Message actions are not shown on hover

[ilyakonrad]

Doesn't work on the demo site too. Only long tap works.

[szuperaz]

For mobile devices, this is the expected behavior (this is for better UX). If you're using a desktop device that has both touch and pointer support, this is also expected. If you can provide more info about the device you're using and the expected behavior, I can give some more details.

[ilyakonrad]

Yep, I'm using Microsoft Surface Laptop 4, it has a touch screen, but it's a feature, not a primary input device.
I have a mouse and a trackpad like all laptop users :)
I really wouldn't think this is the correct behavior to long tap on the laptop screen to see a menu.
So I think it should be fixed.

[szuperaz]

Unfortunately, I can't test this myself because I don't have access to devices with mixed input support. But this is how it should work: the message menu should be opened by long tapping or clicking on the message bubble. Does it not work for you like that? If you have to tap the screen even when using a mouse, I'd agree that that's annoying.

One of the reasons we can't do hover AND long click/tap is that opening the message menu on hover causes UX issues on touch devices (which these devices are). I don't know a good solution that doesn't compromise UX in one of the input modes. If you know a good solution that could work in either mode, I can add this to the backlog, but there are two constraints here: 1. we use a third party library, that also has limitations 2. we don't see lot of users using these kind of devices, so the impact seems to be low

[ilyakonrad]

There's a lot of good thoughts in this discussion on Stack Overflow. Specifically the media query suggestion.

IMO, even though the impact is low right now due to touch screens not being as popular in laptops today, there will only be more laptops with touch screens in the future and I think critical functionality should prioritize mouse use and not just switch to touch input when available.

There's no chance regular users will understand that they should touch the screen to get message options. I found it out just because I'm a developer and I'm used to test stuff and find bugs.

[ilyakonrad]

But this is how it should work: the message menu should be opened by long tapping or clicking on the message bubble.

Clicking on the message doesn't work unfortunately. Only long tapping. But that also often opens the native context menu along with the message actions. It often overlaps it too. You can imagine the UX of that :)

[szuperaz]

Yeah, if click doesn't work and you need to tap then it's not acceptable. I'm treating this high priority, but can't give you an ETA due to finding a test device is tricky.

[szuperaz]

Can you please check this fix: https://angular-chat-demo-7le5m1pcw-getstreamio.vercel.app/? - mixed input devices are now treated as desktop devices (as opposed to mobile devices). This should fix the issue you reported, although It's not 100% UX because when you use the touch mode on a mixed input device, you'll get UX issues like having to tap twice to open the menu.

But as I mentioned earlier, I'm not sure how to do 100% UX for mixed input devices. I've checked the StackOverflow issue you linked, but they also noticed that there is no way to detect if touch or mouse is used for a given interaction - and without that the only option seems to be to choose either desktop or mobile mode.

[ilyakonrad]

The fix works perfectly for me, thanks!

[szuperaz]

The fix has been released in stream-chat-angular@5.12.2