Flotilla
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Chatting in a Space

Using Flotilla By Jon Staab 4 min read

Posting, replying, reacting, editing, and sharing media in a space's rooms — the day-to-day of using Flotilla.

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 there happens in its rooms — the channels described in Spaces and Rooms Explained. Text rooms work like real-time chat: pick one from the navigation, type in the composer at the bottom, and hit send. This article covers the everyday mechanics of posting and interacting with messages once you’re inside.

Replying, quoting, and mentioning

A busy room moves fast, so Flotilla gives you a few ways to keep things clear:

  • Reply to a specific message to attach your response to it, so anyone reading later can follow the thread instead of guessing what you meant.
  • Quote a message to reference it — handy for bringing something up again later, or pointing to it from a different context.
  • 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 instead of hunting through the navigation.

Reactions, edits, and deletes

React to any message with an emoji instead of sending a full reply — a quick way to acknowledge something without adding noise to the room.

Messages you’ve sent are yours to manage. Edit one after posting to fix a typo or clarify something, or delete it outright if you change your mind. Neither affects the rest of the conversation — replies and quotes that reference the message stay intact.

Sharing images and media

You don’t have to stick to text. Flotilla lets you share images and other media a few 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.

How rich content renders

Rooms render more than plain text. As you scroll, you’ll see:

  • Link previews for URLs shared in a message.
  • Inline images and video shown directly in the chat instead of as bare links.
  • Code blocks for anything wrapped in backticks — useful if your space is technical.
  • Custom emoji, if your space has any configured.
  • Sensitive-content blur — media flagged as sensitive is blurred by default until you choose to reveal it.

Knowing your message was actually delivered

Because a room lives on a relay rather than a company’s server, sending a message isn’t quite as simple as it looks. Next to each message you send, Flotilla shows a small per-relay publish-status indicator. It tells you whether the message actually reached the relay and was accepted, instead of silently failing somewhere along the way. If a message looks like it didn’t go through, that indicator is the first place to check — it’s the difference between “posted” and “looked like it posted.”

Where to go from here

Chat in rooms is just one layer of what a space offers — see Spaces and Rooms Explained for the bigger picture, including threads, the calendar, and the library. To talk to someone one-on-one instead of in a room, see Direct Messages. If a room gets too loud, Notifications and Muting covers how to tune what pings you or mute it entirely. And to tip someone for a great message, see Zaps and Your Wallet.