RocketChat / RocketChat/Rocket.Chat

Changing the name of a channel marks it as unread

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#40,778 7 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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type: bug
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Description

Description:

Whenever the name of a channel is changed, the channel is highlighted in the sidebar and marked as unread for all the members of the channel. It is understandable that it may have been done to make the members of the room aware about the new name of the room so that they do not end up referring to the channel by the old name.

Here, the issue is that the last message of the room shown in the sidebar (in extended view) does not change.

Case1: If the room has a last message of 'Good Morning', and the room name is changed, in that case the room name is highlighted and marked as unread whereas the last message still stays the same 'Good Morning' in the sidebar.

Case2: If the room is a new one and has no message in it, then the last message shown in the sidebar is 'No message yet'. In case the channel name is changed, it is highlighted with the last message as 'No message yet'

Here, if the system messages of the room are disabled, then the users will not be able to identify that the room name has even been changed until they explicitly check the room name.

This gives a illusion to the user that the channel being marked as unread is a fake alert/notification/activity and there is no new message in the room. This can also be inferred as a bug by some users and can be a bad user experience.

Steps to reproduce:
  1. Create a channel/team with more than 1 users in the room.
  2. Hide system messages for the room. (If not all, then the 'Room name change')
  3. Set the display to extended. Enable group by unread(optional)
  4. Change the name of the channel
  5. Observe from the other user account that is the member of the room.
Expected behavior:

If the last message is shown as something like 'Room name changed from to ' or simply 'Room name changed' in the sidebar under the channel name, it could give better clarity.

Actual behavior:

When the room name is changed, it is highlighted/marked as unread for the members of the channel without changing the last message or giving any indication of the name being changed when the system messages are off.

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 by reproducing the issue with extended sidebar display, hidden room-name system messages, and another member account. Check how a channel rename affects the unread state and the sidebar's last-message text. Done means the sidebar clearly indicates the rename instead of showing an unexplained unread channel while retaining the old or empty message text.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
65/100

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