We have all been mid discussion and as we hit enter, someone else chats us and our reply goes to the wrong person. Drogo suggests the following. Suppose Drogo is talking to Paul, typing '/r' automatically changes to '/msg Paul'. That way if some random chat comes in mid conversation, Drogo's message will still go to the right person.
I would support this but adding this means you could no longer do /realname as it would automatically change to /msg Playername. If it were to be coded in, it would have to be when typing /r [SPACE] so that it only replaces /r when there is no combination of letters after it's been typed
While I love this feature in products from Riot Games, I'm not sure if it's currently possible to do in Minecraft. The only method I know of to replace chat in a user's chat bar is with "ClickEvent". As the same suggests, this requires a user to specifically click on something in chat, such as clicking on URLs to open them up, or clicking on a player's name to add "/visit {player}" to your chat. I do not believe there's anyway to trigger these events without the user clicking on something in chat, as Mojang sees that as a security issue, as well as these changes happening on the client end, usually requiring proper client intervention to take place. I'll keep digging to see if there is a way to do specifically what you're saying, I may be missing another feature. Though this did give me inspiration for a cool alternative. Theoretically, using the tab completion listener, once we see the user type /r followed by a space, a message could be sent to them like: With that, you could also link the message to a ClickEvent, where clicking the message would replace your chat with "/msg Drogo". At the very least, it would act as a sort of confirmation. I haven't tested any of this, all just theoretical. Definitely an interesting thought.
I don't know why you'd want to make it so complex when essential literally has config to do exactly what he's asking...
What SuperCoolWimp has shown you would do quite literally the exact same thing. You clearly didn't know about the capabilities of essentials, Mr Developer
Drogo is suggesting that "/r" be automatically replaced with "/msg {username}". That way there is no confusion as to who you're replying to, and timeouts, multiple messages, and whatever else cannot affect that you are no replying to one specific person. It removes any ambiguity that any implementation of "/r" intrinsically has.
I'm not trolling, the essentials config would do the exact same thing Drago has asked and work better than your suggestion. His hypothetical is that mid conversation with Paul someone messages him and his intended message for Paul is sent to that person, with this essentials config he would /msg Paul instead of msging the person he doesn't want to message... If you don't want to allow me to help you that's fine, but the least you can do is admit that my advice was actually helpful... If someone messaged him whilst he just sent a message your little idea wouldn't help what-so-ever...? Please explain how it's any different in function.
You're providing an alternative solution to an issue brought up, but not replying to the suggestion. If you would like to suggest that change to the configuration, feel free. That is not what this thread is about, though. The essentials reply options are very limited. Say I get messaged by StupidIdiotAlt. I don't care to reply to what he says. Shortly after, Im18PlayingThis messages me with something I wish to reply to. There are two scenarios: With that Essentials config option set to true, my /r would go to StupidIdiotAlt, as I have not messaged anyone else, and they were the first to message me. This is not intuitive for most players, hence why we have the config option set to true, which is easiest for all players to understand exactly how it works. With that config option set to false, as it is on the server, my /r would go to Im18PlayingThis, the person I currently want to message. Where the issue that Drogo brings up comes in would be that while I'm typing my /r message, wanting it to go to Im18PlayingThis, SuperCoolWimp also messages me. My /r now would go to SuperCoolWimp instead of Im18PlayingThis. Drogo's suggestion is that you keep /r to go to the person that just messaged you, as this is the most intuitive route, and that /r is then "locked in" by switching to a /msg to that player. This is better than either of the default Essentials configuration options, as this route lets you know for sure who your message is going to, and cannot be affected by message timeouts or people jumping into your messages. Your suggestion of changing that option to true would be convenient for conversations, but be a nightmare for every other chatting situation, which is way that value had remained false on the server for the majority of its existence, before being replaced by the Friends plugin, using a similar functionality. Concluding things, when using /r, it can be difficult to know 100% who your message will go to, with either of the configuration options. New players not knowing what the behavior on the server will certainly not know who /r is going to if they just received multiple messages for the first time. Drogo's suggestion is to implement a way in which you can know for sure who your message is going to, without the need to type everything out.
Not a bad point, but would this even matter if you set the time limit to 10-30 seconds in the config? To be perfectly honest I never considered this so I'm not completely sure how it would work, but I'm pretty sure they would reset in the 10-30 seconds, correct me if I'm wrong.
My point overall with this is that those configuration options can become confusing to players. Keeping track of the rules along with timeouts can be a lot. The current system just requires players to know that /r will always go to whoever messaged them last, which is easy to keep track of, though annoying when people like to jump into your messages. I'm a fan of Drogo's suggestion, as it would avoid any confusion by directly showing you who you're replying to. Or, with my modified suggestion, it could show people who recently messaged you, and give you the option to click the one that you wish to reply to. I think that would provide a clean experience for the user, albeit a bit weird on the development end. I apologize for accusing you of trolling on this thread, we did not meet on great terms last night, so I assumed the worst in your post. If you want to discuss things in more detail, feel free to send me a private message on here. For now, I'd think it'd be best to let this thread stay mostly focused around the initial suggestion, at least until Drogo is back to give his own input on things.
Skyblock, Mineverse, and Minetime don't use the Essentials messaging features. They all use a custom messaging implementation in Friends v3+ which adds the network-wide messaging and player name completion. We could possibly add a setting to the upcoming player settings utility which allows you to pick whether you reply to the last new message (default), or to the last player you replied to with an optional timeout.
private messages currently have no click event I think, contrary to player messages in global chat (used for visiting them). Maybe the private messages could have a click event to message that player.
