Edit chat messages

[sunjam]

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Related to #774, but a different feature request. I'd like the ability to edit my chat messages in Talk. This is a common practice when dealing with typos, etc. and an expectation of common users.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all your great work!

[nickvergessen]

That should work only in a limited case, otherwise it get's out of control:

• No command was triggered
• No mention was sent
• No participant read the message already

[ghost]

Would it be possible to let the admin decide this? So that you can deactivate editing/deleting messages all together, maybe set a time limit or let the users do it whenever they want.

[tiotrom]

I second that! It would be very useful!

[ruggdoll]

Yes ! now about the limited cases mentionned by @nickvergessen , editing is a common feature in "enterprise grade" chats, because you have to use a proper language and that means editing, ultimately if you feel like implementing those limits is mandatory, then you should also allow us to untick those limits in the configuration.

[Nyco]

Most messengers that offer the "edit/correct message" feature:

• allow this whatever the admin decides
• allow this but only for the user's last sent message (not the ones sent nefore)
• some messangers allow receivers to see the sender's original and edited messages

[agentlibre]

I believe this is an underestimated issue, which has a bad impact on a wider adoption for NextCloud talk. ⏩⏩⏩🚀

For several members within my organization, the lack of an editing/deleting feature in a direct message app is simply a no-go; I can't convince them that we should adopt NextCloud Talk for this single reason (despite other advantages, such as the integration with NextCloud Deck); they prefer RocketChat or Mattermost, where messages can be edited/deleted (and I understand this myself to some extend). 😥

For the record, I've found this issue mentioned elsewhere as well: https://help.nextcloud.com/t/talk-edit-just-sent-message-share-local-files/72756 🤔

I hope something could be done in a near future, this would be so great for the NextCloud environment and communities! 🤩🥰

[nickvergessen]

I hope something could be done about this rather promptly

Not the best way to communicate 🙈

I get the point, but for Person A having a grid view in the call is the most important thing, for Person B being able to moderate a call is the most important thing and for you it's editing of messages.

Please note that until a month ago the orientation line was more the chat messengers out there like Whatsapp, Threema, Signal, … and now the comparison line just expended quickly with Teams, Slack, Jitsi, … because of corona.
Feel free to help out and get involved. Any help counts, not only coding. But until then the items we can work on are rather limited.

[agentlibre]

I hope something could be done about this rather promptly

Not the best way to communicate see_no_evil

Yes, sorry, I've noticed this once the message was published and was happy to have... an editing option! 😉

I get the point, but for Person A having a grid view in the call is the most important thing, for Person B being able to moderate a call is the most important thing and for you it's editing of messages.

Sure, sure, just wanted to share this testimony because, in my case, this single factor has been decisive for some common (and rather Nextcloud-friendly) users.

Please note that until a month ago the orientation line was more the chat messengers out there like Whatsapp, Threema, Signal, … and now the comparison line just expended quickly with Teams, Slack, Jitsi, … because of corona.

Feel free to help out and get involved. Any help counts, not only coding. But until then the items we can work on are rather limited.

I perfectly understand the situation. I have no tech skills but I'm actively advocating FOSS and, first and foremost NextCloud, which is the best "gateway drug" in my opinion (also thanks to the AGLPv3 choice in addition to the wonderful software it is). That's precisely why I'm raising this issue: I would like to be able to convince more people to come on board (and truth be told, it could scale up very fast from where I'm standing) but I need the arguably basic features to be in place to do so.

I don't want to be a party pooper though: I greatly appreciate the work that has been and is being done! 🙏

[jasondaigo]

I used rocketchat mattermost and matrix just now during corona times. I only use nextcloud on private installation. Not implementing edit or delete seem a bit stubborn to me. In a Sega / Blackberry way (huge fan though) 🙂

[nickvergessen]

Feel free to help out and get involved. Any help counts, not only coding. But until then the items we can work on are rather limited.

[graue70]

That should work only in a limited case, otherwise it get's out of control:

* No command was triggered
* No mention was sent
* No participant read the message already

I know nothing about the technical difficulties involved but it would annoy me if I couldn't fix the bad typo in my last message only because I mentioned somebody in it.

Feel free to help out and get involved.

If I wanted to implement this, would it be enough to change the string in the database or is there something else that needs to be done?

[nickvergessen]

See #4861 (comment)

[graue70]

2. Since the last message id of a conversation is set and the messages are downloaded by our mobile clients, deleting from the DB is not a good idea and doesn't help a lot. Instead we should only wipe the content of the message (if the database structure allows it to be empty) and at the same time we need to add a "hidden" message that the message with ID X was deleted, so the clients can remove the message from their local store as well.

To clarify my question: Is this comment also true for editing messages? If so, wouldn't it be a better solution to have some kind of event telling clients to reload a specific message from the database?

Or in other words: Do you think your suggestion is the best solution or only the easiest to achieve?

[AxelRothe]

I second this motion.

