I want to integrate a chat room, then I realized discourse comes with a chat room, then I realized it’s not very good. For example, I tried to use it here in meta and I can’t make sense of it.
For one, how do I add a channel? If a channel exists, it should be smacking me in the head to add it! This is confusing.
I’ve overlooked this feature because it’s hard on the eyes. I literally blocked it out of my mind. lol. Are there any better chats out there that integrate well with discourse or can the default chat be improved to work better? How are people supposed to find chat rooms? How do you know when people are online? I changed the word channels to chat rooms because channel is confusing. Even discourse uses chat and channel interchangeably in the above screen shot…Channels really should be chat rooms, or rooms, or chat channels. IMHO.
It’s obviously your decision, but I’d recommend giving native chat a better go before looking for alternatives. We use it heavily at Discourse and it’s great. Have you seen Exploring features in Discourse Chat? It explains how to configure it properly.
…they don’t though? You’re IN THE Chat (aka the name of the thing, Discourse Chat), looking for a CHANNEL. You wouldn’t be in the “Channel” program looking for a chat. They aren’t used interchangeably. That’s like saying you’re in a Room looking for an mIRC. “Chat channel” is also super redundant, what else would the channel in the Chat be? The forum channel? The chat forum?
You can’t add a channel here because you don’t run the site? It would be pretty silly to allow thousands of people to make their own public channels for the site. You can add a personal DM by clicking the + in the DM section, however…
I’m in the chat right now? Thought I was in the forum. When I think of chat, I think of DM but with more people, like a Whatsapp group or a signal group.
Yeah at the moment we have it hardcoded so you must be staff to create channels.
I think there is a legit feature request here to allow expanding this to a wider group, that way you could delegate trust to a wider group of people to create channels.
That said:
That is what channels are … I can see you already created a few channels and secured them using your secure categories.
All the people with access to the secure categories now have access to the chat … especially since you already set up chat_allowed_groups appropriately.
Geeze. Join. How do I join a channel since I’m not joined to any? The chat box is a dead end. I don’t expect people to just randomly make their own channels or chat rooms or whatever on meta or my own site. Despite accidentally using the word “add” your implication is a bit of a stretch.
You are in the forum right now but the window in your screen shot is the chat area here on Meta and you can’t add channels because it is not your forum. On your forum you will have admin capabilities.
Are you talking about here on Meta or on your own forum? There are no public channels here on Meta so you won’t find any to join. You can only use it to message individuals.
You can configure public channels if you choose to – see below for how we use it internally with public channels.
I think there’s a huge misunderstanding. I’m not trying to create any channel here in meta. I am merely asking how do I join an existing channel? When I open the chat box and it tells me I’m not part of anything and there’s nothing to click on what do I do next?
“There are no public channels here on Meta so you won’t find any to join.”
This!
This clears up why I cannot join any channels. You guys don’t have any channels to join, but you do have a chat box that leads someone like me to question the reason for it.
I am understanding the chat feature better now since starting this discussion.
I’m in the position of having to bridge the gap between your platform and my members who are just as technically illiterate, if not more, than I am.
So I want to make sure I understand clearly how this thing works, that way people aren’t as confused.
All I really want are for people to click on a chat, find a room and start chatting with each other. That’s it. I started creating rooms on my forum for members to join. And now, since I have channels they can join, they won’t be as confused as I was when I started this topic here in meta.
when I open chat here. There is no channels listed as per Op’s SS. I have used personal chat here. But had not looked before to see if Meta has any public available channels.
