If you are the kind of person who wants to use the chat, requiring us to push the flashing white button and consume materials before we are allowed into the chat room is actually kind of nuts. Oh, and if you hide the chat… I can’t see a way to get it back. What if you just needed the space temporarily?
If you are the kind of person who does not want to see the chat, well, we have heard from them too.
Why not do away with the weird system we have now, and just give us control over when chat appears?
- Put a chat button on the toolbar; maybe print the number of active chatters on the icon to give us a hint about chat room activity.
- Default chat visibility to ON for first run, so people see the change and know it is there. Or call it out with some kind of pointer, without opening it.
- If the user clicks OFF, remember that in the browser preferences. (They may have different desires on different browsers.)
- Whether it is on or off, just leave it that way during design and printing.
I am sure you can access chat through Discord too but if you don’t want to sign up for another service, accessing GF chat through the GFUI is useful and should remain possible.