We recently switched from Slack to Talk and for the most part are very happy. But the lack of editing a posts, makes it hard to create pinned or dynamic posts. THINK BOTS! 🤖

A bot needs to be able to change their post. Otherwise the Bot might spam small posts for every reply instead of simply updating a post that leads to a better overview. i.e. a daily stand up bot, that can post a list of users that have not submitted a stand up and update it as users add their posts.

We moved to Nextcloud Talk for the ability to actively help development. Is there a way for us to help with this issue? We have developers.

[nickvergessen]

There is an easier part (modifying the server + web UI) and a harder part (making sure all the mobile clients reflect this correctly as well). I guess looking at the PR of "Delete messages" can give quite a good view and template for edits. But then we need to make sure mobile clients also understand the new system message and update the old messages accordingly.

[edmundlaugasson]

Is Talk message editing now possible with Nextcloud 22?

[le-patenteux]

I can't find the option in my instance of Nextcloud. Is this feature coming? Where does it stand in the priority list?
I can simply not convert my business to use Talk vs Teams because of that one missing bit... the rest is A-Ok !

Have a nice day

[nickvergessen]

It's not on our todo list at the moment, as we are currently focusing on calls and meetings

[alauzon]

Thank you for your answer, Joas.

And when you say "But afterwards we need mobile apps to be able to understand the messages, before we can merge the work" which code is implied in that? The spreed app and/or the Nextcloud Talk app on Android and iPhone?

[nickvergessen]

Android and iOS apps yeah. They save messages locally, so they need to understand the editing message to update the previous message.

[alauzon]

Android and iOS apps yeah. They save messages locally, so they need to understand the editing message to update the previous message.

How can we do that? If the messages are saved locally is there a mechanism to tell the phone apps to modify it? Maybe the delete does something similar also?

[nickvergessen]

Exactly, there are messages which tell them "hey delete the message with ID x" and for edit we basically need "hey refresh the content of the message with ID x"

[NoahDar]

Also, there's been a suggestion that the ability to edit the message should expire after 15 minutes to keep resources down. Any thoughts?

[alauzon]

Exactly, there are messages which tell them "hey delete the message with ID x" and for edit we basically need "hey refresh the content of the message with ID x"

Do you have the link to the ĥone app(s) ticket(s) for the delete function?

[nickvergessen]

Couldn't find an iOS link, Android is here: nextcloud/talk-android#985

[escii]

please make it possible for admins do edit or at least delete messages when every they have to.. also moving messages from one channel to another would be very handy.

[alauzon]

Are there people willing to pay me in order to do that?
And how can we arrange that?
I think that there are tools to help raise money for features, right?

[warnerbryce]

@alauzon i could give you a tip like 100€ but i can't afford more. tell me if you are interested and where i can tip you

[christiansass]

Add me to the waiting list... I'm also trying to see if we can contribute any resources to this issue.

[jdaviescoates]

Signal recently got editing and it's so much better now. I can't wait for Nextcloud Talk to join the "able to edit messages" club too!

[Folaht]

Same here.

[mophilly]

Also, there's been a suggestion that the ability to edit the message should expire after 15 minutes to keep resources down. Any thoughts?

It seems to me that is a feature needed when the message volume becomes quite high and impacts the server load. First step is to get a basic edit function in place and well tested.

[mophilly]

Are there people willing to pay me in order to do that? And how can we arrange that? I think that there are tools to help raise money for features, right?

I can contribute a small amount, too. I may be able to assist with some testing.

Please add me to the waiting list

[iwex]

Also need this feature

[nickvergessen]

Because we don't need further bagging for this feature at the moment, I will lock this ticket.
It's on our radar and might be included in the future, but unless someone can implement it on iOS, Android, WebFrontend and the API level, it will have to wait.

Pointers were given above already:

• API + Frontend Delete chat messages #4861
• Android add ability to delete messages talk-android#985
• iOS Delete messages 🗑 talk-ios#486

[nickvergessen]

I'm unlocking this due to the comment in #10833
I also edited the default feature enhancement template into the first post which was missing because it did not exist back then:

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If you are a developer of either platform you can still and surely reach out to get involved in implementing this feature, see above comment for hints on the delete feature which should give a first blue print how it should work.

You could also reach out to help implementing any other feature which then in return frees time to look into things like this feature here which require coordination across all clients.

[ChildLearningClub]

Hi, just a thought, but couldn't this be easily piggybacked on the work that has already been done with the delete and copy message functionalities? The "Edit message" option could run the copy message function -> then the "Delete" -> and replace the "Message deleted by you" by the pasted text from copy. Some code would need to be added " if Edit message pressed: enable "send message" again logic. I realize that the "Copy formatted message" is a system copy to clipboard so that would also need to be adjusted.

Anyway, just throwing that out as an idea. May be total nonsense, but i guess if it gets someone thinking then it is worth the post :).

[nickvergessen]

Closed via #11203

[szaimen]

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