Group Chat and Direct Messages

Thicket has two kinds of chat. Every project has a Chat room where the people on the project can talk in real time. Chats are direct messages: private conversations with one person or a small group, outside any project.

Chat suits quick questions, check-ins, and back-and-forth. When a conversation turns into a decision or something people will need to find later, post it on the Message Board. See Message Boards.

Project Chat

Open the project and click its Chat card. The newest lines are at the bottom; click Show earlier messages at the top to scroll back further.

To send a message, type in Type a message… and press Enter. Shift+Enter starts a new line. On a phone, tap Send. Press Shift+C from anywhere on the page to jump to the message box.

The chat updates on its own while you have it open, so new lines from others appear without reloading.

What you can add to a line

• Formatting: click the Formatting button (the T) for bold, italic, lists, headings, quotes, code blocks, links, and more. With the formatting bar open, Enter starts a new line and you click Post to send. See Formatting Text.
• Emoji: click Add an emoji.
• Files and images: click Attach files, drag files onto the message box, or paste them. Each file can be up to 10 GB, shows its progress while it uploads, and stays with the line you posted it in.
• Voice notes: when your account has them switched on, record one with the microphone button. See Voice Notes.
• @-mentions: type @ and a name to notify someone right away. See @-mentions.
• Links: the first link in a line shows a small preview with the site's name and title. Pasting a YouTube, Vimeo, or Loom link (among others) offers to Embed it in the line, or Keep as link.

Replying, cheering, editing, and deleting

Hover over a line and open its ⋯ menu (on a phone, the menu is always shown):

• Pick an emoji, or type Your own cheer…, to cheer the line. See Cheers.
• Reply quotes the line above your next message.
• Edit changes your own line. Only the person who wrote a line can edit it.
• Delete removes a line for everyone, permanently: chat lines don't go to the trash. You can delete your own lines, and owners and admins can delete anyone's.

If an admin has turned on Limit editing and deleting comments and chats, lines can be edited and deleted by their author only in the first 15 minutes after they're posted. After that, Edit no longer shows on the line, and Delete shows only for owners and admins. See Permissions.

Files posted in the chat

Open the chat's ⋯ menu and choose See all files posted here for a list of every file shared in the room, with Download links.

Chat Notifications

When teammates join a project, they start following its chat. The bell at the top of the chat shows whether you're following it:

• Notify me about new messages turns chat notifications on for you.
• Notifying you means they're on. Click it to turn them off.

When you follow a chat, new lines are gathered into one notification per chat, which updates as people keep talking. You get a push notification and an email only when someone starts chatting after the room has been quiet for 6 hours or more. The email's Jump in and join button opens the chat. Replying to the email doesn't post in the chat, so answer there. Someone who @-mentions you always notifies you right away.

To see or change who follows the chat, open the ⋯ menu and choose Notifying 7 people… (the number matches the room), then Add/remove people….

Private Chats

Chats are private conversations outside any project. Only the people in a chat can open it. Owners and admins can't read chats they aren't part of.

Starting a chat

1. Click Chats in the sidebar, then New chat. You can also click New chat in the Chats + Notifications panel, or press Shift+P.
2. Type a name to find someone, and tick one person or several.
3. Click Start chat, or Start group chat when you've picked two or more people.

If you already have a chat with exactly those people, Thicket opens it instead of starting a new one. You can also start a chat with just yourself, as a place for notes.

Owners and admins can chat with anyone in the organization. Everyone else can chat with owners, admins, and the people they share a project with.

When private chats are off for your company

An owner or admin can turn private chats off for a whole company under Admin > Permissions. If that is your company, the New chat button disappears from the Chats page and from the Chats + Notifications panel, and the Chats page says so. You can still read your past conversations, but nobody can post in them, and nobody can start a new chat with you. Project chats are not affected. If you are an owner or admin, the notice also explains the two ways out: moving yourself to a company whose private chats are on keeps the restriction for everyone else, while turning the company's switch back on lifts it for everyone in it.

In a chat

Private chats work like project chat: send with Enter, and add formatting, files, emoji, voice notes, replies, and cheers the same way. Private chats don't have @-mentions: everyone in a chat is notified of every message anyway.

• Name a group chat: click the chat's name at the top to give it a name and a cover image.
• See its files: open the ⋯ menu and choose See all files posted here.
• Archive it: choose Archive this chat… from the ⋯ menu, then Yes, archive this chat. Archiving applies to everyone in the chat and can't be undone. The conversation stays readable on the Chats page, but nobody can post to it. To pick things up again, start a new chat with the same people.

Private chat notifications

Every message in a private chat notifies everyone else in it, even if you've chosen to hear only about @-mentions elsewhere. Emails are bundled: Thicket waits a few minutes after the latest message, then sends one email with what you haven't read. Opening the chat marks its notifications as read.

Where to Find Your Chats

• Chats in the sidebar lists all your private chats, the one with the latest message first, with archived chats in their own section below.
• The Chats + Notifications button at the top right of every page shows your chats and your notifications. Press Shift+S to open or close it. See Chats and Notifications.

Search covers chat lines as well: choose Chat & private chats to search only chat lines. See Searching.

Clients and Chat

On a project that works with clients, the project chat is for your team until someone shares it. Click Change in the band at the top of the chat and choose Our team and your client company to make the whole room, including its history, visible to the project's clients. Only our team makes it private to the team again. See What Clients Can See and Do.

Owners and admins can also turn off private chats for the people at a company (see Permissions), and choose how long chat history is kept in Admin > Chat history.