Can send messages to blocked contact, using "Reply Privately"

[WofWca]

• Operating System (Linux/Mac/Windows/iOS/Android): Windows
• Delta Chat Version: 1.51.0
• Expected behavior: 3 options:
  • "Reply Privately" is not available (not the best, because it's not clear why)
  • After clicking "Reply Privately", the composer is disabled, and a button "unblock contact" is displayed.
  • You can send a message, but the contact gets unblocked.
• Actual behavior: You can send the message, but it's not obvious that the other party cannot reply to it. Moreover, the chat gets un-hidden from the chat list (it gets hidden after you block the contact, and AFAIK it's only supposed to be accessible through "Blocked Contacts" in settings).
• Steps to reproduce the problem:
  1. Create a group with Bob.
  2. Wait for Bob to send a message to the group.
  3. Block Bob.
  4. Open the group, right-click the bob's message, press "Reply Privately".
  5. Type and send the message.
• Screenshots:
• Logs:

There was this somewhat similar MR: https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core-rust/pull/3218, but it goes the other way, i.e. if Bob blocks you.

[link2xt]

What do other messengers do?

I tried in Mastodon, there I can still tag blocked users. Signal does not allow to send in 1:1 chats and offers to unblock the user, but I can still chat in groups with this user. I don't know if there is anything like "reply privately", need to receive a message in a group to test.

Would be interesting to test WhatsApp and Telegram as well.

[WofWca]

What do other messengers do?

In Telegram it's the second option. Instead of the composer there is an "Unblock" button. Same on WhatsApp Desktop:

I'm pretty sure you can also see group messages from blocked contacts, but there is no "Reply Privately". The alternative is "forward message", where you can select a blocked contact, which opens the chat with that contact, where, again, you have to click "unblock" to send the message. I think this is the best option.

[link2xt]

In Signal both on Android and Desktop there is no "Reply privately" but there is forward and it simply does not offer blocked contacts. This makes sense to do in the core, not offer blocked contacts for forwarding if we don't already.

Hiding the composer and not allowing to send I am not sure, this will need new API to detect this, new UI to show something like "This contact is blocked" and "Unblock" button, and where does the draft with a quote go until you unblock the contact?

[WofWca]

and where does the draft with a quote go until you unblock the contact?

You mean in Telegram? Forwarded messages are displayed on top of the composer there, they are also part of the drafting process. And when the contact it blocked, it's kept in the same place, i.e. now on top of the "Unblock" button. I don't know if this is fully intentional on their part, but it makes sense to me.

[link2xt]

So as a minimal fix, let's unblock the contact when we send a message to it, this will not require any UI changes.