Plugins

Chat

Chat

Chat adds channels beyond the page: one for everyone on the instance, one for every nexus and every space, channels people make themselves, in the page tree or at instance or nexus level, and direct messages between 2 and 8 people. Every page’s own comment channel, your notifications and your direct message with yourself are part of every licence; this chapter is about what Chat adds.

Chat is paid (SKU chat). Its settings are under Admin -> Chat; see Chat settings.

Finding your channels

The switcher at the top of the sidebar moves between your content and Chat. The tree icon (its tooltip says Content tree) shows the tree of nexuses, spaces and pages; Chat shows your conversations. Click either half, or Tab to the switcher and use the arrow keys. From anywhere, ⌘ ⇧ 1 (or Ctrl Shift 1) switches to the other one, even while you are typing a message, opens the sidebar if it was collapsed, and puts you on the channel or page you are on in the list it shows. It does nothing in reading mode or on the settings pages, where the sidebar is not shown. The sidebar comes back on the one you left it on, for you, on each device. In Chat you see, in order:

• your notifications;
• Threads, the threads you follow, bold with a count when replies are waiting in them, and with a dot when one has been answered since you last opened it; the Threads view shows each thread as its channel would, shows a new reply as it arrives, and has a box at the foot of each thread for answering it there;
• Starred, and then each of your own sections, when you have any;
• Channels, the channels you are in, each with where it lives in muted text beside its name;
• Direct messages: first your direct message with yourself, under your own name with you beside it, then the others, newest first;
• New message, Browse channels and People.

A bold row has new messages. How loud each row is depends on its notify level (see Organising your list).

Click a heading (Starred, one of your sections, Channels or Direct messages) to fold its group away, and click it again to open it. A folded heading still turns bold, shows a count and shows the mention dot when something is waiting inside, so folding never hides a mention. What you fold stays folded for you, in every tab and on every device. With the keyboard, the arrow keys move over the headings and the rows you can see, and Enter or Space on a heading folds or opens it.

While the tree is showing, a dot on Chat means something has arrived there for you since you last looked: a mention, a direct message, a reply in a thread you follow, a new notification, or any new message in a channel you set to All new messages. An ordinary message in a channel at Mentions and threads you follow makes its row bold and leaves the dot alone. Opening Chat clears it, and it stays clear after a reload for what you have already seen.

To find a message, press ⌘ K (or Ctrl K): messages are a group in the app’s search, beside pages and spaces (see Search).

The channels you get

#general

Everyone on the instance is in #general automatically, apart from accounts that are only guests. It carries an Everyone tag beside its name wherever it appears, and its head says Everyone on this instance. You cannot leave it.

An instance administrator can rename it or turn it off; see Chat settings.

Nexus channels

Every nexus has a channel named after it, pinned directly under the nexus’s name in the sidebar with the # glyph, apart from the nexus’s spaces. Opening it shows the channel and leaves the sidebar on the nexus. Everyone on the nexus’s member list, guests included, is in it automatically. The nexus’s admins set its topic; its name follows the nexus’s.

Space channels

Every space has a channel named after it, pinned as the first row of the space’s tree. It is not a page: it cannot be dragged, trashed, moved or sealed.

• When you create a space, the Chat channel switch is on. The line under it names the channel it makes, for example “Adds #design-team to Chat for everyone who can read this space.” Turn it off and the channel starts archived.
• In the space’s settings menu, Chat channel opens the same switch, and Join new readers automatically. With that on, everyone who can read the space is in its channel the next time they open docu.nexus.
• Turning the switch off archives the channel where it is. Turning it on again opens it.

Anyone who can read a space can read its channel. You join it from its pinned row or from Browse channels.

Making a channel

In the page tree

In a space, open the + menu and choose Channel. A channel in the tree is a page: it has a row in the tree, a link, favourites, labels, watches, the Trash, moving and the Access panel like any page; its Access and its labels are under Settings in its Primer. Its name is the page’s title in lower case with hyphens, so “Launch Room” is #launch-room, and two channels under the same parent cannot share a name (“A channel with this name already exists here.”).

To make a channel private, open its Primer, press Access under Settings, seal the page and give the people who should be in it access. Duplicating a channel’s page makes a new, empty channel. A channel’s page has no comments of its own: it is the conversation.

For the whole instance, or a whole nexus

In Browse channels, choose New channel, then where it lives:

• Everyone on this instance: anyone except guest-only accounts can make one, unless an administrator has kept that to administrators.
• A nexus: any member or admin of that nexus can make one.

Names are lowercase letters, digits and hyphens, such as office-dogs. Channels made this way are never private: for a private conversation, use a sealed channel in the tree.

