RocketChat / RocketChat/Rocket.Chat

Expand message actions on Shift+Hover for power users

Open
#38,208 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
46.1k
Forks
13.9k
Avg merge
3d 3h
Merged PRs (30d)
130

Description

Description:

I would like to propose a "Power User" feature to improve the efficiency of the Message Toolbar. Currently, secondary message actions (like Pin, Reply in DM, Mark Unread, etc.) are hidden behind a 3-dot "kebab" menu. Accessing these requires an extra click and navigation, which slows down workflow for power users.

Proposed Feature:
Implement a "Shift + Hover" shortcut. When a user holds the Shift key while hovering over a message, the "More Options" menu should automatically expand inline to reveal all configured actions directly in the toolbar. This behavior is similar to other chat platforms like Discord and significantly speeds up interaction.

Steps to reproduce:
  1. Hover over any message in a chat room.
  2. Observe the current toolbar actions.
  3. Notice that many useful actions (like Star, Pin, etc.) are hidden behind the 3-dot menu.
  4. Attempt to access a hidden action (e.g., "Pin Message") without clicking the menu.
Expected behavior:

Users should be able to press and hold the Shift key while hovering to temporarily expand the menu and see all available actions immediately in the toolbar, without needing to click the 3-dot menu.

Actual behavior:

Currently, holding Shift does nothing. The user is forced to click the 3-dot menu to access hidden actions.

Server Setup Information:
  • Version of Rocket.Chat Server: Latest
  • License Type: N/A
  • Number of Users: N/A
  • Operating System: N/A
  • Deployment Method: N/A
  • Number of Running Instances: N/A
  • DB Replicaset Oplog: N/A
  • NodeJS Version: N/A
  • MongoDB Version: N/A
Client Setup Information
  • Desktop App or Browser Version: Latest
  • Operating System: All
Additional context

Why this is good (UX Improvement):

  • Efficiency: Removes friction by eliminating a click for frequent actions.
  • Familiarity: Mimics behavior found in other popular tools, making the transition easier for new users.

Technical Plan:
I plan to implement this in apps/meteor/client/components/message/toolbar.
To ensure this does not negatively impact performance (preventing global listeners on thousands of messages), I plan to use a "Lazy Event Listener" approach:

  1. MessageToolbar.tsx: Track the hover state of the message.
  2. Dynamic Listener: Only attach the keydown listener for the Shift key when the specific message component is hovered (mouseenter), and remove it immediately on mouseleave.
  3. State Passing: Pass an expanded prop to MessageToolbarActionMenu.tsx to conditionally render the full list of icons instead of the GenericMenu.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with apps/meteor/client/components/message/toolbar/MessageToolbar.tsx and MessageToolbarActionMenu.tsx. Review how hover state and the current More Options menu are handled, then verify that holding Shift while hovering exposes the configured actions inline and that leaving the message removes the temporary behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
48/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.