Whispers used to flash on the recipient's terminal and disappear with
the next redraw. No history, no record, no signal if you weren't
looking.
Now whispers are stored per-recipient in a bounded inbox (16 slots,
FIFO eviction):
typedef struct { time_t timestamp; char from[]; char content[]; } whisper_t;
whisper_t whisper_inbox[16];
int whisper_inbox_count;
_Atomic int unread_whispers;
Sender side (:msg / :w):
- resolves target as before
- pushes the whisper into target->whisper_inbox under target->io_lock
(so two simultaneous senders to the same recipient don't tear the
ring)
- bumps target->unread_whispers atomically
- sends a single \a bell + triggers redraw_pending
- no longer writes whisper text directly to the channel (which used
to get clobbered by the next redraw)
Recipient side:
- new :inbox command in COMMAND mode prints the snapshot under
io_lock, in M7 chat-list style:
悄悄话 · whispers · 3
05-17 13:42 alice: 一会儿要不要喝咖啡
...
- viewing :inbox resets unread_whispers to 0
Title bar (extends UX-11):
- bright magenta "✉ N" chip alongside the yellow "★ N" mention chip
- same priority / degradation rules as ★
Whispers remain private — they're never broadcast to the room and
never persisted to messages.log. The inbox lives only in client_t,
so disconnecting drops it.
The bell + brief yellow highlight on the chat line meant that if you
weren't looking at the screen the moment someone @-mentioned you, you
had no way to know.
Now the title bar carries a sticky chip:
tester · 在线 3 · NORMAL ★ 2 ? 帮助
- bright yellow "★ N" appears whenever client->unread_mentions > 0
- count is bumped atomically in notify_mentions() for each target
- cleared automatically when the user returns to attention:
* pressing 'i' in NORMAL to re-enter INSERT mode
* pressing 'G' in NORMAL to jump to the live tail
- never dropped by the narrow-terminal degradation (UX-6) unless
every other optional chip has already been shed — it's the highest
priority signal in the bar
Counter is _Atomic int so the cross-thread bump in notify_mentions
doesn't tear against the local thread's reads / resets.