Chat gives you a convenient way to message people during your event. Send a message to the whole room, anyone near you, or directly to another participant. 

This guide explains the chat experience for Conference Spaces when using the Gather Desktop App or a desktop browser. To learn more about chat in Remote Office Spaces, click here.

Overview

There are three types of chats:

1. Room: Use this to message everyone currently in the same Room as you. 
2. Nearby: Use this to message everyone who is standing within 5 tiles of you, or everyone who is in a Private Area with you. 
3. Inbox: Use this to directly message an individual user. If you are an Admin or Mod in the Space, you can also send a group message to all other Admins and Mods. 

Click the Chat icon in the bottom navigation bar to open the Chat Panel.

To start a new direct message, you can:

1. Open your Inbox and select New Message
2. Right-click on an avatar and select Send chat
3. Click on someone from the Participants Panel and send your message

In order to send a direct message to someone, they must be online in the space. Type your message and hit “enter” on your keyboard to send.

Q&A Feature

During scheduled event sessions, Conference Spaces allow you to use a Q&A feature in Chat. 

• Attendees can ask questions during the session and upvote questions submitted by others
• Speakers, Moderators, and Admins can review, approve, and respond to questions

To add a session, follow this guide to conferences on Gather. 

Settings

To adjust chat settings, click the Main Menu button (the Gather logo) in the bottom navigation bar. Click Settings.

Chat notification sounds

In User > Audio / Video, you can choose whether to play chat sounds for:

• All new messages
• Direct messages
• Never

Chat desktop notifications

If using the Gather Desktop App, you can choose whether you want to receive desktop notifications for chat messages. This includes any chat message you receive.

To change this setting, go to Desktop > General > Chat notifications.

Preserve Chat History

When enabled, conversation history will be preserved, meaning chats will still be visible even if someone leaves and returns to the space. If disabled, future chat messages will not be saved. They'll be deleted every time someoen leaves or refreshes the space. 

To edit this setting, you must be an Admin or Moderator of the space. Go to Space > Space Preferences > Preserve Chat History. 

To edit this setting, you must be an Admin of the space and you must have purchased a Reservation.

In Space > Space Preferences, you can disable chat entirely for everyone in the space.