Signal-desktop: Multiple notifications when using at least two connected devices

[adrian-007]

Bug description

There is no way to determine device "priority", setting for inactivity period / inactivity detection. Once desktop window is minimized, it seems like it's considered inactive and mobile device notifies me about unread message despite desktop notification.

Steps to reproduce

• set up a mobile application, configure sound notifications
• set up a desktop application, configure visual and/or sound notifications
• start a conversation
• minimize desktop application
• receive a message

Actual result: Both applications notifies about unread message
Expected result: Only one application should notify me about unread message or a second device should notify me after given amount of time of inactivity on chosen device.

Platform info

Operating System: LineageOS and Windows 10
Signal version: Mobile 4.12.3 / Desktop 1.0.38

[scottnonnenberg]

For the time being, if you only want notifications from your phone, you can close the desktop app entirely. If you'd like it the other way around, you can put your phone on airplane mode.

[adrian-007]

Although putting phone in airplane mode may work for Signal, it will also prevent other people from calling me... Not really a solution I was looking for. The thing is that once I've started up a desktop client, I would like to get notifications only on one device, not both. I'm using Signal as my SMS application and I have quite loud and distinctive ringtone for new incoming messages - but when I'm using desktop client, I really don't have to be notified with such urgency - you can only imagine how that can be annoying...

I'm really happy that finally Signal has a standalone desktop application and I'm grateful for all developers that made it happen, but double notifications without workarounds (like airplane mode or putting it on silence) pretty much kills desktop user experience as long as my phone is around :(

[leafcutterant]

This frustrates me as well.

This can be tricky to solve because from the platform's perspective it's difficult to tell which device i want to have as active. E.g.:

• Desktop is open and not minimized, but i leave the room/my home with my phone and anticipate a contact/answer. The mobile wouldn't know this by itself.

I guess this is the major situation where single-device notification could hurt as most of us carry their mobile devices with ourselves. But for this, there could be an opt-in "Single-device notification" option which lets you always have only one notified device and the preference could be overridden from each of the devices. Of course, choosing the active device based on the application being open and not minimized could work simultaneously, a such a change would occur only when explicitly choosing an active device.

This also raises the problem of e.g. what happens when you set your Desktop as your active device, leave it open, but suddenly have to leave while it's still important that you get that notification. This problem can't be solved without some NFC magic, but can be softened with timed options. E.g. next to "Make this my active device" , you could have "Make this my active device for 1h/2h/4h/custom time...", similarly to how Android can be set to be in silent mode only for a limited time.

I agree though that switching to airplane mode/silent mode just to avoid the double notifications is a bad advice.

[scottnonnenberg]

@leafcutterant It it may be bad, but it's the only option we have right now! :0) Just so I'm clear, it's about missing phone calls while trying to avoid duplicate Signal notifications, right?

The only variant of this feature I can imagine implementing is something like an explicit user option 'mute all Signal notifications on this devices for N minutes', and even then, probably only on Mobile. I can also imagine implementing a mute option for individual conversations on Desktop.

[michaelkirk]

For those of you on iOS, our next release does a better job of not playing/displaying notifications on iOS while you're actively using desktop.

edit: clarity

[scottnonnenberg]

We do know whether there's a sibling device online, because we can look for sync messages. If we've seen a sync message recently, we can slow our notifications down, see if the messages are marked read before we get a chance to notify.

Though, that's a good question for @adrian-007 and @leafcutterant - are both directions of this scenario equally important to you? Do you care more about your phone buzzing while you're at your computer? Or is it just as bad as when you come back to your computer after using your phone, and there are a lot of notifications waiting?

[leafcutterant]

@scottnonnenberg Yes, I understood that part clearly.

Yes, "mute all Signal notifications on this devices for N minutes" would be definitely a step forward. And having both the individual and the global muting on Desktop would be great as well.

I'm not sure I understand the other question you posed. For now, my phone buzzing while I'm at my computer is the major annoyance. I'm not sure what the other scenario involves. If I've been away from my computer but I brought my phone with me, and come back to a lot of notifications on the computer—well, that is also frustrating, not because of the amount of notifications, but because I might have missed something important. Which of the two is more problematic is hard to tell because it depends on the importance of what I missed. This far, it was rather the duplicate notifications which annoyed me more.

A "Mute this device for x minutes" option would be one way to solve this—when I'm in the presence of both of them, hearing the notification on both would naturally prompt me to mute one of them. However, as I said, it would be also beneficial to have an option like "Make this my active device for X minutes". Imagine if I'm in the room where my computer is, Signal Desktop is left open in the foreground, but I choose to lie on my couch in the other corner, only with my phone. Having to get up just to mute Signal Desktop would be frustrating.

Another solution could be an option on Desktop such as "Mute notifications on other devices for X minutes when Signal is active on this device", where "active" would mean the user opens, minimizes, maximizes, or uses Signal Desktop. The counter would reset every time an "activation" happens. Once the timer finishes off, any notifications that were not read on the device in question would be released to all devices. This would basically automate the same behavior as the one in the above paragraph, plus it would make life easier for those who have Signal on more than two devices. On the downside, the chance of missing an important message would be greater.

What do you think?

I also suspect we're not the first ones thinking about this. Does anyone know how other messaging platforms handle the question of multiple notifications?

[adrian-007]

Slack have solved this issue with a setting "Send notifications to my mobile devices:" that lists options - to send notifications as soon as user becomes inactive, after user have been inactive for 1, 2, 5, 10, [...], minutes.

Such setting would pretty much solve notification problems all together in multi-device scenario.

[Apewall]

This really cripples the experience when using the Desktop app since it is meant to be used alongside mobile.

This was supposed to be already solved in Android but it is not. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/issues/4905

Hangouts/Slack/Discord and a number of other apps targeting desktop/mobile handle this by user activity. Suppress alerts to mobile while desktop has an active user, if inactive for more than 5~ minutes send alerts to mobile.

[leo-bogert]

@scottnonnenberg

Do you care more about your phone buzzing while you're at your computer? Or is it just as bad as when you come back to your computer after using your phone, and there are a lot of notifications waiting?

IMHO what's the most annoying is the phone buzzing if I'm at the computer:
Smartphones are usually something you carry around to every place so it will be sitting next to the computer and I hear the noise of both. Further the smartphone will also vibrate upon a message, so I get 3 noises:

• the notification sound of the computer
• the notification sound of the smartphone
• the really annoying sound the smartphone makes when vibrating on top of my desk.

Also some people use enter instead of punctuation, i.e. they send a single message for every sentence, so there'll be a real brigade of noise then.

[TamtamHero]

Whatsapp does a great job at this I think. If the desktop app is connected, then you don't any notification on your phone. The rationale being that when you're on your desktop, you're in front of it, using it, and when you leave your computer, you're supposed to lock it and take your phone with you.