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UI elements for submit or cancel in chat

feature-request add tag

PeterVandivier

Different chat clients handle differently when you hit "`Enter`". Sometimes `Modifier`+`Enter` can be used to insert a Line Feed character into the message body. Other times - all uses of "`Enter`" send the body as-is in the current edit. 

I would like a visual interactive element in the compose-message/"`chattext`" element in order to alleviate anxiety over whether or not I'm about to "submit" or "cancel" an edit.

Such a feature might look something like...

![untitled.png](/image?hash=915a619bff0e3423f8ea520f020702c889f502059d7d47d8c41aaf2801e8eeed)

Note that this **is** a redundant feature as "`Esc`" is already available to cancel an edit and "`Enter`" submits (clearly).

For me it's not specifically about mistakes in English. Though in chat, and previously in posts too, I've allowed the kind of language that I think is called "train of thought", generally I prefer writing/posting something that is a finished thought. And submitting a message prematurely not only means posting something unfinished, but can also actually break my line of thought I had up to that point, because I have to attend to the unfinished message instead of thinking of what more I intended to say and how to express that in English.

English isn't my first language too. For spelling I sometimes copy the text to a text editor with spell checking. Some browsers have add-ons for spell checking too, and I am considering using them. Automatic spell checking is far from perfect and has it's drawbacks, but can be helpful. Not sure how well this suggestion would work on mobile or if you regularly write in different languages, but seems worth considering. Also I fluently speak Italian and studied some Latin and Greek, which means that in some languages (including English) some unusual words related to these languages are more familiar to me (I am also more likely to misspell these words or to misunderstand their actual meaning in the other language). If this caused some problems to you or someone else I’m sorry, but in general I think the greatest problem is if the people involved are trying to communicate or not.

I understand the cause of anxiety and remembering that this isn't so important and that most people are more forgiving about mistakes helps with anxiety (not with quality). The problem is that an *additional* way to submit would not help, a *different* way or the possibility to choose between the two would. Adding some info to "type message here" seems good, because it wouldn't take additional space. For a "safe submit" option asking for confirmation after pressing enter instead of additional buttons would leave the interface cleaner.

Presumably the anxiety is to do with not wanting to accidentally post an incomplete message, especially if it's in a state that doesn't make much sense, and especially when you more particularly want to post a well thought-out idea, which will often require re-reading what you've just typed before pressing Submit. At least that's the kind of anxiety that I can relate to. In my specific case there's the additional factor of English not being my first language, which means it takes time for me to make sure both that my idea is expressed accurately and that its English rendition makes sense (and has no mistakes; I simply *hate* making stupid mistakes). Submitting a message prematurely under these circumstances would mean for me that I have to hastily correct what I've just sent (because the time window for editing is short) instead of taking my time to collect my thoughts.

I'm not really used to chats and sometimes I posted a message, when I wanted to insert a line feed. I'ts not a big deal, because quickly posted messages by the same user are sticking, messages can be edited and chat is supposed to be more casual/friendly anyway. A simple keyboard press seems really handy once you get used to it. What I don't understand is how a redundant feature woud alleviate anxiety, since you usually have immediate feedback after submitting or cancelling an edit and doing it by accident would still be possible. A user defined option to chose between the two methods or asking for confirmation seems better, but I'm not sure it's worth it.

@PeterVandivier, re: [your question](#question), I personally would prefer if `esc` would not just cancel the whole comment. For me it is very hard to switch between back ticks here and `esc` on Mathematica, and I deleted already a few comments just because I hit the wrong button. So I would not mind if the `esc` key got disabled.

0 Answers