Messages Sidebar Improvements
@alehandrof proposed several improvements to the Messages sidebar, including reducing item padding, making the sidebar wider when possible, and using full names of groups instead of usernames.
@pfaffman suggested implementing the first two improvements using CSS, which @alehandrof did, sharing the code. However, the feature request for using full names of groups remains unaddressed.
@codinghorror and @jomaxro encouraged @alehandrof to submit a pull request (PR) for the CSS changes, emphasizing that all contributions, regardless of size, are appreciated. @alehandrof agreed to do so, planning to contribute to Discourse development.
The Messages sidebar currently looks like this:
It can be improved in several ways:
You can do at least the first two with CSS. Go for it!
Sure:
I did this by sight. It looks OK, though it’s still not great.
// Improve Messages sidebar padding
.messages-nav.nav-stacked a {
padding: .4rem;
}
.messages-nav > li:not(.archive):not(.noGlyph) {
margin-top: .9rem;
}
I would like the following feature as well, though:
Use the full names of groups instead of their usernames. (This is a preference, but it would be logical to follow the dictates of the “name over username” setting.)
In general, group’s full names are not used consistently throughout the app. I just tested it and there’s also an issue when adding a user to a message. I can search for regular users by their full name, but for groups I have to mention them by their (occasionally cryptic, in our case) usernames.
Nice, why don’t you submit that as a PR for everyone?
Do you mean the CSS or the feature request? If the former, it didn’t occur to me to do a PR for such a small change. I’m not able to develop the latter.
The CSS - it is certainly not too small. We appreciate all PRs, regardless of their scale.
OK. I’ll take a look in the next few days. I haven’t tried to do a PR on a big project such as this, but I’d like to contribute more to Discourse, even in such a minute way.