Sharing some feedback re: the Windows desktop app.
In the newest UI update, the “chat history” portion of the sidebar was changed to only show the five most recent thread. To access threads further back, you now must click a “see more” button. Clicking this button reveals a scrollable pop-over selection menu.
While I get what the UX team is going for (simplicity at the surface level), this is an incredibly frustrating change for power users; Particularly because once I’ve chosen an “old” thread, the pop-over menu closes and I must click “see more” again if the thread I selected was not the one I actually desired.
Well over half the time that I open the GPT app, I’m looking to quickly parse through threads further back than just the most recent five. Its worth noting that I have two particularly common use-cases for GPT that make the extra click even more frustrating:
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I often tweak prompts across multiple chat instances, trying new variations and/or new models to compare/contrast efficacy
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I often work through complex info-heavy problems that get to a point where the current GPT thread is clearly overloaded and not functioning as well as a new-born thread. I’m talking about instances where the draggable piece of the scroll bar is so tiny that you have to squint to see it (slight exaggeration but you get the point). In these cases I summarize and carry info to a new thread, and repeat that process up to a few additional times until I’ve completed the mission.
For these mentioned instances, I often need to quickly click through several (or many) various threads all which have a very similar auto-generated heading/label. Having to click “see more” in between every single attempt has already proven to be a productivity-crushing deal-breaker for me with the windows app and I’ll be switching back to the web UI as a result for now (as much as I hate to, because I just love having the native desktop app).
Previously, and like how it still is in the browser UI, users could immediately scroll through all chats without needing an additional click and without losing one’s scrolled-to place in the element’s viewport (well sometimes; Some other times the web UI does just randomly decide to refresh and murder the scroll position of the convo history element).
Back on point: This change is highly disruptive for users who lean on the product many times per day and who iterate on similar prompts/topics multiple times in succession. At the very least, I’d be very appreciative to have an option in the settings to switch back to the original UI flow for convo history.
However I do want to express my appreciation for ChatGPT and the team(s) working on all of this stuff. It’s still such a valuable tool. And I especially love the new conversation search functionality that actually works across all past threads! You guys rock.
Anyway, I hope this constructive feedback reaches you well and that others resonate with the sentiments.
Thanks!