Chatting in a Space
Part of our guide to running an online community you actually own.
Once you’ve joined a space, most of your time will be spent in “rooms” — the channels described in Spaces and Rooms Explained.
The simplest way to chat is just by typing a message in the composer at the bottom of the screen and hitting “Enter” to send, but Flotilla also has a rich set of content types and ways to interact.
Voice notes and dictation
If you prefer talking to typing, you can click on the microphone icon to the right of the compose area and simply talk to Flotilla. Once you’re done talking, you can turn this into a voice memo, or convert it to text to edit and then send.
Replying, quoting, and mentioning
Rooms give you several ways to reference a message, a person, or another room:
- Reply to a specific message to attach your response to it, so anyone reading later can follow the thread by clicking to navigate through the conversation. This can be especially helpful when moving through a conversation with multiple interleaved topics.
- Quote a message to reference it from a different context. This works the same way as replies, but can also reference messages from a different room or space.
- Mention another member by name to get their attention directly. Depending on their notification settings, a mention can trigger a notification for them.
- Mention a room to link to it from inside a message. Room mentions are clickable, so readers can jump straight there.
Message actions
As you might expect, you can react to any message with an emoji instead of sending a full reply. You can also “zap” a message to express appreciation. Zaps are only enabled if the recipient has opted in to accepting bitcoin micropayments.
Messages recently sent are editable, so it’s possible to fix a typo or clarify something if needed. You can also delete messages outright if you change your mind. Replies and quotes that reference the message stay intact, but it won’t be possible to load the deleted message any longer.
Messages can also be shared to other rooms, converted into Threads, read aloud, pinned to the top of the room, or added to the space Library. All of these actions can be accessed from the message menu.
Sharing images and media
Flotilla lets you share images and other media three ways:
- Drag and drop a file straight into the composer.
- Paste an image from your clipboard, including native clipboard paste on mobile.
- Upload a file directly with the composer’s upload option.
Images are compressed and uploaded to a media server before they’re attached to your message, so a large image won’t necessarily post at full size.
Other types of content
Sometimes, chat isn’t enough to express what you’d like to say. Flotilla supports several different types of content, including calendar events, polls, funding goals, classifieds, and long-form articles. These can be created right from the chat screen, allowing you to interleave them into a topical conversation.
Supporting different types of content is central to Flotilla’s core mission: chat should ideally be integrated into real life, which is full of rich experiences and different ways to organize. Your chat app should support those needs rather than distract from them.
Where to go from here
Spaces and Rooms Explained offers a higher-level overview of how rooms fit into the architecture of a Space. For one-on-one conversations, see Direct Messages. To tune what pings you, or mute a room entirely, see Notifications and Muting. To find out how to tip someone for a great message, see Zaps and Your Wallet.