Bug 500730

Summary:	Jump to oldest unread message, including if that point isn't already loaded in the room history
Product:	[Applications] NeoChat	Reporter:	Jakob Petsovits <jpetso>
Component:	General	Assignee:	Tobias Fella <fella>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	carl, john.kizer, josh
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	24.12.2
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Jakob Petsovits 2025-02-25 15:36:12 UTC

SUMMARY
People chat a lot, I can't keep up. Right now I'm at 620 unread messages in KDE Contributors' Chat, 723 unread messages in the KWin room, 217 unread messages in KDE Linux, you get the idea.

Neochat's "Jump to oldest loaded message" in the top right corner is useless in this context. I don't know how many messages NeoChat has loaded, so this is literally a "jump up by an undefined amount" button. Once I've jumped, I don't know if the latest unread message is still further up or is now below the current scroll position. I don't know how many times I need to jump. Would it perhaps just better to scroll up until I find the unread marker?

So I would argue that a "Jump to oldest *unread* message" button should replace the "Jump to oldest loaded message" button. Rough algorithm, load more messages until the oldest unread message is among them. Then scroll to that.

This is a deal-breaker for me switching to NeoChat, even though Element is positively terrible in terms of scrolling and reliably loading messages. I need to be able to continue reading where I left off many days ago.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Join an active channel
2. Don't read it for a few days
3. Try to find the first unread message again

OBSERVED RESULT
Finding the spot where you left off is difficult and I may even scroll past the unread marker altogether.

EXPECTED RESULT
I click a button and it takes me to the oldest unread message.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Arch Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 6.3.80
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.12.0
Qt Version: 6.8.2
Kernel Version: 6.12.10-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Memory: 15.3 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Intel® UHD Graphics 620
Manufacturer: LENOVO
Product Name: 20QD001VUS
System Version: ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th

Comment 1 Jakob Petsovits 2025-02-25 15:42:39 UTC

> Right now I'm at 620 unread messages in KDE Contributors' Chat

Wait, that's not true, the number of unread messages actually increases the higher up I scroll. It increased to over 1000, but on one "Jump to oldest unread message" click it reduced back to 813. Weird.

I get that the Matrix protocol seems to make unread-message handling unreasonably hard. Making it "just work" would be a killer feature. Perhaps if it's unclear how many messages are unread, it would make more sense to display an approximate number such as "500+", "1000+" to avoid giving the impression that NeoChat actually knows the exact number.