Hide user cursors

[juliushaertl]

User cursors might be in the way for reading text. Ideally we only show the names on hover or when people are editing. Other than that a checkbox to disable them in the collaborator menu might be worth as well.

What do you think @max-nextcloud @nimishavijay ?

[mejo-]

I like the idea to always show the cursors but only display the names on hover and while they're typing (with a timeout, maybe something like 3-5 seconds).

[md-work]

Please add an option to completely disable the user cursors.

I've just been in a meeting where a lot of people were annoyed by all the user cursors blinking around (optical noise).
And even if text was just overlapped for seconds many people were disturbed when reading text.

[max-nextcloud]

I agree it should be possible to hide them. I wonder if it would be a middle ground to only show them when people are actually typing - but that also seems harder to accomplish.

[nimishavijay]

It would be ideal if they were only shown when typing, but as a quick fix we could have a checkbox for it in the top right active users menu called "Show collaborator cursors" (Show author cursors? Cc @jancborchardt for wording?) right below "Show author colors" :)

[jancborchardt]

I would also say they should only show when typing, as @max-nextcloud proposed.

Adding an option is not really a quick fix, because:

• Everyone will have to set it, and know it's there
• It is always difficult to remove a setting and people will complain
• Also it's then just a full on/off, which is not really useful. Then you are in a document where random elements change, which is more distracting than the cursors.

[nimishavijay]

@jancborchardt Good point about removing the setting :)

for 1) it is enabled by default and people can switch it off from there, and for 3) it wouldn't be a per document setting, ideally? it would be a per user setting so once you unset it it would remain like that. What do you think? @max-nextcloud @mejo- would this work?

[kolAflash]

I agree it should be possible to hide them. I wonder if it would be a middle ground to only show them when people are actually typing - but that also seems harder to accomplish.

I think showing the user cursor labels when typing is NOT a good middle ground.

Maybe showing a pure colored cursor without label is OK.
But if there's a label it will always overlap other text. Doesn't matter if someone is typing or not.

If you really want to have some feature like this, do it like Etherpad Lite. Coloring the text background and provide some user list view at the side.
https://etherpad.org/img/etherpad_demo.gif

 

Please consider:
There's finite space. And it has to be decided how to use it.
You can't have everything without making compromises!
I'd say first priority has to display the text, because that's why users are here for.

And additionally:
Please carefully test before releasing.
The user cursors caused a mess of troubles in Nextcloud-26.0!
If the basics are not working stable, everything additional like users cursors becomes worthless!