[Massive Feature Request] - Desktop UI Quality of Life Improvements (PLEASE!)

Hello,

Please know that what I request here isn't to disparage the UI designers on your team, but is simply an expression of personal taste which I know is shared by many others who aren't fond of mobile-focused UI for the most part.

I also understand that presently, a single UI system is in use which simply rearranges itself via mobile web compliance measures, between desktop and mobile versions of the standalone client. This saves a lot of time and headache, and I can't blame you for going that route.

Nonetheless, I have some gripes with the UI on desktop, which is where I personally use Discord exclusively. Below are some issues I have, along with suggestions for optional (as in, optional for the user to choose) alternative implementations of elements for desktop. I am sure you hear a million requests/suggestions every day and I am just adding to that noise but, as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the oil, so thank you in advance for enduring yet another person barking suggestions at you.

#1 - Too much horizontal crowding!

The persistent panels for servers, channels/friends list and people present in a server crowds the chat window far too much. These are all necessary elements, but I don't see why they need to be fixed and persistent like this. They could be collapsible, with simple quality of life features added to work with this and inform users when activity is going on. Below are suggestions for handling this for the three panels which ought to permit collapsing.

• Server List - Server would just get another button where the HOME button is now, moving the HOME button over. Clicking this button would either expand or collapse the server list. Activity on servers, when the panel is collapsed, would be indicated by the same notification graphic which already appears on individual server icons.
• Channel/Friends/DM list - This one would remain persistent, but I recommend letting the user set the font size for this separately from the chat window, so it can be made to be smaller and less-intrusive if desired. (If this is already possible and I've just never noticed this option, forgive my ignorance).
• People-In-Server List - This one should be collapsible, ang et a button in the right corner (parallel to the home and server buttons) that expands/contracts it with a click.

#2 - Friends/DMs is too disorganized!

This one honestly baffles me, given how neatly-structured server channel lists are. In fact, I recommend an overhaul of DMs and friend lists entirely, as the present layout is ... obtuse and completely at odds with how most IM/Chat clients have ever handled this.

• Friend lists and DMs should not be separate, wasteful panels like they are now. Friends should be a persistent list of items in the panel which is vertically-collapsible (think "combobox" nodes). There's no need to "close" DM sessions with people in your friends list anyhow. DMs from people not in your friends list should just be another category beneath it, also collapsible vertically in the same manner. A third node for "pending" should just be at the very bottom.
• Ideally, you could adapt the server management interface to let users put their friends into individual nodes they create, to better organize them if they like.

#3 - Server members and Channel Lists

In a similar vein to above, the categories containing channels in a server should be collapsible, as should categories of users. They're entirely too "wall of text" right now, and it's offputting and tedious to sort through them.

#4 - Call features

Below are just some nice quality of life features to make the VoIP nicer and more professional.

• Custom ringtones - How about letting users choose a global ringtone for calls, as well as assign individual ones for people in their friends list? No need to worry about hosting them, they can just be ones on the local hard drive. The existing one is kind of obnoxious, not going to lie.
• Disable calling - Let the user disable incoming calls entirely if they want.

Thank you for listening and I hope you will consider these quality of life improvements for the desktop app. If this is utterly unfeasible or at best totally impractical to branch your UI to facilitate, perhaps allowing third-party developers to access the protocol to make dedicated desktop clients would be nice. You already allow bots and apps, why not open the protocol (only for non-nitro features) for third party client creation?