[Long Term] New Channel Types

[alzalia1]

Problem

First off : this is by no mean urgent. Thanks a lot for all the work produced !
Also, english is not my main language so I excuse for the weird sentences.

Right now there are three channel types :

• Text
• Voice
• Link

Per the roadmap, forums, threads and stage channels are also part of the plan.

On the long term, however, I believe it would be interesting to integrate even more channel types.

Caution

Those suppositions are, as their name suggests, purely theoretical. This list is purely here as a suggestion, I am not able to assess the feasibility of those proposal. Please, if one (or all) of the proposals seem inconceivable even in a distant future, notify me so I can remove it. My intention is merely to give ideas and to help group ideas of channels in one issue. By no mean do I intend on putting pressure on anyone !

Proposed solution

• Calendar : To plan events on a calendar, with each channel being its own calendar

Description : We can further imagine each event to be its own "thread", in a way : a place to discuss the event, list information... The content of an event could be spread in two parts : a "header", compiling all the "main" information (a title, a description, a date, maybe a location (of type channel or text), and then maybe some custom fields) and then a second part, the "body", the discussion part, functioning just like a normal text channel. While a message in the body would belong to a specific user, the header could be modified by anyone with the permission to do so. Whether to set those permissions on a calendar or event basis can be debated.
Use cases : Let a team organize meetings ; gamers organize play sessions ; communities plan events in general
See further discussion of the Calendar Channel on this comment

• Kanban : To organize tasks more easily

Description : Just like the Calendar, a task could be split in two parts : a header with the main information (title, desc, image, other fields) and a body to discuss . A task would then be a card on a board that can be moved between different categories, defined by the user. Just like the Calendar, the header could be modified by people with the permission to do so while the body would be filled with personal messages. In fact, Kanban could probably be a view type of the Calendar, although I think it would be preferable that the two are dissociated (Or a channel where you can enable / disable each view ?)
Use cases : Let a community plan its next posts on social media ; gamers plan out the next phases in their factory building ; communities keep track of what they need to do in general

• Documentation : A blank page to write and document

Description : A page, maybe with tabs, where you write but no answers are expected. Maybe this can be thought as an html canvas where one can build some sort of mini website (with no javascript of course) ? Or maybe a more controlled environment where you let people build with predefined components. Overall : somewhere you are free of the constraints of a normal textual channel, where you can arrange elements in a nice way to make an informative (or not) page. Editing would be restrained page-wide to those with permissions.
Use cases : A content producer presents oneself ; a community exposes rules in a nice way ; someone show a tutorial on how to make a good mock-up

• Photo Album : To share photos in a nice way

Description : In the spirit of a forum, a nice place to share images. We can imagine the ability to comment on images through threads (or not).
Use cases : A cosplayer shows their art ; friends share memories from a trip ; people show off their linux rice

Notes (optional)

If anyone wishes to add on this, whether by adding on one of the already mentioned proposals, or with a new one, please, do !

This issue is bound to be edited as ideas come and go.

If creating such a "large scale" issue (in a way, I mean idk) is a problem, I am very sorry for the inconvenience caused :/

Checks

• I searched for existing issues and didn't find a duplicate.

[Freeplayg]

The channels list already feels like something that can become cluttered quickly, so one thing I don't really like are the link types. It feels like they could be placed inside of an "information"-type channel instead, or what the documentation type does

[alzalia1]

I agree a server can quickly become cluttered... I have made the experience myself X)

I would say, maybe additional organization features, like sub-categories that can be closed / opened (maybe closed by default ?) could be interesting to reduce visual clutter ?

But at the end, I feel like, no matter how much you try, if you have a lot of needs, then you'll have a lot of channels and thus a lot of clutter :/

[RoyAwesome]

Clutter is managable with hiding channels, muting, and copying discord's channel subscription system.

[RoyAwesome]

An idea for Calendar channels:

Basically, You have a page that has a calendar on it and a list of events. The events are tied to that calendar, and can be quickly observed that way. You can create new events by either hitting the "New Event" button or clicking on the day/time and creating a new event similar to the flows on any standard calendar app. Give it a starting time, ending time, set up recurring events, a description, image, etc. This information could become the top post for the integrated forum thread.

From there, you have the "I'm Interested" flow that discord has for it's event system. Hitting the bell that you are interested automatically subcribes you to a thread for that event (if that is enable in the calendar settings), and you are notified when the event starts (creating the event gives you reminder options). There should be options for recurring events as well.

This is very similar to a forum in discord, and with the stated roadmap goals of exporting forums to web you could export the calendar too if you want.

(Note on the image: I clipped the current fluxer UI to do this example, so I'd recommend removing the ability to send messages to such a calendar channel. It's essentially a fancy forum display, allowing you to have threads with date/time information. The subscribers to the thread are the people interested in the event)

EDIT: I think there is benefit to keeping calendar events channel based, using channel permissions. In discord, Events are tied to the guild and there is no way to restrict who can see certain events. By keeping events channel-based, guild owners can create things like a "Leadership Calendar". Games where you coordinate with variously trusted individuals you can limit who sees raids or operations (ie: with the game Foxhole, You generally want to invite members of allied orgs into your discord to coordinate, but you dont want to give them full access. Also you may have members in your guild who play against you for a match and then come back, so you want to limit their permissions). This is also useful for guilds that have mixed local IRL friends and internet buddies... you can have a place for just the IRL friends to organize events without every person on the server having access to information like people's physical addresses if they are shared in calendar events. You could achieve Discord's "Events" category by showing the user every event they have access to.

[RoyAwesome]

yeah, that looks a lot better than I was thinking. I am also not a designer, i just clipped random screenshots and tossed them together in my Obisidan notebook's exaclidraw plugin :P

I wonder if it would be worth it to have a way to toggle views for the main calendar panel between a weekly layout, a monthly layout, or agenda list? Kinda like what google calendar has.

Also, we should probably stick a month display above the main calendar panel to allow users to move to a different month in the display.

[RoyAwesome]

Oh, there should probably be a "Create Event" button on here somewhere. I put it in the quick display on the bottom right, but I wonder if we should have a header above the main calendar panel with some controls there including a "Create Event" button

[RoyAwesome]

Should note, in google calendar, the mini calendar is always on a day-of-month display, not a month-of-year. the reason for this is you can change what type of display for the main panel (daily list, weekly, monthly, agenda mode) and the mini calendar always shows you a reference where you are in time.

[alzalia1]

I see ! Lots of interesting stuff, I'll see if I have time to make the changes to the model today !

[ShiningVenus]

I think a calendar channel would be pretty cool to add! I think being able to like add your Google calendar or calendar from other sites/apps would be useful too. You could add upcoming community events, birthdays of members, etc.

[evoandroidevo]

I like the idea of a calendar channel and doc/info channel that can be just a markdown edited document

[jhoshy]

Just adding that some matrix clients do this, like Commet (https://commet.chat/), which has the "calendar" and "photo album" channel types, and these can be useful for some communities/groups.

[alzalia1]

Interesting ! I'll add the "Photo Album" channel type to the main proposal !

[Probioticz]

I think a Hub/Board Channel Type would be very nice to have (just like Discord's forum), for Developer servers a Hub Channel type would be good for searching projects from other people.

[Probioticz]

and also the icon concepts