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Ticket UUID: 6a935e163deb5ab005bdb0f2db3c77b1142f51e6
Title: Room List hard to parse, doesn't follow typical tree structure
Status: Open Type: Bug
Severity: Minor Priority: High
Subsystem: Discord Resolution: Works_As_Designed
Last Modified: 2020-09-05 14:33:34
Version Found In:
colemickens2020-03-11 04:01:34

The left-hand server/room list menu is the only thing I struggle with in Ripcord. It does not follow my visual expectations for a tree structure and it is very hard for my head to parse when a category's children appear to the left of the item that it belongs to.

I've added a screenshot to show. It's not visually ideal, and the effect is more dramatic with the actual server room's list expanded too... but hopefully it helps demonstrate what I'm talking about a little bit.

Here's an example of my Ripcord, and a very hacky quick alternative, which, to me, makes it much easier to quickly parse the left list and understand what's going on: https://photos.app.goo.gl/CmcJAqhFDwBsyXBf9

cancel2020-03-11 04:49:54

Yeah. So, the reason it's not a generic tree structure with pure indenting is to save on horizontal space. Most people don't have the sidebar that wide. Actually, I keep mine fairly narrow, in order to save on screen space. You'll notice that the left of the window, in your edited in screenshot, is 90% empty wasted space.

I don't find the tradeoff worth it to add indentation for every logical level of nesting. The top-level indentation with the Discord and Slack section has the most visually misleading part of the sidebar, because there's no depth where the upper level contains the lower level. I could probably design it better, and I probably should. But there is not much chance I would change it to work like your screenshot, with all of the empty wasted space. It's just not worth it, to me.

Maybe in the future I can add more options for things like that. Right now, I have to finish implementing the basic Slack features before I can move on to that stuff.

mgambrell2020-03-19 08:24:06

I have the same problem. I proposed more compact solutions, including:

  1. Small vertical spacing between groups just to break things up 1b. possibly with a thin 1px line in that space

(for instance, these would be underneath 'favorites' and before 'slack' in your image

  1. thin lines to the left, with breaks in the same places as the spaces in (1), in differing colors--the color coding not meaning anything particular but just giving you more information about groups that are going on.
  2. Normal treeview lines, more or less exactly where you put your gaps, except that the gaps would only be large enough for the lines.
egg2020-05-04 16:54:00

+1

It's perfect except for this.