Wee-slack: Alternative to reverse time order message identification

[neverfox]

The use of reverse time order message number for things like reactions or replies is clever but it's difficult to use in fast-moving threads, where the message you thought you were targeting when you started writing out your command changes before you finish it. I wonder what alternative might help avoid that, i.e. something more immutable that can lock in on a particular message (I've long wondered if weechat has a message ID that could be displayed, sort of like a git sha).

Also, even in slow-moving threads, the number is not easy to figure out if it's something way back in the log. It would be nice if there was a way to number the messages visually (maybe there is already?).

[auscompgeek]

We calculate a checksum for the /thread command, but it's not used anywhere else currently.

[neverfox]

Interesting. Ideally, what I imagine is that when viewing a Slack channel, you would see a short (how short idk, to have some reasonable guarantee of uniqueness) checksum next to each message (perhaps this can be configurable if someone didn't want to see it). That checksum could be used where one can currently use the reverse time ordered message number, i.e editing, /thread, /reply, reactions etc. I'm not sure if it's possible to modify the display that way.

[eras]

I too have discovered it becomes surprisingly difficult to count the lines :).

perhaps this can be configurable if someone didn't want to see it

A user could perhaps bind a button to toggle this option.

The uniqueness could be enhanced by not using checksums, but buffer-specific serial numbers for the messages. I don't know how this relates to configurations where you have multiple channels in a single buffer. However, when moving channels to different buffers one could renumber the visible messages; it's not likely a user will rely on memory to use these numbers.

I don't know though if this is technically easy or even feasible with the interfaces WeeChat provides.

[trygveaa]

You can now use weechat's cursor mode or mouse mode to get an id that can be used instead of the number. See the readme for how to use this.