I want a chat app with an "unreplied" message state
Published on in Miscellaneous
Most chat apps have an "unread" message state to keep track of messages I haven't read yet. Why isn't there a different state for messages I haven't replied to yet?
I chat with my bro a lot. We always have several conversations ongoing at the same time.
We currently use Telegram, so all messages are in a single big list.
When replying to his messages, I basically have two options:
- Reply to all unreplied messages in a single session.
I don't like this because:
- It would often take a very long times, sometimes even several hours (like I said, we chat a lot!).
- Sometimes it's better to ponder things before replying.
- Reply to some messages now and some messages later.
I don't like this because:
- It gets very difficult to keep track of messages I have or haven't replied to.
And sometimes I want to start a new conversation and not reply to any previous messages. This alone makes keeping track of replied/unreplied messages difficult.
We have previously tried a private Discord server with several channels – one main topic per channel, e.g. "dev" or "health." Having several channels helps a bit, but the core problem is still the same: it's difficult to keep track of replied/unreplied messages in each channel.
One level deep sub-threads (like on Discord or Slack) don't help either: it's difficult to keep track of replied/unreplied messages in each sub-thread. Sub-threads might even make things more confusing.
A tree-like message structure (like on Reddit or Hacker News) could help organize messages because not all messages would be in a single big list (or several big lists if using channels), but it wouldn't solve the problem of keeping track of replied/unreplied messages. Plus maybe a tree-like structure would get in the way of quick, comfortable chatting.
So here's what I want:
- An "unreplied" message state for keeping track of replied/unreplied messages.
- Threads for organizing messages by conversation.
- New conversation = new thread.
- Flat threads (no nesting, i.e. no sub-threads or tree-like structure) to keep things simple.
- Threads are superior to channels: no need to think of the most suitable channel/topic for a new conversation; just start a new thread.
Maybe I should create my own chat app. 🤷♂️