element-hq / element-hq/element-ios

the vertical UI on the iPad Mini is cramped

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#7,367 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
A-Room-List A-Timeline T-Defect X-Needs-Design
Dominant language
Swift
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Description

### Steps to reproduce

grab an iPad mini 6 (or just an iPad mini, doesn't matter which)
rotate it to vertical
try writing, I dare you.
grab a left handed person (if you aren't) and tell them to write
try using it for longer than 30 seconds
rotate it back to horizontal
try asking your left handed friend to write there too

### Outcome

#### What did you expect?
I expected the side bar to disappear while it was in vertical mode, as someone who uses their iPad for note taking I much prefer handwriting (even though it is horrible) over typing when switching between notes and messaging, I also expected to be able to at least hide it while it was in horizontal mode but that is not really an issue
#### What happened instead?
Well to put it in as nice of words as I can, it doesn't. I know that coding for iPads is not the easiest thing, especially with the drastic amounts of size. But with the iPad mini, the sidebar takes up HALF OF THE SCREEN! I don't want to be writing in a text field the size of a caterpillar. especially with being left handed, the entire UI feels like its meant to be our hell! The sidebar is massive (both horizontally and vertically), and can easily get in our way when writing, the text field doesn't even expand like it does on iMessage (though it doesn't in most apps so I will give you a pass). So we are forced to write at the edge of the display. Half the time we reach the end of the screen when the word is barely finished, and we can't even close the sidebar!
When it goes vertical, I would hope at the very least for the sidebar just to show the room icons, I don't need an entire half of my screen to tell me the name, and the last message. I can deduct from the icon what server is what.
I would like to see a drastic difference for the iPad version of element because in its current state, it gives me a headache every time I go to use it. Oftentimes I see myself going to use the app when I am in a lecture just to quickly respond to a message, and having to go between notes.app and element.app while in vertical is a nightmare, it turns a 30 second reply with the pencil into a 2 minute reply with the pencil, having to wait for the word to read because THE FIELD IS TINY.
can you AT LEAST let us hide the sidebar?

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/121729266/218332233-5b83a858-7634-4116-b296-1cb6ae4e8b9a.mov

![IMG_2141](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/121729266/218332326-02e91dcf-3eb7-4bcf-bee9-9700c393b96a.png)

### Your phone model

iPad Mini 6

### Operating system version

iPadOS 16.3 (20D47) Dev Beta

### Application version

1.10.2

### Homeserver

_No response_

### Will you send logs?

No

Contributor guide

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Assessment

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