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[Feature Request] Do not trigger notifications for old messages when client catches up
Is your feature request related to a problem?
Notifications can pile up and go crazy when resuming from Standby. That leads to a huge queue of constant single notifications one after the other.
In groups there can be many of those notifications which lead to a chained-up sound and pop-up disruption on my PC. That forced me to constantly disable/mute all notifications on Telegram Desktop, which also means I'll miss important messages as well.
It looks like every new message the client gets aware of will trigger a notification. It doesn't matter when the message got actually send or if another client (e.g. mobile app) received it already. The problem here is, just because the desktop client doesn't know about the message yet, it doesn't mean I need a notification for it. Often those messages arrived in the meantime on my phone while the PC was sleeping for example. Just because I did not read the message on my phone yet, I don't want to get a second notification about the same message some time later when returning to my PC.
Describe the solution you'd like
Don't play notifications for outdated, old messages. Only consider freshly incoming ones with a recent time stamp.
Describe alternatives you've considered
Combined notifications for the "old batch" could work as well.
You have 42 new messages
But as they are not real new messages, I rather not see them at all.
Additional context
Telegram Desktop version 3.0.1 x64 on Windows
Do you use native Windows notifications or custom TDesktop notifications? The latter should have a "Hide All" button, isn't it enough for such case?
I use native Windows notifications to have a uniform experience.
Therefore I don't know about any special buttons from custom notifications. But having to click and manually dismiss a stack of notifications (that should not be there in the first place) every time when coming back to the PC doesn't sound right either. :)
@tooomm If the messages are really already marked as read, then perhaps there should not be notifications. But those should be dismissed even in the current version, once the fact that they're already marked as read is loaded.
In case those are non-marked-as-read but just not very new messages — I'm not sure. If I come to my computer in the morning I think it is better to notify about the new messages that arrived at night than to silently update the counters without any notifications. This sounds right and important for a messenger app.
A single button to drop all notifications at once doesn't sound much worse than the suggested single notification "there are X new messages". Native windows notifications work not as well as custom ones in that case, but if I understand correctly they still have a single X button for all queued notifications for a single app in the Action Center.
If the messages are really already marked as read
I'm specifically talking about those which are not read yet.
In case those are non-marked-as-read but just not very new messages — I'm not sure. If I come to my computer in the morning I think it is better to notify about the new messages that arrived at night than to silently update the counters without any notifications. This sounds right and important for a messenger app.
Hmm, maybe compare it to your work computer. If you open your mail app in the morning - following your argument - it would be important and correct to receive a notification for all e.g. 10 "new" and still unread messages that piled up over night: Ping (+ Notification for 5s) - Ping (+ Notification for 5s) - Ping (+ Notification for 5s) - Ping (+ Notification for 5s) - Ping (+ Notification for 5s) - Ping (+ Notification for 5s) - Ping (+ Notification for 5s) - Ping (+ Notification for 5s) - Ping (+ Notification for 5s) - Ping (+ Notification for 5s)
I would 100% not like that. :) That's ~1min of constant disruption/distraction and certain areas of the screen being unusable. And all for stuff that I don't care about at that point, I just take a quick look in the mail list and know what's up. In a fraction of that time. Instead, your mail app normally triggers an aggregated message (or maybe none at all?) and the unread counters and badges etc. just update. No matter if you mobile received a mail notification at night at the time of actual reception or not. Only new and current information is triggering a disruptive event. That's good practice IMHO.
A single button to drop all notifications at once doesn't sound much worse than the suggested single notification "there are X new messages".
There is still some information in a ~You missed X notifications pop-up, and you don't have to deal with it if you don't care... it's just one single notification. The workaround you are describing forces you to act, otherwise you are locked in the notification flood.
I also like the initially proposed idea to not show notifications for old messages at all. There could be a reasonable time frame of course in case you want to be sure nothing is missed and still show notifications for messages that are <30min old for example. But aggregated is fine, too. It might even add to the client.
In the end, the app is not hiding messages and you are not missing something, there is still the unread count and badge etc.
And of course it could be a setting if you feel like some people want/need that.
@tooomm I'm not against an aggregate notification for everything that is older than 10 minutes or smth, if there are more than two of them in the queue. I'm not sure I'll be able to work on that, though :(
Sure, I understand the time constraint. I'm glad you're considering it and see the issue behind.
Just chiming in to this. Every time I log into my PC in the morning I get a raft of native messages cycling through (sometimes 100+) - many of them already read on my phone. I don't think I should need to click a button to dismiss these.
Being notified of old messages in an IM client is a bit odd (that's taken care of by reviewing unread messages in the main client). What's really strange is that my PC doesn't even go to sleep, so it's a wonder why these weren't fired off in real time anyway (how does it even know I wasn't looking?).
Personally I think if a notification is being made for a message sent more than 10 mins ago old it should be binned.
100% still agree with this. I just woke up my PC from sleep mode after being out for a while and had a notification saying sth like "you have a new message" pop up and disappear for a whole minute before finally wanting to do something about it. Sadly closing each message didnt stop them, even opening the app didnt stop them, and what takes the cake was when I tried to open task manager with a right click on my task bar but the context menu kept getting covered up by all the notifications, and every time I tried to click while it was visible for half a second between notifications, I would end up missing it by a hair and STILL end up clicking on a notification and opening the app. Now, I know theres other ways of opening task manager; but this is simply what Im most comfortable with and used to, and being bombarded with all those notifications non-stop already sucked up all my patience. So this REALLY was the straw breaking the camels back, and I muted all notifications from the app for now, even if that means Ill miss a lot of actually relevant messages...
For this kinda stuff I really miss that old setting for notifications that let you choose a time frame and max number of notifications that would be sent in that time frame; that way, if a group completely went off for a few minutes, your screen wouldnt become half a war zone. Especially as someone with ADHD, I find it incredibly distracting to have so much stuff dancing around. But temporarily muting groups every single time theres a little discussion going on thats not relevant for me is just exhausting in the long run...
