UI Idea: Additional miniature companion window with configurable shortcuts (think Steam friend's list sized)

[Gwamma]

Problem

One of my largest issues with Discord is how you have to be in their 1 main window to do anything in the app. Whether it's something lightweight and personal like sending a DM to a close friend, or something casual and habitual like hopping in my gaming group's voice chat in the evening, I have to be in the FULL Discord UI to do it. I know I'm being picky here, but I think a lot of people are with me in enjoying and wanting something both minimal and powerful.

Proposed solution

I would love to see what I'm calling a "companion window". I am sure most of you are familiar with how Steam has the separate friend's list window that also has potent utilities (join game, start voice call, etc.).

What I am visualizing in my mind is a minimal but powerful & configurable tool that lets users streamline their experience and tailor it to what is best for them. As an example of some utilities I'd like to see, something like this:

1. Select specific friends to be displayed in the companion window.
   These friends would then have a right-click menu that listed a few potent options, such as sending a DM or initiating a direct voice call.
   That way if I text chat with 1 or 2 friends every day, I can quickly connect with them from a more minimal UI.
   I would also like an option to nudge them that you are in a channel that you both are members of. That way, if a friend and I had earlier planned to hop into a group chat together, but only after we completed a few tasks, I could essentially ping that friend to let them know I am ready, without having to open the primary window, navigate to DM's, find their name, type it out, etc. This would be fast and easy. The other person would see something like "Hey, [your friend] is in [channel name]". I think this could be a very useful feature.

2. Select specific locations to be listed in the companion window. I say locations because it can be multiple types of destination. Think of it as a favorites list or something like that. I can have my voice chat channel from my personal self hosted server listed there, and I could have a voice channel for something like, I dunno, my Guild Wars 1 guild's voice chat channel. If you're old enough to remember speed dial on phones (remember when phones had buttons?) , I am thinking along those lines.
   There are plenty more functions that could be implemented but these are basic core features I would really like to see. As for the visual aspect of these things, it could be a list, or a grid tile system that shows friends avatars, etc. There are so many directions this could go!

I want to address one issue I see with my idea: say I right click on my friend "Dave" in the companion window and select "text chat". What will this look like? Option 1 is it opens the text chat in the primary window (like it is in Discord) and we're not minimal anymore. We've made a U-turn back into the main window.
Another possibility is a Steam-style popout window. This could get really cumbersome with multiple chats and stuff BUT it could also be really awesome if it's made super modular and you can combine them into tabs (again like steam does) or stick them to the side of the companion window or other options. With modularity the potential of the whole idea of the companion window goes up and up.

To put the whole idea as a metaphor, the primary window would be like your whole inventory, it's where you go when you want to review all your options and possibilities. This companion window would be like your 1-0 hotkeys that you use to swap weapons and armor on the fly. You don't need every piece of armor in a hotkey because a lot of that is just loot you're going to sell. It's the same with something like Fluxer or Discord, they are powerful tools but everyone is going to use a different portion of the toolkit, and the ability to customize our own quick access would be insanely sweet.

I'm just spitballing here but the window could be named something like Speed Dial, Command Center, Flux Capacitor (my fav), the Magic Window, etc.
I know the roadmap for Fluxer is long and things like UI aren't nearly as important as the backbone of the service right now, and I am just happy that this project exists at all, but since we are daydreaming here I figured I would share my idea. Thanks for reading. I may come back to edit/ add as I remember things but it's midnight and I am exhausted.

Notes (optional)

If you read all that, I appreciate you. :D

Checks

• I searched for existing discussions and didn't find a duplicate.