Please start using more native components.

Over the years Discord has modified their designs bit by bit and I am one of the few that like the new design! However a recent update has made me realise how many basic issues could easily be solved if Discord just made use of some OS-native components, at least on mobile.

Note: this will be written from an iOS users perspective, I’m not sure if Android has all of these same native features

Take the image chooser for example. Before it didn’t entirely bother me, but a recent update changed my mind on that. Firstly, you press the Plus symbol which brings up a menu with 3 options.
 

This isn’t inherently bad, however iOS already has a native component to do this.

Using this would not only likely fix some issues that may arise from Discord developers creating their own solution, but also cleans up the codebase and just looks nicer and more native because, well, it is native. 

And again, talking about the attachment area, let’s see what happens when we try to attach an image:

This… thing appears. 

Sure, it works, but there’s something better and it already exists. Discord actually lets you use this but it baffles me that it’s not the default:

This is much nicer. You can use Haptic Touch to view an image or video before you send it, you can view many more images and videos at once, and you can view your albums and search through your photos and videos! What’s not to like?!

And not to mention, their built-in image chooser is the exact same height as the iOS default keyboard, so you’d expect it to behave the same, right? Wrong! Well, it used to before this update. Before, if you scrolled up in the conversation it would automatically dismiss itself like the keyboard. Not anymore, for some reason.

These are just two of many examples of things Discord has decided to go out of their way to make their own components  instead of opting for the native, and more functional, variants.