Signal-ios: Feature request: replying to a specific message and have the message quoted

[gabridome]

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

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Bug description (in reality is a feature request)

Especially in group chat but also in individual ones Telegram and (now) whatsapp allow to quote a previous message by tapping it and choose "reply". This action create the new message with on top the summary of the message you are referring to. In Telegram (desktop version) there's also the possibility to quote specific parts (selection) of a previous message. In this case the selection apears in the new message quoted with the ">" sign.

In group chat this is almost mandatory because you cannot follow easily the threads that normally form in the chat.

I miss this a lot in signal. I have searched and I didn't find a similar feature request.

Thank you for the wonderful job you are doing.

[rorybot]

I'm a relatively new developer; finished a bootcamp last year. My final project was an iOS app, and so I'd like to take a crack at this, although obviously it's gonna be slow-going.

Does anyone have any advice on where I'd get started on implementing this? I'll have to download the code base, but I assume if messages are stored locally to some degree, then there has to be some basic way of selecting them from the local database and reading them (otherwise how else would the UI display messages?). It seems like implementing this would be a matter of using that same mechanism to present a message above the message you're typing, and to have it presented again (as a snippet, that scrolls you up to the original message) when you post the message.

It doesn't seem very complicated as far as I can tell (famous last words), and I'd be interested in working on this with someone.

[rainerzufall]

FYI - There is already a PR from one of the Signal developers: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/pull/2987

If you want to start contributing to Signal, I would suggest to start with smaller PRs. Issues labeled help wanted can be good first contributions: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22help+wanted%22

[NinebitX]

I think this issue can be closed. The requested feature was implemented in version 2.24.

[gabridome]

Absolutely. I find the design and user experience in Telegram still superior but I wanted to use Telegram and I'm fine with this design.