Typing Indicator

[ThatBurningFox]

What's your Minecraft Username?: ThatBurningFox
What's the title of your suggestion?: Typing Indicator

What's your suggestion?:
So, whether or not this is possible is something I'm unsure of. I've been told by someone that knows development that it's fundamentally impossible. However, I've also seen two different mods that seem to utilise exactly what I'm aiming for here, which seem to detect regular chat and not exclusively commands. How they do it, I'm unsure, but it seems like it HAS been done before in Minecraft???

Apparently commands are the main reliable way to detect chat, but that would sadly not be enough for what I'm pitching: Whenever someone is typing in the chat, have a small visual indicator above their nametag to signify to the players around them that they are actually typing. For example, a small symbol (animated or static, doesn't really matter) of three dots, or something similar. This would essentially be an indicator that the person you are looking at is actively typing and not AFK (or missed your message, etc).

It could also be fine tuned to filter out specific /commands or the likes, to not show if nametags are turned off, or if the player is in vanish - lots of ways to customise it if it can be done, but I'm not sure how technically feasible it is.

How will this benefit the server and community?:
Pretty much just a MASSIVE quality of life improvement designed to make it so players have less awkward moments of standing around doing nothing, to prevent those awkward moments where you're waiting for a response, but the other player didn't actually SEE your response. Cue spending the next 5 minutes in limbo before finally politely asking "Um... are you typing still?" and then get hit with the "...No, I was waiting for your reply?", classic.

It's also a good indicator for if people are starting and stopping typing, which could be useful in some niche situations like if they're using their phone in front of you - since realistically, you would be able to tell someone is actually speaking into a phone, as they would have to hold it up to their mouth in the event they are whispering. This will also help to tell if people actually tried sending whisper messages to you from just barely four blocks away. Oops!! No more guessing if they saw what you said or if you missed what THEY said, you'd be able to tell that they did type SOMETHING and then suddenly stop. Wow! Wonder why that might be.

However, the plausibility of this feature is entirely down to the developers - whether or not there is wizardly capable of actually achieving what I've seen in other plugins is left to the judgement of the staff team. I still think that getting an idea of what people would want to see from this sort of idea would be fun, though! If it turns out impossible, whatever, at least the pitch was made.

So, what do you guys think of the indicator idea? Do you think there would be situations it would be too intrusive? Do you think there's ways to make it better as a concept?

Let's hear it!

 

[salt(ernate)]

watut is incompatible on the server for some reason :( but a typing indicator is good to know if someone's afk, and i can't really think of any situations where it would be intrusive at all really

 

[DarkEclipic]

This isnt something that the devs can do without introducing mods to SRP(Which they wont do). All you can do is ask in looc if they are still around or typing and just wait for a response

 

[2500]

i love the idea but as a server-only plugin solution this looks impossible for the near future.

you told me about this the other day after which i did a little bit of my own research soooo. . i guess here you go?

Spoiler: nerd shit

currently, the minecraft client by itself does not notify the server when the chatbox is opened, closed or whatever it may be. the closest / only solution would be to use 'PlayerCommandPreprocessEvent' (or 'TabCompleteEvent'?) to capture when a person has started typing, but as the name implies; this is only applicable to commands. this event is typically used to change the behaviour of the autofill feature that commands have.

it could be used to create a little chat indicator for when a person types exclusively in "command-started chat thingamajigs" such as /whisper [text], /looc [text], /call [text] etc. this would not work for standard chats, which in my eyes defeats the entire purpose.

interestingly enough, a system like this is already in use for the interactive class whiteboard where text is shown in real time using the /write command. i assume this uses the method i described above.

there exist server-side mods like watut that can achieve this, but these are unlikely to be added for accessibility sake. i found an incredibly simple plugin which at first glance appears to be pretty effective. it allows players to see when another player is typing, without needing any mods themselves, but the player with the indicator above their head does need to be using a dedicated client-side mod. sort of an opt-in/out system. if mods are off the table, this won't work.

the best chance this has at being implemented is if future versions do support events for when players open/close/use their chat box outside of commands.

 

[urufu]

Neutral

I really really want this, but I don't think it's possible :(
However, if anyone finds a client side mod that adds this - PLEASE let me know!!!

 

[Nik7R_]

+1, TBH. I love the idea. A few tweaks could be made, but all in all, this would help. As someone who has been in multiple situations where someone is typing but has been accused of stalling, etc, I can see where this can help. This would be a cool feature to implement, but I frankly don't see SRP adding it, sadly.

