Create a chat that is specifically attached to a cell in a notebook.

[lahvak]

Often when collaborating on a notebook (for example when reviewing a student's project, or grading an assignment), I want to comment on a specific cell in the notebook. Right now I can:

1. create a markdown cell under the cell I am commenting to, and write my comments there. The problem with this is that someone then must go and delete all such comments before the final version of the notebook is produced, and it is also tricky to visually distinguish these from the rest of the notebook to draw attention to them.
2. write my comments in the chat, using the cell number for reference, which becomes invalid at the moment someone adds another cell above.

Having a way to attach a new chatroom to a cell from the notebook view, such that in the notebook view participants could see that there is a chat attached to it, and click on it to pen the chat, would in my opinion greatly boost productivity when collaborating on notebooks.

I am not sure if there is a space for something like that in the cell metadata, or whether it would have to be implemented separately (using the metadata would be useful for preserving the chat link when making copies of the notebook).

[haraldschilly]

@lahvak well, we could add chat messages to metadata.cocalc.chat but I think it would be better to keep it in the same datastore as the side-chat. I can imagine there is a new category for "cell chats" that are anchored to a specific cell. On the cell you see some kind of "button" to notify you there is a chat (comments) → you click and that side chat opens up → cell category → and you see the comments. If the cell is removed, the chat stays as an orphaned category. You can also always switch between cell-chat threads, which cause the notebooks active cell to jump to the cell it talks about, for context.

[lahvak]

That's pretty much how I imagined it. I was thinking about using the cell metadata only to point to the chat datastore, rather than to keep all the messages there.

[haraldschilly]

so, cells already have a stable "id", that does not change when moving it around. I would let the chat cell thread point to that cell (or if it is gone, its an orphaned chat). So, same idea, but the other way around :-)

[haraldschilly]

I came up with something in this PR: #8847

should be live today or tomorrow