Thank you @JammyDodger , I’m going to continue to experiment here. I don’t have the chat beta turned on for my own community just yet but I think your proposal would probably be great.
I am getting used to the navigation on the side bar on desktop though, and I like it. The challenge is making it consistent with the overall site flow / navigation… so I think I’ll give the chat bubble a shot. It also will be important for me to allow chats by group (for example, ham radio operators in a given US state).
@Jagster you are discussing a separate topic that is more philosophical about mobile vs. desktop. I believe that desktop navigation is important, which is why I am interested in the best navigation for desktop. If you don’t believe desktop navigation is important at all, then it makes sense that this topic wouldn’t interest you