Feature Request: Settings improvements

[ChronosCrake]

Currently, when editing settings, it navigates you away from the room you're currently in, it would be much more user friendly to be able to open and edit settings dynamically while in a room, rather than having to navigate away, edit the settings, and then navigate back.

Additionally, some settings that would be useful to implement:

• Push to talk options
• Microphone and stream quality settings, perhaps even an option for a stream delay,
• Alternate alert sound options (maybe allow a host to include their own sound files for users to pick from)

[jeremyckahn]

Hi @ChronosCrake, thanks for raising this.

Currently, when editing settings, it navigates you away from the room you're currently in, it would be much more user friendly to be able to open and edit settings dynamically while in a room, rather than having to navigate away, edit the settings, and then navigate back.

I agree that this would be a better UX. I don't know that it would be a simple change to make, as there are a number of assumptions within Chitchatter's overall implementation that the Settings view is its own route. I'm specifically thinking about the profile data import/export functionality, but there may be other challenges. It's not an impossible change to make, but perhaps a bit more complex than one might expect at first.

I don't expect to be able to pick this work up in the near future, but I am open to supporting someone with a PR to get it done.

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Push to talk options

I think that would be a great addition!

Microphone and stream quality settings

I'm not sure if this is possible with Chitchatter's serverless design. It would require some exploration.

perhaps even an option for a stream delay

What's the use case for this?

Alternate alert sound options (maybe allow a host to include their own sound files for users to pick from)

I think this would be a good addition. 👍

[ChronosCrake]

Hi @ChronosCrake, thanks for raising this.

Currently, when editing settings, it navigates you away from the room you're currently in, it would be much more user friendly to be able to open and edit settings dynamically while in a room, rather than having to navigate away, edit the settings, and then navigate back.

I agree that this would be a better UX. I don't know that it would be a simple change to make, as there are a number of assumptions within Chitchatter's overall implementation that the Settings view is its own route. I'm specifically thinking about the profile data import/export functionality, but there may be other challenges. It's not an impossible change to make, but perhaps a bit more complex than one might expect at first.

I don't expect to be able to pick this work up in the near future, but I am open to supporting someone with a PR to get it done.

As much as I'd love to get involved, I have practically no experience in this field right now, I'm more of a sysadmin than a software engineer, though I'm quite interested in this project on a personal level, as I'm not happy with the current state of big tech and the way they make it their business to collect egregious amounts of data on their users.

Microphone and stream quality settings

I'm not sure if this is possible with Chitchatter's serverless design. It would require some exploration.

Hmm, I was imagining it as an option for the broadcaster, in case they wanted to minimize/optimize their bandwidth usage, for example, limiting the broadcast to being 1080p30fps instead of whatever is getting auto selected by the client currently. I mainly brought it up, because the first time we tried it, my friend's stream would occasionally freeze, and I thought perhaps being able to control the output might improve deliverability.

Other stream settings could involve being able to pick what sound is transmitted with the stream, currently it doesn't appear to have any.

perhaps even an option for a stream delay

What's the use case for this?

Typically stream delays are to help manage stream sniping, though I don't imagine that being an issue here, in all honesty.

In my mind, having a delay might allow a viewer to buffer video data for a more seamless experience, allowing for resending of potentially dropped or lost packets, but I have no idea if that even makes any sense in hindsight, or if it does make sense, if it's well beyond the scope of your work for this project.

[jeremyckahn]

I'm not happy with the current state of big tech and the way they make it their business to collect egregious amounts of data on their users.

I'm right there with you. 😉

I was imagining it as an option for the broadcaster, in case they wanted to minimize/optimize their bandwidth usage, for example, limiting the broadcast to being 1080p30fps instead of whatever is getting auto selected by the client currently.

That makes sense. I'm not sure what level of control WebRTC (the API that powers P2P streaming) gives us for that. That'll take some research. If anyone reading this knows more here, please share!

Typically stream delays are to help manage stream sniping, though I don't imagine that being an issue here, in all honesty.

That seems a little specialized for a general-purpose communication tool like Chitchatter. Unless a more compelling use case comes up, I'd like to leave this out for now.