Compact Teams view?

Question

Teams has a lot of features, which is nice sometimes.  But its UI design is terrible, consuming too much of my screen.

Is there any way to close everything but the chat/contacts list? 

• I mean everything, I don't want to waste screen space even for an individual's chat unless I'm actively reading it. 
• And maybe limit the list to the 4 more recently active people. 

That way Teams would not get in the way of my other work but be very easy to see if any messages arrived as they'd be bolded, I'd click it and it would open the chat view for that person.

Heck, if there was a REST API I'd even write such a basic screen myself, with a button to open the full Teams app that I could use when I need more advanced features like a voice/video call.  But as far as I know Teams is a close system that doesn't allow for alternate clients.

Answer 1

I think you might have not understood my question.

I was asking about whether a compact view existed NOW for Teams.  I found posts from 3 years ago when Microsoft said that they were making one... but I can't find it.  Did they give up on it?

As to the REST API it was just wishful thinking.  I am pretty sure one does not exist or somebody would have already written apps that many of us would be using.  I am not going to waste any more time approaching a team that obviously doesn't care about customer needs.

Thanks for replying.  I was hoping to consolidate on Teams, but if there is no compact view at all and none in the horizon I'll just continue to use Hangouts.

Answer 2

Hello Bmelloni,

This feature is still under review and product team didn't give up it, so this is the reason that we mention that it isn’t feasible to achieve your requirement at this moment and recommended to check with developer community site to check if they have any other suggestion from their end.

This feature regarding update details, you can find from our Teams UserVoice site on Compact mode and also once we get any update for this feature’s availability, we will post back here.

Thanking you and have a good day.

Regards,

Ankita Vaidya

Answer 3

Hello Bmelloni,

Thanks for your post in Microsoft community.

Based on your post, seems it isn’t feasible to achieve it but further as your concern is with REST API and for that we have special dedicated expert team who are checking development related queries, so we recommend you to please kindly post your question to our developer expert’s team via Microsoft Teams Developer community. They have special expertise in it and they will batter help you to assist further. As we are belongs from Microsoft365 form team, app development related question are out of our support scope. At this point, your kind understanding and support will be highly appricated.

Thank you so much for your valubale time.

Regards,

Ankita Vaidya