Communication: Improve visibility of pinned messages

[badkeyy]

Checklist

General

• I tested all changes and their related features with all corresponding user types on a test server.
• This is a small issue that I tested locally and was confirmed by another developer on a test server.
• Language: I followed the guidelines for inclusive, diversity-sensitive, and appreciative language.
• I chose a title conforming to the naming conventions for pull requests.

Client

• Important: I implemented the changes with a very good performance, prevented too many (unnecessary) REST calls and made sure the UI is responsive, even with large data (e.g. using paging).
• I strictly followed the principle of data economy for all client-server REST calls.
• I strictly followed the client coding and design guidelines.
• Following the theming guidelines, I specified colors only in the theming variable files and checked that the changes look consistent in both the light and the dark theme.
• I added multiple integration tests (Jest) related to the features (with a high test coverage), while following the test guidelines.
• I added authorities to all new routes and checked the course groups for displaying navigation elements (links, buttons).
• I documented the TypeScript code using JSDoc style.
• I added multiple screenshots/screencasts of my UI changes.
• I translated all newly inserted strings into English and German.

Changes affecting Programming Exercises

• High priority: I tested all changes and their related features with all corresponding user types on a test server configured with the integrated lifecycle setup (LocalVC and LocalCI).
• I tested all changes and their related features with all corresponding user types on a test server configured with Gitlab and Jenkins.

Motivation and Context

The "Pin" function in Communication and Exercises is currently very bare-bones. Currently, selecting the pin option only changes the color of the message to orange, but it does not fulfill other expected functionalities associated with pinning messages. This PR improves this behaviour.

Fixes #10024

Description

• Pinned messages now always show on top of the chat history in both Exercise communications and Communication threads
• The header of a pinned message now has a Pin attached to it

Steps for Testing

Prerequisites:

• 1 Instructor
• 1 Programming Exercise with Communication enabled

1. Log in to Artemis
2. Navigate to the Exercise
3. Write two messages in the communication tab
4. Pin the second message
5. Find the second message to now be on the top of the message history with a pin attached to its header
6. Navigate to Communication
7. Also find the message to be on top of the message history with a pin attached to his header
8. Works equally for other channels in the communication tab
9. (See attached GIF for graphical explanation)

Testserver States

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Review Progress

Code Review

• Code Review 1
• Code Review 2

Manual Tests

• Test 1
• Test 2

Screenshots

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Added visual indication for pinned posts using a pushpin emoji
  • Enhanced post sorting to prioritize pinned posts in conversation and discussion sections

• Improvements

  • Refined post display logic to separate pinned and unpinned posts
  • Improved user interface for identifying important posts

[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

The pull request implements a pin functionality for messages across different components in the communication system. The changes involve modifying how posts are grouped, sorted, and displayed based on a new DisplayPriority attribute. The implementation ensures that pinned posts are given priority in the display order and are visually distinguished with a pushpin emoji. The modifications span multiple components, including conversation messages, discussion sections, and post headers.

Changes

File	Change Summary
src/main/webapp/app/overview/course-conversations/...conversation-messages.component.ts	Added DisplayPriority import and modified groupPosts method to separate pinned and unpinned posts
src/main/webapp/app/overview/discussion-section/discussion-section.component.ts	Added DisplayPriority import and updated loadData method to sort posts based on display priority
src/main/webapp/app/shared/metis/posting-header/post-header/post-header.component.html	Added conditional rendering to display a pushpin emoji for pinned posts

Assessment against linked issues

Objective	Addressed	Explanation
Pinned Message Persistence [#10024]	✅
Visibility for All Participants [#10024]	✅
Notification or Indicator [#10024]	✅	Pushpin emoji added to indicate pinned status

Possibly related PRs

• Communication: Fix background color issue for pinned messages #9025: CSS modifications for pinned messages
• Communication: Fix user interface reload on channel selection #9464: Changes to CourseConversationsComponent
• Communication: Remember last scroll position when switching conversations #9614: Scroll position management improvements
• Communication: Fix scrolling error for long messages #9997: Scrolling error fixes in ConversationMessagesComponent

Suggested labels

small, bugfix, ready to merge, component:Communication, tests

Suggested reviewers

• HawKhiem
• SimonEntholzer
• krusche
• eylulnc
• asliayk

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 2

🧹 Nitpick comments (1)

src/main/webapp/app/overview/discussion-section/discussion-section.component.ts (1)

94-105: Simplify the sorting logic for pinned posts.

