Inbox Redesign

[momijizukamori]

This post is for feedback for the redesigned inbox! As this is a redesign rather than a port, 'it's different' isn't useful feedback - please let me know how that difference is impacting you!

In particular, I'd like feedback from phone/tablet users, and from people who regularly get inbox messages in languages that use different character sets than English (languages that use Cyrillic, various East Asian languages, etc) - a lot of the elements of the redesign were meant to address problems with these.

Fixed Issues

• 'Unread' message filter missing from the navigation sidebar
  
• All entries are showing up collapsed, even unread ones.
  
• Odd word-breaking behavior in subjects and messages
  
• Action/navigation buttons are no longer in the footer as well
  
• Spacing between subject and timestamp
  
• Have to click on the checkbox rather than anywhere on the message to select it
  
• Expand/collapse does not work on read messages
  
• 'Delete all for this entry'/'Mark all read for this entry' does not work
  
• Selected messages aren't highlighted
  
• Intermittant weirdness/failures when using the in-message comment moderation tools
  
• The bottom message on one page is duplicated at the top of the next page
  
• Clicking a link in a message also causes that message to get marked as selected.
  
• Missing link to the beta comm in the header
  
• No confirmation dialogue for 'Delete All'
  
• Deleting messages via JS causes expanded/collapsed status to reset on other messages on the page.
  
• Current page button color is incorrect in all site schemes
  
• Not enough space between compose button and manage/refresh links
  
• Following reply link does not mark message as read
  
• Actions doesn't work with JS off
  
• Links in read messages aren't muted in color
  
• Images embedded in inbox notifications overflow badly
  

Fixed But Not Live

Known Issues

• Navigation buttons reflow in a kind of ugly way on some screen sizes
  
• Not enough space between action buttons
  
• Mark All Read button doesn't update text on press
  
• No warning when you've hit the max number of flagged messages (just silent failure)
  
• Left-clicking on message actions is slow and does not always correctly redirect.
  

Possible Tweaks

• Separate filters for comments and entries
  
• Wording for buttons
  

EDIT: A proposal for alternate button interaction, to cut down on the number of action buttons for people with JS on (no-JS would still get a slightly cluttered view):

• if nothing is selected, the two buttons are 'Mark All Read' and 'Delete All'
  
• if anything is selected, 'Delete All' becomes 'Delete Selected'
  
• if anything selected is read, 'Mark All Read' becomes 'Mark Read' (or possibly 'Mark Selected Read') - a mix of read and unread marked would get this
  
• if all selected are read, 'Mark All Read' becomes 'Mark Unread' (or 'Mark Selected Unread'
  

Comments

[maserannas]

Just noting a few things while on mobile, Android with duckduckgo browser:

The padding for the entries in inbox on the left feels really thin, making it harder to read because it's so close to the left side of the screen. On desktop there's the appearance of more padding because there's a visual indentation where the checkbox has a blank column underneath, and text starts to the right of that "blank" space. Would there be a way to add padding of, I don't know, even five pixels to the left side of the inbox entries when in mobile viewing?

Also a general question: I'm the current inbox, if you select any of the links from an inbox entry (reply/link/parent), that entry would be marked as read. On the beta inbox, the only change is the (reply/link/parent) link changing color to indicate it's been selected. Will there be any automatic marking as read of an inbox entry after selecting one of those links?

Also, will the beta inbox be able to automatically refresh itself after deleting one or more inbox entries, like the current inbox does? I have to manually refresh every time in order to see an updated count of what's unread in my inbox, both on mobile and desktop. It's a little less obvious on mobile because it's hidden in two expandable menus, but still visibly doesn't update until you refresh the page manually (by selecting the refresh link or just refreshing the page from browser menu).

Edit for another small thing: right now when there's nothing in inbox, the top and bottom button bars become one large square of color and buttons in troposphere. Will there end up being some blank space inserted inbetween the two, to leave them visually separate? Or even something noting the inbox is empty (or you have no messages, nothing under that entry, whatever filtering you've done)? More akin to what is an empty placeholder in the current inbox.

Thank you, and thank you for all your hard work!

[momijizukamori]

I swear, every time I do one of these page conversions, users end up telling me about all sorts of features and use cases I had had no idea of. Having the entry count update properly is already merged (though not released yet). I'll see if I can figure out what the old inbox is doing to mark as read on link clicks (because I don't believe it does if you open the link in a new tab? Which is why I never noticed it before), as well as see about those other UI tweaks.