 

[urufu]

Okay my beloved gangalangs, I figured something out that might help as like.. A placeholder!!
So, if someone is typing for long enough that they get the AFK tag, using an append actually removes that tag. So if you see it vanish but no text or movement, that means they've just appended something, thus kiiindd of a typing indicator!! :O

 

[ThatBurningFox]

The explanations you guys have given has helped me at least understand the difference - that being that mods are different to plugins? I didn't quite understand that until now. ^^;

So thank you for that clarification. Even so, if it ever does become possible by some wizardry/update/etc, would still be a very epic feature.

Urufu's mentioned "solution" sort of works if you're doing detail RP with one another, but that only works if they are indeed, actually typing to you and all. You could be waiting for 5-10 minutes straight for that AFK tag to go away due to an append (not an understatement, some people do take quite a while to type their replies) only to realise they were never typing to begin with and you had no way of knowing. Sobbing.

 

[Customable]

I really like this idea

Unfortunately there is no condition to detect if a player is typing in Java, the closest we can come to this is .isCommand() I believe which detect auto completions in commands in a players chat which wouldn’t be much use in the long run.

there are however mods, mods are client side and conditional to the player environment, therefore mods like this:

https://modrinth.com/mod/what-are-they-up-to

should work. Additionally this is possible through cosmetics mods like Figura using a custom avatar specifically for detecting and displaying typing which can be downloaded through their community discord, however this will unfortunately only display your typing as you can not set other player’s avatars.

 

[Yonio]

Aside from what people have already said, I feel like it'd be a bit intrusive to know when someone else is typing. I find myself usually re-write a lot of stuff when roleplaying, so I could see a lot of people not feeling comfortable enough with other people knowing when they're typing

 

[ThatBurningFox]

Aside from what people have already said, I feel like it'd be a bit intrusive to know when someone else is typing. I find myself usually re-write a lot of stuff when roleplaying, so I could see a lot of people not feeling comfortable enough with other people knowing when they're typing

This is a fair point that I had figured some people would be a little bothered by, but it's like if you're typing on discord and other programs. It's not like others would see you deleting things or what you're actually typing until you're comfortable to send it! So I do think that the pros far, far outweigh those cons. But, of course, comfort is still subjective and important- I'd encourage anyone that would actually dislike having this feature to speak up naturally.

 

[Oliverium]

I really like this idea

Unfortunately there is no condition to detect if a player is typing in Java, the closest we can come to this is .isCommand() I believe which detect auto completions in commands in a players chat which wouldn’t be much use in the long run.

there are however mods, mods are client side and conditional to the player environment, therefore mods like this:

https://modrinth.com/mod/what-are-they-up-to

should work. Additionally this is possible through cosmetics mods like Figura using a custom avatar specifically for detecting and displaying typing which can be downloaded through their community discord, however this will unfortunately only display your typing as you can not set other player’s avatars.

Yes I've seen this one before. Was thinking about using it: It's allowed right?

 

[printsess300]

I have not read all the replies but maybe perhaps have an icon pop up that looks like a chat bubble when someone is typing and then it disapearing when they finish. Now we also could make it so the person can toggle off their chat bubble, basically making it so others don't see it even when they are typing. Plus also a command to toggle off chat bubbles when you don't wanna see anyone elses chat bubbles.

 

[Customable]

Yes I've seen this one before. Was thinking about using it: It's allowed right?

Wouldn’t have posted it if it wasn’t my esteemed journalist labourer

 

[Ash :)]

i love the idea but as a server-only plugin solution this looks impossible for the near future.

you told me about this the other day after which i did a little bit of my own research soooo. . i guess here you go?

Spoiler: nerd shit

currently, the minecraft client by itself does not notify the server when the chatbox is opened, closed or whatever it may be. the closest / only solution would be to use 'PlayerCommandPreprocessEvent' (or 'TabCompleteEvent'?) to capture when a person has started typing, but as the name implies; this is only applicable to commands. this event is typically used to change the behaviour of the autofill feature that commands have.

it could be used to create a little chat indicator for when a person types exclusively in "command-started chat thingamajigs" such as /whisper [text], /looc [text], /call [text] etc. this would not work for standard chats, which in my eyes defeats the entire purpose.

interestingly enough, a system like this is already in use for the interactive class whiteboard where text is shown in real time using the /write command. i assume this uses the method i described above.

there exist server-side mods like watut that can achieve this, but these are unlikely to be added for accessibility sake. i found an incredibly simple plugin which at first glance appears to be pretty effective. it allows players to see when another player is typing, without needing any mods themselves, but the player with the indicator above their head does need to be using a dedicated client-side mod. sort of an opt-in/out system. if mods are off the table, this won't work.

the best chance this has at being implemented is if future versions do support events for when players open/close/use their chat box outside of commands.

get a load of this nerd

 

[Ecocide]

would be amazing ):

 

[KimiNoUso]

Reviewed
Thank you for your suggestion!

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