Joining and leaving

• Join a channel from Browse channels or from its pinned row. Posting in a channel joins it too.
• Leave is in the channel’s head. You can leave any channel except #general and direct messages. Leaving a nexus channel, or a space channel that joins new readers automatically, lasts: you are not put back in it the next time you open docu.nexus.
• Joining and leaving change only your list. They never change who can read a channel.
• When someone joins or leaves a channel, a short line in the channel says so, such as “Walter Hohmann joined.” or “Elsie MacGill left.”. It is drawn quietly, in grey, and anyone who can post can react to it with an emoji. It cannot be replied to, edited or pinned, and it never sends a notification. Being added to a nexus channel or a space channel that joins new readers automatically shows the same line; #general and direct messages show none.

Direct messages

A direct message is a conversation between 2 and 8 people, you included. Nobody else can find it or read it, an instance administrator included.

• Choose New message (or People), pick one or more people, up to seven, and press Message.
• Choosing the same people again opens the same conversation, whoever starts it and in whatever order.
• Its people are fixed. To bring someone else in, start a new message with everyone you want in it.
• A direct message is listed under Direct messages with the other people’s pictures, and, when it is just the two of you, whether the other person is active, away or offline.

You are told about a direct message in your notifications only while you have docu.nexus closed, and at most once every ten minutes for one conversation.

The People view

People (and New message) lists the people you can message: everyone who shares a nexus with you, each with their status, active first, then away, then offline, each by name. An instance administrator sees every account. Your own name comes first, with you beside it, and opens your direct message with yourself.

Someone who shares no nexus with you is not listed, but you can still find them by typing their exact username or email address in the filter; they show as offline unless you already share a channel or a direct message.

To appear offline to everyone in chat, open My preferences from your avatar menu, then Profile, and turn off Show my presence. Others see you as offline within moments, and you still see their status. Turn it back on to be shown again. Until you choose, the switch follows the instance’s default, which an administrator sets in Admin -> Chat.

Messages and threads

Every message in a channel reads the same way, yours included: on the left, under the sender’s picture, name and the time. Several messages in a row from one person sit under one name; point at one to see its time.

Point at a message (or tap it on a touch screen) for its actions: Reply in thread, React, Pin, and on your own messages Edit and Delete. Point at an icon to see its name. React opens the emoji picker beside it, and pointing at a reaction under a message shows the emoji’s name and who reacted with it. An edited message is marked (edited) after its words, for everyone in the channel as soon as you save. A message without files cannot be saved with no words: to remove it, use Delete.

Reply in thread, or the reply count under a message (“3 replies”), opens the thread in a panel beside the channel: the message, its replies and a box of its own for answering. Close thread (the X) closes it. Where the window is too narrow for both, the thread takes the place of the channel, and the back arrow returns to the channel where you left it. Threads shows each thread you follow as a card: the message that started it and its replies. A long thread shows its first two replies and its newest, with Show N replies between them to read the rest in the card. Open in channel on the first message opens its channel with the thread in that panel.

Mentioning someone

Press the @ button beside a channel’s message box, or a thread’s, and type a name, username or email. In a channel, the people who can read it are offered, whether or not it is in their list; in a direct message, its people are offered as soon as you press the button. Picking one puts @Name in your message, and they are told in their notifications when you send it, whatever their notify level. If you type the exact username or email of someone who cannot open the channel, the picker says so and does not offer them.

Inviting someone to a channel

In a channel’s message box, type /invite and a name. docu.nexus offers the people who can read the channel and are not in it yet; choose one, and they are told in their notifications. Send adds someone only when exactly one person is offered, or you typed their exact username or email address. You can invite people in any channel you can post in.

An invite only puts the channel in their list; it never gives anyone access. The channel shows who added whom, such as “Walter Hohmann added Elsie MacGill.”.

• If the person cannot open the channel, you see “Sam Stranger cannot open this channel.” If you manage a channel in the tree or a space’s channel, Give access and invite opens its Access panel; once they can read it, invite them again.
• In a direct message, /invite answers “Start a new message to add someone.”, because a direct message’s people are fixed.

Organising your list

In a channel’s head, once the channel is in your list:

• Star puts it under Starred at the top of your list.
• Notify and section sets how loudly it asks for your attention, and which of your own sections it sits under. New section there makes a section and moves the channel into it, and Delete section deletes the chosen one, moving its channels back under Channels.

The three notify levels:

Channels start at Mentions and threads you follow, and direct messages at All new messages. An ordinary new message in a channel never goes to your notifications, and nor does a reply in a channel’s thread: the bold row and Threads are how you see them. (A reply in a page’s comment thread is still a notification, since Threads does not list those.) You follow a thread by starting it or replying in it.

