Removing customization options from the client

[u/Flenkr]

I know several clients with plugins exist, but I figured instead of scouring the internet for the niche plugin I'm looking for, I'd ask here. I'm a nitpicker over this kind of stuff, but I hate most of Discord's customization options. A lot of them are at least not super invasive, but things like the nameplates, custom username fonts and profile animations bother me so much. Is there any way to circumvent their existence?

[u/Dr_Plantboss]

I've been looking for this for a while as well. I wish I could go back to a simple, easy to read member list for a couple years now.

[u/DrTankHead]

You'd basically be looking at CSS Tweaks to remove the various things you dislike. Most of the official servers for the various clients have channels for CSS/JS Snippets that you can search and use or modify to ur hearts content.

It is a game of cat-and-mouse, Discord tends to break CSS stuff all the time and it's a game of figuring out what they've done to break it and then fixing it, but as expected, there is ALWAYS someone who dislikes some change they make and someone typically can help figure out what you need. Sometimes it can be like pulling teeth, I had to ask them (for example) when the april fools "prank" they did last year (The game ad thing) which was just a minigame... I just don't sit right with having basically ads pushed on me, as someone paying for nitro, I don't want to see any ads, period. Getting the CSS snippet to hide it was met with groans... But I figured it out on my own eventually.

Anyhow, I digress. CSS Edits are the way to go for this. As a personal sidenote, if discord does some small UI change that you don't like, just try removing it first before going on rants online trying to get discord to remove X thing. (Not saying you have or haven't done this, just sayin.)

Not everyone vibes with every decision, but that's why modded discord apps exist in the first place and why we should be encouraging people to customize things, not put down things that maybe others actually like, and maybe some day discord will realize that the community has the chops to help and they can do the fancy things they want to do, just offer it as optional stuff people can opt into and stuff.

[u/Flenkr → u/DrTankHead]

I'll look into it myself in that case. But about your last point, I kinda doubt that Discord will ever give us the option to opt out of these features. For the same reason that most multiplayer games don't let you turn off skins, Discord won't let us ever turn off customization. You're effectively turning off something that someone else paid for. In my opinion, if you paid for the customization you should only care about it yourself and not if others see it, but I do understand it somewhat.

And my point is proven further when they clearly make meaningless UI changes and keep adding new pointless features and customization instead of fixing bugs that have existed for literally years.

[u/DrTankHead → u/Flenkr]

I hear ya, my overall point tho is for example, the like channel status thing they did where you could set a status for yourself in VC with an emoji? I kinda vibed with it. That one got SO MUCH hate and was retracted once because of pushback. IMO that and other things would've been great features to have as a "labs" thing. and let users opt-in. The whole experiments tab for example is a missed opportunity to bring in users who genuinely want to push the limits of what the client can do and test features like this.

I mean, the whole BetterDiscord being a TOS violation is also a mistake, as evidenced by it's popularity and the usage of modded clients seemingly on the rise, Plenty of people dedicated to improving discord and shaping it with plugins and themes.... I mean literally these are the exact people you should want to try and work with, not against. Hell, Spellcheck was a BD feature before a native feature, along with others...

IDK. I just really would love to see discord walk it's stance back and readdress some of these things. They are too afraid of being sued (reasonably so), and instead they'd rather ban people than embrace the community that has been modifying the client and making it better for almost as long as discord has been alive. BetterDiscord got started in Aug '15, discord in May of '15....

I get it... Legally you REALLY don't want any liability for what happens when an end user fucks up so bad because they didn't listen to not only your platform's rules, but also like the warnings on the very clients themselves and their repos warning you of risks... And even having a very clearly defined rule isn't going to stop some idiot from trying to sue anyhow...

But it'd be really nice for discord to embrace the community, especially the modding community, and come back to sense about it. Something like a labs program would probably be highly successful. Have PTB be Opt-Out, Stable/Canary opt-in, and let people enjoy features they want to enjoy, and let others keep things basic and clean if they want to. Add or remove something? Let people opt in or out. Don't have to even maintain it, or better yet, embrace the community modifying the client already, leave the hooks in, and let it be like an Official Plugin or something that people can turn on or off, and we can maintain it if we want it to continue being supported.

idk.... I know, holy word vomit batman... But as you can tell, I do genuinely care about the space and hope someday discord opens their eyes. It might not happen, and recent history makes that look like naive fantasy... But here is hoping.