@mention autocomplete: can we increase number of users and groups offered? scroll down?

We have 9 groups we use for mentioning and messaging staff, all with the same @namati_ prefix. Unfortunately only six show up when you start typing @namati_ in the composer. There also is nowhere else to go as a user to find the full, current list of groups that can be messaged or mentioned.

So suggest upping the number of suggested groups to 10 or providing a means to scroll down or arrow down to pull up more matching results.

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It would be nice to step though the list of suggestions…

this bugs me regarding emoji and users suggestions too

Although I don’t think an increase in number is the complete answer.

Any reason you can’t use ↓ ? That works for me in moving through the list.

Keep typing?

namati_i
namati_g

etc

Not really - nothing happens if I press the down arrow. It does not offer more than 6 results.

Yes, this is what I advise folks. But this only works if you already know what you are looking for. There’s no way to see what’s available without guessing.

As of now I’m recommending keeping a list of groups that I provide. This is also handy for mentioning people when posting by email, so not a bad idea in any case.

Exactly… using the arrow keys does not provide access to any additional results.

This is me pressing up and down repeatedly at the extreme top and bottom of the list:

Yes but that is as designed. Type more characters to scope the results tighter.

There are occasions where you know there is a emoji, user or group (original example) where you just can’t remember the additional characters to reduce the list further in that moment.

For example here on meta attempt to find the usernames of the following users using the auto-complete:

  1. User 1
  • You know their last name is “Smith”
  • Their avatar is:
  1. User 2
  • You know their username contains “smith”
  • Their avatar is:

Ok, but what if there are dozens of people named Smith? Is scrolling down through dozens or even hundreds of entries really the right solution?

Using the auto-complete function is for me about improving conversational and thought-process flow, reducing the barriers to response.

I find the search subset is not too much larger than what I can reduce it to by (as you mentioned) “typing more characters”… hence @tobiaseigen’s request for “10” results.

There are ~21 people with “smith” somehow in there name or username here on meta.

I wouldn’t expect the ability to scan though hundreds of results.

If using ↓ to move down though the list then displayed “infinite list” scrolling style spinner loading 3 or so pages of 8 items that would make me happy.

The likelihood is that it won’t get to three pages of results within the search results.

Should it load more than 3, I don’t know - is there a problem if it does?

I find auto-complete to also be an issue on mobile in this way, just can’t quite remember that additional character that will get you to the username you need. You can’t just open a new tab, search and return as easily on mobile - you can and I do - but it sucks.

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