Browse channels

Browse channels, at the bottom of the Channels list, shows the channels you can read, grouped by where they live. The ones you are in, #general among them, say Joined; the others have Join. Show archived adds the archived ones.

The channel head

Every channel shows its name and, below it, where it lives: the nexus for a space channel, Nexus for a nexus’s own channel, the nexus for a nexus channel someone made, and the nexus, space and folders above a channel in the tree. Its topic, when it has one, is under that.

A channel’s Primer

Primer (the open book in the head, as on a nexus or a space) opens the channel’s primer. Its top half says what the channel is and where it lives:

• its name;
• its path, in full: Instance for a channel of the whole instance, the nexus for a nexus’s channels, the nexus and the space for a space’s channel, and the nexus, the space and every folder above a channel in the tree;
• its topic and a longer description.

Under Settings follow, for a channel in the tree, Access, which opens its page’s Access panel, and its labels, which you add and remove there as on any page; then who can post (everyone who can read it, or Announcements only) and, for a space’s channel, Join new readers automatically. Access and the labels need no Edit: what you may change in them is what you may change on any page, so if you can only view the channel’s page its labels are not shown, as Tags is not on any page you can only view.

Everyone who can read the channel can open its Primer. A channel’s managers also see Edit, which turns it into a form:

• the name, for #general and the channels people make (a space’s, a nexus’s or a page’s channel is named after its place);
• the topic, one line of up to 250 characters, and the description, up to 2,000, each saved when you leave the field;
• who can post, saved as you choose, and for a space’s channel Join new readers automatically;
• Archive (for #general, Turn off), which asks first.

A green check beside a field says it was saved. If a change cannot be made, the reason shows at the top of the window. Done returns to reading. Right-clicking a channel in the Channels list offers Primer too. Direct messages have no Primer.

Pinned messages

When a channel has pinned messages, the line above its messages says how many (“2 pinned”). Press it to show them beside the channel, each with its sender and its words. Unpin is among a pinned message’s actions, and Show in channel brings it into view in the channel, opening its thread when it is a reply. Close pinned messages (the X) closes them. Where the window is too narrow, and in a page’s Chat tab, the pinned messages take the place of the channel, and the back arrow returns to it.

Who is here

Below a channel’s messages, a line says who is writing right now: “Ana is typing…”, “Ana and Raj are typing…”, or “Several people are typing…” for three or more. A reply being written in a thread shows inside that thread. You never see your own typing.

In the people lists (People, a channel’s People and agents, /invite’s suggestions and a direct message’s head), everyone carries a dot for whether they are Active (docu.nexus is open and in use), Away (open, but hidden or idle for ten minutes) or Offline. Nothing about it is kept: there is no “last seen”.

People and agents in a channel

The People and agents button in a channel’s head lists who is in it, with their status, and any agents let in: Otis, tagged Assistant, and External agents, tagged Agent, for agents people connect with an agent token.

Agents read and post in a channel only once they are let in. A channel’s managers, and in a direct message any of its people, switch each one on or off in the same list. Otis is the only agent a direct message can have. A new channel starts with Otis in it, shown as “Otis joined.”, where Otis is licensed and switched on for its nexus.

Asking Otis

With Otis licensed as well, and switched on for the nexus, write @Otis in a message to ask it something: in a channel Otis has been let into, in a page’s chat, or in an inline comment. The @ button in the message box offers Otis where it would answer; anywhere else a typed @Otis is answered “Otis is not available here.”

• The answer is posted in the channel for everyone there, as “Otis, asked by” your name, in the thread you asked in.
• Otis answers from what you and everyone else in the channel can read, and nothing more.
• Any change Otis proposes, such as a new page, is never posted: it waits as a card in a panel above your message box that only you can see, and in your Otis drawer, for you to accept or skip.
• Otis answers one question at a time in a channel. A question asked while it is busy waits its turn; past three waiting, you are told “Otis is busy here; ask again in a moment.”

Archiving

A channel’s managers can archive it from its Primer (press Edit; Archive is under Settings). It becomes read-only with an Archived bar at the top, leaves everyone’s Channels list, and stays readable and searchable; Show archived in Browse finds it. Unarchive in the bar opens it again.

When the licence lapses

Nothing is hidden or deleted. Every channel and direct message stays readable, with its history, search and files, and nobody can post in it, make or join a channel, start a direct message, invite, organise or browse, until a key with Chat is added; channels in your own sections are listed under Channels until then. A channel in the tree still opens as its page, with the composer locked, and a channel opened at its own address says it is read-only where its composer was.