element-hq / element-hq/element-web

Ability to peek into each search result when doing a directory search via Explore Rooms

Open
#21,288 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
A-Peeking A-Search A-Spotlight-Search O-Occasional S-Minor T-Enhancement
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
13.5k
Forks
2.8k
PR merge metrics
PR metrics pending

Description

### Your use case

#### What would you like to do?

I would like to preview rooms more quickly and interactively when browsing through search results within the `Explore Rooms` dialog.

#### Why would you like to do it?

I sometimes find myself looking for a room based on various synonyms or word combinations.
I need to preview dozens of room until I find one or more that I like.

Some of the rooms don't even provide for room preview, so I have to join them to look around and then leave individually.

After every attempt, I need to reopen the room explorer dialog again (could take some time due to refetching the initial room list every time) type in my search words again, and then scroll to the search result position where I left off.

#### How would you like to achieve it?

Lots of alternatives could be feasible.

The cheapest could be to introduce a new button `Back to search results` that would be shown in the corner after you open a room through the `Explore Rooms` dialog. In its simplest form, it could redo your last search and scroll to the room you just exited within the search results.

Another way would be to embed a kind of room preview within the `Explore Rooms` dialog itself, but that would need more work and some user testing to do it right.

### Have you considered any alternatives?

_No response_

### Additional context

_No response_

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start at the Explore Rooms dialog entry point and review how search results open rooms, including the refetch and scroll behavior described in the issue. Compare the proposed back-to-results button with an embedded preview, then define the chosen interaction and its done conditions before implementation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
frontend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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