Our organization recently upgraded to version 5.37. This version changed the functionality of the Ctrl+K shortcut that brings up the recents, making the software very difficult for blind users to navigate.
Previously, Ctrl+K would bring up a list of unseen direct messages, followed by a list of unread channels. Now, however, it appears only a jumble of recent direct messages/channels is shown, in no particular order, and it’s recent posts, not unread posts. Furthermore, the list no longer shows in text-only, to the blind user’s screen reader. Instead, the screen reads “user object,” where it would read the username/channel previous to 5.37.
Is there a setting somewhere that can be toggled to restore the previous behavior of Ctrl+K? Otherwise, screen reader users are going to be extremely inconvenienced and productivity will ultimately suffer.
The Channel Switcher now displays recently viewed channels when launched.
I can understand the concern that you are facing here, especially for the blind users. For that, we have the following Jira ticket to keep track of this here:
Me, and a couple of teammates, find that this change in behavior is a big productivity hit. Please give users the possibility to configure this or add a second shortcut to open an unread list.
Another behavior that changed in the channel switcher is that, previously, when I started typing another user’s name, the direct chat would usually show at the top, making it easy to find a direct message channel. Now, a bunch of group chats that include this user are shown before the single user chat. This is also pretty irritating and annoying.
Another vote to restore the old behaviour (at least as an option). I can’t understand the thinking behind the new setup (maybe there was some performance issue with the useful sorting at huge scales?). The old way was intuitive and got heavy use every day. The new setup is causing a significant productivity hit having to sort through and find which of hundreds of messages is actually unread and/or intended as direct. Will look at the proposed ticket to address this as well, but a quick glance looked like it was still introducing something different again, but the key will be the sorting. It was so helpful to just hit ctrl+k and have the right thing to reply to at the top of the list (or at least in the first couple of items).
We recently got the update at our organisation that brought back the majority of this functionality. We need to use it in earnest for a while longer yet to understand it properly but initial impressions are very positive!