session list sorting logic so that pinned sessions are always at the top, followed by unpinned sessions, to ensure that the user's most important conversations are always easily accessible.
• Persistence: Ensure that the pin state (which chats are pinned) persists across application restarts, so that the user's preferences are maintained, and the experience remains consistent. This involves storing the information about which sessions are pinned, possibly using local storage or a similar method.

Detailed Acceptance Criteria

The following criteria will be used to ensure the "Add Pin Chat Functionality" meets all requirements, providing users with an intuitive, efficient, and reliable chat experience.

• Pin Button Display: Each session item will display a pin button (pushpin icon). This ensures that users have a clear visual cue to interact with the pinning feature, making the option easily discoverable.
• Pin Functionality: Clicking the pin button should pin the session, and it should adhere to the maximum limit of 3 pins. This feature provides direct action for users to prioritize and manage conversations.
• Top List Display: Pinned sessions must appear at the top of the session list. This ensures that the essential conversations are immediately visible and easily accessible.
• Visual Distinction: Pinned sessions should display a filled pin icon, and unpinned sessions should show an outlined pin icon. This provides clear visual differentiation, which immediately communicates the status of each conversation to the user.
• Unpin Action: Clicking the pin button on a pinned session should unpin it. This action allows the user to easily manage and adjust which conversations are prioritized based on their current needs.
• Pin Limit Warning: Attempting to pin a fourth session should trigger a toast notification: "Maximum 3 chats can be pinned." This feedback informs the user that they have reached the limit, preventing any confusion or frustration.
• Persistent State: The pin state should persist across application restarts. This means that the user's pinned sessions should remain pinned even after the application is closed and reopened, providing a seamless and consistent experience.

Testing and Verification

Verification will involve both manual testing to ensure the correct functionality and accurate results of the feature, ensuring ease of use and user satisfaction.

Manual Testing Steps

1. Test Pin Functionality: Launch the ChatBox application. Create 4-5 test chat sessions. Locate the pin button (outlined pin icon) next to each session. Click the pin button and verify that the icon changes to a filled pin, and the session moves to the top of the list.
2. Test Multiple Pins: Pin a second session and verify that both pinned sessions appear at the top. Then, pin a third session and verify that all three pinned sessions appear at the top in the correct order.
3. Test Pin Limit: With three sessions already pinned, attempt to pin a fourth session. Verify that a toast notification appears saying, "Maximum 3 chats can be pinned" and that the fourth session is not pinned.
4. Test Unpin: Click the pin button on a pinned session. Verify that the session is unpinned (icon changes to outlined) and that it moves down in the list below other pinned sessions. Then, verify that you can now pin a different session.
5. Test Persistence: Pin 2-3 sessions. Close and restart the application. Verify that the pinned sessions remain pinned and at the top of the list.
6. Test Sorting: Verify that pinned sessions always appear before unpinned sessions. Create new sessions and verify that they appear below the pinned sessions.

Expected Outcomes

The testing process is expected to yield the following results to ensure the successful implementation of the feature.

• Pin/Unpin Functionality: The pin and unpin functionality must work smoothly, allowing users to easily mark and unmark sessions.
• Visual Feedback: Clear visual feedback must be provided through the filled and outlined pin icons, so that users can instantly understand the state of each conversation.
• Pin Limit Enforcement: The maximum of 3 sessions can be pinned at once, preventing any visual clutter or misuse of the feature. The user must receive a toast notification when trying to exceed the limit.
• Persistent State: The pinned sessions must persist across application restarts, ensuring a consistent user experience. This means that when a user pins a conversation, it remains pinned even after closing and reopening the app.
• List Sorting: The list sorting must work correctly, with pinned sessions appearing before unpinned sessions. This ensures the correct and logical organization of the chat sessions.

Submission Process

The final step involves submitting the completed feature. Use the screen recording tool to capture your screen (in studio mode), showcasing the functionality of the feature. Once the video recording is ready, it should be exported as an MP4 file and then dragged and dropped into the issue comment below. This submission method offers a clear visual demonstration of the feature in action, facilitating easy review and validation.

• Screen Recording: Use a tool such as the one available at https://cap.so/ to record your screen (using Studio mode).
• Export as MP4: After the screen recording is done, export it as an MP4 file.
• Submit to Issue Comment: Drag and drop the MP4 file into an issue comment below to share your work.
• Guide to Submitting Pull Requests: Please refer to this document for further guidance on pull requests: https://hackmd.io/@timothy1ee/Hky8kV3hlx.