Open Radar

 
Summary:

I believe this is a longstanding behavior, but since Messages is getting some attention in this release cycle, I thought I’d mention it…

In Messages, if you create a new message using the appropriate button or Command-N, you get a new conversation thread titled New Message. If you then enter addressees that match the addressees of an existing conversation, the thread display window shows you the text of the existing conversation. However, it’s still marked as a separate New Message conversation in the conversation list.

The distinction seems to be that New Message panes have editable lists of addressees and existing conversations do not. But this leads to a couple of forms of UI friction:

1) For one, the new message looks like a separate thread, but it’s actually a (virtual) duplicate of an existing thread — a thread that may be displayed right next to it if it was recently active. Odd.

2) If you send the new message, the new and old panes are merged at that point. But if you change your mind and don’t send, the New Message pane hangs around indefinitely until you close it. But the meaning of “close” in this context is unclear: does it delete the thread? (In the case of a new message, no; but I’m scared to investigate this by clicking the close box on an existing thread!)

3) If you want to send a message to the distribution list of a prior conversation, plus or minus a few people, you have to do New Message and then retype all the addressees, because there’s no way to edit the distribution list of an existing conversation. That’s a pain.

My question/suggestion is, why do new messages need this special behavior at all? The alternative would be:

a) All distribution lists are editable in all threads. As you modify a distribution list, the pane snaps immediately to the matching conversation. That is, the conversation selected on the left side of the window is just the matching conversation, and you now see that other conversation’s history in the main window. There’s no need for a separate New Message pane.

b) If you modify a distribution list such that there is no existing conversation that matches, then it becomes a distinct New Message pane with no prior history.

c) The same snapping behavior happens fluidly in reverse. If you edit a New Message pane so that its distribution list matches an existing conversation, then that conversation is selected and shown, and the New Message pane disappears.

d) There’s still a New Message operation reachable by the same button or keystroke, and it takes you to the same old New Message pane. Initially it looks identical to the current system.

e) Since you are always in either a distinct New Message state (for a genuinely new conversation) or an existing conversation, there’s never any duplication of conversation labels.

f) Since a message submitted as a New Message always targets a fresh distribution list, sending just retitles it to remove the “New Message” portion.

g) If you create a blank new message and then click away to another thread, that new message can be automatically deleted. And if you’ve entered an unsent message, or addressees, then there’s unsaved work there; it never closes on its own.