Mattermost 4.7: Enhanced image preview and thumbnails, faster load times, upgraded desktop app
We’ve just released our February 2018 update and there’s a lot of exciting news to share, from enhanced image preview to a major desktop app upgrade.
- Mattermost 4.7 includes enhanced image preview and thumbnails that make it easier to see what’s in the images your colleagues share.
- We’ve also added several performance improvements. You’ll notice pages and images are loading even faster thanks to image proxy support. It’s also easier to find channels due to optimized autocomplete queries.
- We’ve given our desktop app a major upgrade. Those familiar with our app will notice several big improvements in Mattermost 4.7, including a stronger user experience and support for deep linking via mattermost://. Admins will also see that Mattermost is now even easier to deploy.
Try these new features by downloading Mattermost 4.7 today. Since it includes security updates, upgrading is recommended.
We have a few other announcements to make this month:
- There’s a new experimental feature that you can enable to make unread messages appear at the top of the sidebar on your Mattermost interface. Give it a try and let us know what you think.
- As a reminder, we officially deprecated APIv3 last month; endpoints are scheduled to no longer be supported in Mattermost 5.0. If you need help migrating from APIv3 to APIv4, check this out.
Thanks for all community contributions this month and in particular our 4.7 MVP, Kher Yee Ting, who successfully migrated the file upload feature to Redux as part of our larger project to move our web app from Flux to Redux.
Enhanced image preview
We’ve enhanced image preview functionality for Mattermost 4.7. Now you can see what’s in the image your colleague sends you on Mattermost without having to click on it to open it in a preview window.
We’ve updated the appearance of image thumbnails in the user interface. Single thumbnails will now automatically expand to a larger preview. The Mattermost UI is even smoother and more efficient thanks to this update.
An example of how multiple thumbnails appear in Mattermost 4.7.
An example of how a single thumbnail appears in Mattermost 4.7.
Faster Load Times
Mattermost users will notice that the platform is working even faster thanks to a number of performance improvements we’ve rolled out in this update:
- Custom emojis now load asynchronously, accelerating first page load times.
- Channel autocomplete queries have been optimized, with client-side results returned immediately.
- By removing unnecessary metadata, we’ve decreased the size of most images by more than 25%, improving performance further.
Let us know what you think about these updates, and take a look at our changelog to see some additional improvements.
Image Proxy
Image requests are now able to get sent directly to third-party proxy servers instead of third-party sites. As a result, images are cached after loading once, which speeds up performance significantly. Since proxy servers provide an additional layer of caching, you won’t have to worry about dead images either. Posts will be preserved.
Thanks to this update, users no longer need to download full-sized images if they don’t want to. If you use willnorris/imageproxy, for example, you can configure ImageProxyOptions to resize images when they’re more than x pixels tall, which saves bandwidth and increases productivity.
Introducing Desktop App 4.0
Our desktop app just got a major upgrade. In addition to multiple security updates, we added several new features to enhance the Mattermost experience, including:
- Improved user experience. You’ll notice a smoother, more productive user experience thanks to a dialog that enables you to reopen the app if it quits unexpectedly as well as a dialog that asks permission to show desktop notifications and use your microphone and camera for video calls. We’ve also added a Mattermost animation icon that appears while a page loads.
- Deep linking. Our app now supports protocol deep linking via mattermost://. Users can click on links to start up the desktop app or visit specific channels.
- Easier to deploy. It’s now much easier for admins to silently deploy the Mattermost desktop app to end users.
We’re calling the update Desktop App 4.0 due to these new features and the major architectural changes we also made. Check them out.
‘Unreads’ Sidebar Setting
The Unreads experimental feature.
Mattermost power users will now be able to find every message that needs their attention in one convenient location.
We’ve added an experimental Unreads setting that automatically brings all of your unread messages to the top of the sidebar.
Select the Sidebar option in Account Settings to enable or disable the option. Give it a whirl and tell us what you think.
We’re currently working on other sidebar improvements we intend to roll out in the future.
If there’s anything you’d like to see, please let us know.
Thank You to Our Contributors
amyblais, AndersonWebStudio, andruwa13, asaadmahmood, bbodenmiller, Brunzer, ccbrown, chclaus, cherniavskii, CometKim, coreyhulen, cpanato, crspeller, csduarte, cvitter, darkman, der-test, dlahn, enahum, esethna, fermulator, gig177, grundleborg, Hanzei, hmhealey, it33, james-mm, jarredwitt, jasonblais, jespino, jwilander, kaakaa, kemenaran, knechtionscoding, laginha87, lasley, letsila, lfbrock, lieut-data, lindalumitchell, lindy65, liusy182, Matterchen, mkraft, MusikPolice, phuihock, pichouk, Rohlik, R-Wang97, santos22, saturninoabril, stephenkiers, sudheerDev, tayre, tejasbubane, tkbky, Tristramg, ulm0, watadarkstar, xuxip, yeoji, yuya-oc
Install or Upgrade Mattermost
New to Mattermost? Download it and try it for free.
Need help upgrading to the latest version of Mattermost? Head over here.
Enterprise Editions
Mattermost Enterprise Edition E10 and E20 are commercial versions of Mattermost designed for today’s leading organizations. For more information on features and pricing, check this out.
Need some help configuring everything? Grab a subscription today and enjoy upgrade and installation support from Mattermost.
