Suggestion: Notification sounds
Hello,
I have been using Discord for various urgent messages and notifications for some years now, and finally decided to post about one problem I have with the service.
This will (hopefully) be quite thorough suggestion, so I will divide it into 3 sections. I couldn't expect Discord to dedicate enough resources to developing one thing, to do everything I suggest.
Also the target group of this feature most likely would not be everyone or majority of users, but still quite critical. However, this means that the priority will be lower in development. Perhaps some of the features mentioned below, could be for Nitro only. This would encourage users to support Discord, while also making the development of the feature more worth it.
Sounds
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On mobile, at least on Android, you can customize your notification sounds to some extent. I think there is room for improvement, but it is a good start. I cannot find similar options on desktop or browser versions.
This customization includes ability to set custom notification sounds for some "classes" of notifications. These include calls, DMs, messages and friends (possibly messages from friends?)
However, these are still quite vague classes, and not great for some uses.
It would be quite useful if notification sounds could be set, both on desktop and mobile, channel-specific.
This would mean, that you could have one channel in server with type1 notification sound, while another channel would use type2. Preferably also option to set different sound for @mention
You could also set different sounds for different users in Direct Messages.
Then we also need global sound settings, that would be applied to channels that do not have any channel or server specific settings.
Now what use would there be of this?
Let me take an example inspired by what happened to me today. I own a game server, so I have to manage the top-level stuff in it. However, it is not fully stable yet. It occasionally crashes. Now, we of course don't want it to stay down long times, so users message me if it crashes. And I need to be ready to start it up again. It is urgent and cannot just "wait until I have time".
Now there is a problem. I'm a human. And humans have to sleep. So there is long period of time in my days, when I am not available. If the server crashes when I have just gone to sleep, it could possibly be down for as long as 10 hours. This is definitely not good.
So, I get a notification from critical failure. But I am asleep, and can't fix it. I would gladly wake up to do it, but I can't hear the notification.
I have secondary source for notifications, WhatsApp. Most people can't message me there, but few can. And they have notification sounds set to loud and sudden music, so I wake up if I am asleep. Today, someone happened to message me about completely unrelated subject, but I woke up and also got the issue reported in Discord solved within minutes of it being reported. Definitely lucky. But I can't rely on that. (In the event that inspired this example, it was actually DM, not message in channel, but I just find this example easier to understand)
If I could set a #critical-reports channel to play similar loud notification you just can't miss, it would help a lot. (Said channel does not currently exist, as crash reports are not so common, and another channel would not increase visibility of the reports too much)
Other option would be to build ticket system in another service, but having too many different messaging services in use can be impratical and uncomfortable to use, both for me and reporting users.
Now, we have explained one part of this. But there is still more
Sometimes you don't want to be notified about messages. You could always mute the server, but that is sometimes not preferred. Sometimes you want to easily see if server has new messages, without having to open it. So muting it is not perfect solution. You just don't always want the notification sounds to be constantly spamming you. If you could mute notifications without muting the "new message" indicator, that could be very nice.
Notification menu
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I can see 2 reasonable places to access the notification sound settings.
First one would be in discord settings > notifications. There could be another button or category that opens notification sound settings, instead of having the stuff mixed with existing settings.
This would be the cleaner way to access the options, but also maybe slightly less practical, as you would need to have some way to point the system where do you want to apply the settings
The other option would be right-clicking channel, server or DM to press "Sound settings" button. This adds more stuff to the right-click options that can already be quite long list of stuff. So it may be a bit messy, but also easier to point where you want to apply the settings.
Additional stuff
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Now here is additional details and ideas that most likely would not be implemented, either because it is not good to dedicate too much resources on one area of development, or because they might clutter the menus.
Change notification sound (and mute notifications) from specific people in specific channels. This would help if you know someone only messages in some channel when talking about matters related to you.
Notify if trigger word is mentioned or included in a word (For example, your own name, nickname or whatever you decide on).
This feature exists in Skype (although a bit hidden) and I found it very useful to be notified when people are talking about me or possibly trying to get my attention. And of course then we need option to mute trigger words in certain servers or channels. And also server mute should not necessarily mute trigger words.
TL;DR
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Custom notification sounds
Custom channel-, server- and DM-specific notifications
Custom notification sounds for mentions
Mute notification sounds without muting whole server (The new-message indicator in server list remains)
Change settings from Discord settings or right-click the channel/server/DM where you want to modify settings
User-specific notification sounds in specific channels or globally.
Trigger words (You get notified, possibly similarly to @mentions, if specific words are said in chat
Thank you for your time
~Shinare
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This is a great idea, With the Covid stuff happening and seeing a HUGE Spurt in people joining servers if there was a way to Select a number of sounds for servers would be FANTASTIC... Currently I have a server set up for my family, one for my work, a number of hobby related servers, along with guild, Role-play, and currently sitting at 19 servers. I've taken the time to mute the channels and set my preferences for notices but going at the 2 week mark of quarantine, When I step away from the computer it would be nice to hear a different notice so I know if its something important that needs my attention rather than hearing it from the Kitchen wondering if its a family member or work or just my guildies striking up a conversation.
I like the idea of the notice sounds being broken down even further for DM, Mentions (maybe even a few selections of this so you can tell what server or type of server or even servers in a grouped folder now that we have that option since this was written would be an idea) but something that would could cover both apps on Phone and Computer with a single setting. I would be very grumpy trying to set them both to the same setting)
another thing I would ideal is to have an "AT HOME" setting on the phone app cooking dinner and hearing the computer notice and then hearing the phone notice almost gives the feeling like its urgent receiving dual notices for the same thing..5 -
I strongly agree, I like to have specific sound notifications for each window and it drives me nuts that they're all the same sound. >.<"
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I really dislike Discord's current notification sound. It's also a big mess if you want to only lower it as you might accidentally lower the sound of Discord itself (with your friends voice) and stuff. I with it was just the sound of a match falling down to the floor "tck".
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I'm not sure if this is the same as what I'm looking for, or just tangential, but either way, I like it.
I've noticed that I'd really REALLY like to have a different sound for DMs, and wouldn't mind a different sound for when someone specifically tags me with a mention instead of an @here or @everyone as well. Too often I miss the few DMs that do occur for longer than necessary because I just don't check if it was a DM or a server everyone ping.
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I'd definitely find a feature like this useful as well; since I'm a member of so many servers, sometimes it's difficult to pinpoint where I got a notification from, even with the inbox feature. If I could customize what notification sound was used per server, I'd be able to recognize the source of a notification without toggling through all the servers and channels I'm a part of if I miss the toaster notification window.
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Four years later and we still have nothing comparable. I really wish options like these existed. Having “custom” sounds for specific people sounds like a dream—
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I would really like some more personalization with regards to sounds in the Windows version. In fact I find the default notification sound in Discord to be not very pleasant. I would love to be able to set a custom sound or at least change it so something else from a list of preset options.
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