# Tighter integration between chat and forum - discussing ideas **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature\ **Tags:** chat\ **Created:** [May 25, 2022, 3:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tighter-integration-between-chat-and-forum-discussing-ideas/228088 "2022-05-25T15:49:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 5
**Author:** ![oshyan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/oshyan/32/212644_2.png) [@oshyan](https://meta.discourse.org/u/oshyan)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2022, 4:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tighter-integration-between-chat-and-forum-discussing-ideas/228088/5 "2022-05-31T16:54:04Z")
Yeah, I think you may be right. Just playing with ideas here. 🙂 I will say that third column is great for me on a 4k 32" screen, but is not an option for many smaller screens, much less mobile. So the UI of it still needs some fancy thinking, I suspect. But my main concern at present is having **much** clearer indications of where there is chat _available_ and making it easy to _view_ it without necessarily “joining”, etc. Right now it’s pretty darn clunky, you have to choose to “browse”, then choose to “preview” a channel or “join”, etc. Compared to Discord and similar systems it is very not-smooth. 😄 It sounds like Chat _in_ Topic is going to be removed as a feature anyway, judging from recent posts from Sam, so maybe much of this consideration is no longer necessary. I think it actually makes some sense to remove chat-on-topic for now, focus on category-based chat, and then if there seems to be need for/value in per-topic chat, it can be added in sensibly later, based on existing, longer experience with the overall chat functions and how they’re used by various communities. I definitely feel quite scattered with the chat experience at present, and category-based will provide some needed focus. --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/tighter-integration-between-chat-and-forum-discussing-ideas/228088)._