Hello, we utilize Rocket Chat for some work things. Basically I have a trigger message occurring that has some links and I’d just like to disable the link previews for these messages.
When a user clicks the “I got this button”, those messages get deleted from the channel and placed into a “history” channel, which simply contains a timestamp and the name of the user who clicked the button (along with the text and links). It also displays the link previews in that channel.
We just want to disable them for those 2 channels entirely. If it’s a thing that can be done via the rest API then that’s fine too.
Thank you!
Server Setup Information
Version of Rocket.Chat Server: 3.4.2 (we will be updating to 3.5.0 this Friday)
For a lot of admins they are concerned about security and may not want clickable links that may link to NSFW sites etc. The links will also track the Rocket instance which again the admin may not want.
So it is a bit more complex than just doing what a user wants!
I found this topic looking for a way to configure whether I want to include a preview link in my own messages.
I think we should better distinguish the different requests:
Administrator is concerned about security and does not want clickable links. They can switch this off, as indicated in Starhound’s response linked above:
Administration → Message → Embed Link Previews (Off).
Channel administrator/moderator wants to disable link previews for a channel. This is what was originally discussed in this topic, but not at all addressed. I think, if the administrator did not disable clickable links (1), this can be a simple element in the channel options and could even share the same name: Embed Link Previews For This Room (On/Off)
Personal setting: If link previews are allowed for the site (1) and the channel (2), I should be able to choose whether I want a link preview included in my message. I think this is what henris42 referred to earlier.
In any case, after sending a message, removing a link preview should be possible. As mentioned by Starhound, this is already addressed in #1929.
However, I see two things that seem to be important for users: the channel setting described in (2) and the personal setting described in (3). Are there already issues for this? How should this be addressed?
Well structured perspective, thanks! I’d like to add one more:
Link previews from certain domains that generally require authentication and/or just deliver visual noise.
For example, we frequentlich share Gitlab and HedgeDoc links in our project channels that simply render a fat logo preview and default text every time. But we also share other links where the preview is really useful. Thus it would be helpful to have an option to hide the preview context-related.