Message Inbox thoughts

[LordJezza]

Not sure if this is really answering the question directly, but I’d like to see the Inbox/Outbox combined as some modern email systems do... messaged would be stored chronologically still, but if the last correspondence was you sending a message, then it should show that sent message at the top.

This would mean you immediatly can see if you sent the last message, (easy to forget after messaging back and forth between different people), and if they have replied. It would save switching between the sent and inbox message tabs. I’d actually be all up for having one inbox, where all your messages are kept, chronologically, with messages in the same thread from multiple powers are grouped into one, rather than separate folders for each country.

[super_dipsy]

While we're rearranging the inbox, could we have a display option for a general inbox with messages from all participants sorted by date and time? It can be very confusing when you're organizing alliances and have to flip through several folders to figure out which message in a multi-nation alliance came in first, second, third etc.

Actually, that function was written a couple of years ago but for some reason that I can't remember it never made it to the Live site. If I can find it, it might be worth reinstating it!

[super_dipsy]

OK, I have moved forward on this. My current approach is a bit of a change to what we had before. Not toomajor, but I hope a lot more usable!

The first key change is that when you go to the Messages tab, you will enter with a full list of all your inbox messages in chronological order just as you see when you switch to the Sent view. This will be the default view, you can of course use the country filters as desiredin either Inbox or Sent views.

The next kay change is that instead of messages you are writing appearing in the same display (the inbox/sentbox whcichever you are looking at) they will open in a new window. so for example if you compose a message / click to reply to a message / click to forward a message, a new window opens for you to create the message. In addition, for this new windo, the folders etc side bar disappears - you simply get to choose who to send it to and have the text area to write your message / response etc. This makes the view a lot more helpful on mobile screens since when you are writing a message the filters are rather superfluous.

The other advantage which I hope may be useful is this means you can open a window to create a message and keep the window open while you do other things. So for example you may want to write a message to Germany, but as you write it you may want to skip back to the inbox to look at other messages you received from other players to decide what you want to say. When the new message is Submitted or saved as a draft, the window closes.

The other change may be a little annoying to people on browsers or even ipads, but will hopefully be useful for phone users. The current column for time sent (real and gametime) will disappear but instead the info will be on the line below the title to the right (in grey italics). The info is all still there, and it makes it a lot easier to deal with messages on mobiles because you don't have to try to squeeze the info into a little column on its own, but what it does do of course is it means there is essentially a spacer between each message title. Actually, it almost seems clear to read that way with what looks like a blank line under each message title in my opinion - sometimes when they are all crowded on top of one another it can be hard to distinguish! But maybe that is just me rationalizing

Apart from that, some of the text is changing and I think I will make some of the options in the sidebar of the inbox/sent views into buttons. So for example makybe keep the country filters as tagged country names as at the moment, but make Compose Message a button, and maybe the toggle between inbox and sent views.

One thing I wondered about but which might be a) too confusing ans b) possible a bit risky is to allow multiple message creation/reply windows open at any time. So you could have 3 different messages on the go. Not sure about that though - although at the moment if you create a new message you will lose the window already there (I will put a confirmation box in though if we stick with the one).