The current implementation can be simplified to improve readability while maintaining the same functionality.

Consider this simpler implementation:

-            this.posts = posts
-                .slice()
-                .sort((a, b) => {
-                    if (a.displayPriority === DisplayPriority.PINNED && b.displayPriority !== DisplayPriority.PINNED) {
-                        return 1;
-                    }
-                    if (a.displayPriority !== DisplayPriority.PINNED && b.displayPriority === DisplayPriority.PINNED) {
-                        return -1;
-                    }
-                    return 0;
-                })
-                .reverse();
+            this.posts = posts
+                .slice()
+                .sort((a, b) => (b.displayPriority === DisplayPriority.PINNED ? 1 : 0) - (a.displayPriority === DisplayPriority.PINNED ? 1 : 0))
+                .reverse();

📜 Review details

Configuration used: .coderabbit.yaml
Review profile: CHILL
Plan: Pro

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 1798b25 and 2a9f336.

📒 Files selected for processing (3)

• src/main/webapp/app/overview/course-conversations/layout/conversation-messages/conversation-messages.component.ts (3 hunks)
• src/main/webapp/app/overview/discussion-section/discussion-section.component.ts (2 hunks)
• src/main/webapp/app/shared/metis/posting-header/post-header/post-header.component.html (1 hunks)

🧰 Additional context used

📓 Path-based instructions (3)

src/main/webapp/app/shared/metis/posting-header/post-header/post-header.component.html (1)

Pattern src/main/webapp/**/*.html: @if and @for are new and valid Angular syntax replacing *ngIf and *ngFor. They should always be used over the old style.

src/main/webapp/app/overview/discussion-section/discussion-section.component.ts (1)

Pattern src/main/webapp/**/*.ts: angular_style:https://angular.io/guide/styleguide;methods_in_html:false;lazy_loading:true;code_reuse:true;tests:meaningful;types:PascalCase;enums:PascalCase;funcs:camelCase;props:camelCase;no_priv_prefix:true;strings:single_quotes;localize:true;btns:functionality;links:navigation;icons_text:newline;labels:associate;code_style:arrow_funcs,curly_braces,open_braces_same_line,indent_4;memory_leak_prevention:true;routes:naming_schema;chart_framework:ngx-charts;responsive_layout:true

src/main/webapp/app/overview/course-conversations/layout/conversation-messages/conversation-messages.component.ts (1)

Pattern src/main/webapp/**/*.ts: angular_style:https://angular.io/guide/styleguide;methods_in_html:false;lazy_loading:true;code_reuse:true;tests:meaningful;types:PascalCase;enums:PascalCase;funcs:camelCase;props:camelCase;no_priv_prefix:true;strings:single_quotes;localize:true;btns:functionality;links:navigation;icons_text:newline;labels:associate;code_style:arrow_funcs,curly_braces,open_braces_same_line,indent_4;memory_leak_prevention:true;routes:naming_schema;chart_framework:ngx-charts;responsive_layout:true

🔇 Additional comments (1)

src/main/webapp/app/overview/course-conversations/layout/conversation-messages/conversation-messages.component.ts (1)

251-254: LGTM! Clean separation of pinned and unpinned posts.

The implementation correctly separates pinned posts and adds them at the beginning of the groups array, ensuring they appear at the top of the conversation.

Also applies to: 292-295

[vinceclifford]

Tested on TS5, works as expected.

[sachmii]

Tested on TS5, works as described.

[HawKhiem]

Tested on TS2. Works as described! However the change is only visible upon reload of the page!

[github-actions]

⚠️ Unable to deploy to test servers ⚠️

Testserver "artemis-test3.artemis.cit.tum.de" is already in use by PR #10114.

[ahbitaqu]

[Tested on TS5]

Works as described!

[SimonKaran13]

Tested on TS5, works as expected. Nice change :)

[badkeyy]

Tested on TS2. Works as described! However the change is only visible upon reload of the page!

This should not happen. So if you pin a post you have to reload the page in order to see the pinned post?

[sawys777]

Tested on TS1, the feature works as expected, however, sometimes reloading the page is necessary for the pinned message to be placed at the top