Chat

Chat is where the people in a workspace talk. A thread can hold everyone in the workspace, one other person, or a few of you. Messages move the way everything else in The Margin does: one typed on a train goes out when the tunnel ends, and threads you have already opened read fine with no signal.

Who can be in a thread#

Workspace thread

everyone in the workspace, household profiles included, so a child with no email appears under their nickname.

Direct thread

you and one other person. Two people only ever have one of these between them, whoever started it.

Group thread

a few people, with a name if you give it one.

You can add anyone in your workspace and anyone you are connected to, even if you share no workspace with them. To message someone who is around right now, press their face where The Margin shows who is here: the family list in the sidebar, the Today card on the family page, the team's pulse, or the faces at the top of a board you are both on. That opens your direct thread with them, or starts it. Nobody else can be added. A thread that could reach a stranger through a guessed email address would be a nuisance, and the rest of the app refuses to be one of those too.

What you can do with a message#

Press and hold a message on a phone, or hover over it on a laptop and press the dots, and the same short menu opens, as a sheet on a phone and right beside the message on a larger screen: react, Reply and Copy text, plus Edit and Delete on your own messages. Delete asks for a second press, because it cannot be undone.

• Reactions. Six common emoji sit on the menu, and the plus button beside them opens the rest with a search box. Press one you already added to take it back. The count shows under the message, and tapping it shows who reacted.
• Replies quote the message they answer. Tap the quote to jump back to the original, which lights up for a moment so you can spot it.
• Edits and deletes. An edited message says so. A deleted one leaves a marker, so a reply to it still points somewhere, and its reactions go with it.
• Links can be tapped. Nothing else in a message is formatted: what you type is what everyone reads.
• Link previews. A message with exactly one link shows a small card with the page's title and picture, when Margin already has a preview of that address from a capture or a note. Sending a message never fetches one, so a link in chat does not tell the site anything. Two or more links stay plain. Turn previews off under Link previews in Settings→Profile.

On a laptop, Enter sends. On a phone keyboard, return starts a new line and the send button sends, so a half-written message does not go out by accident.

The mic beside the send button, Dictate a message, puts what you say into the box. You read it and send it yourself; nothing goes out by voice alone. See Voice.

In a direct thread, your latest message shows Seen once the other person has read it.

While someone else in the thread is typing, a small quill writes above the box with their name: "Sam is writing…". It goes a few seconds after they stop, or as soon as their message lands, and you never see your own. What you type is not sent until you press send; only the fact that you are typing reaches the others, and nothing about it is kept. It needs a live connection and comes with the plans that include live presence (Family and Team).

Pictures#

Sending pictures in chat is switched off for now, on the web and in the phone app, so the composer has no paperclip. A picture already sent in a thread still shows there and opens full size. To share a picture with your household meanwhile, attach it to a note or a card.

Everyone in the house#

Every family workspace has one thread called Everyone in the house. It is made with the workspace and pinned at the top of the list. Everyone in the house is in it, kids' profiles too, and people join and leave it as they join and leave the house, so nobody has to set it up. Before anyone has written in it, it says who is in it, rather than sitting empty.

If you belong to more than one family, the house you have open is the one pinned at the top. The others stay in your list, named for their house ("Everyone in The Riveras"), so you can tell them apart.

When a message names something on the shopping list ("got the lemons"), the name becomes a link that opens that list with the item picked out.

The thread list#

Each row shows who the thread is with, their picture when they have one (a household profile's portrait or emoji too), the last thing said, and when. Today's threads show the time, yesterday's say Yesterday, older ones the date. Unread threads ride at the top with a count; a muted one shows a dot instead. A deleted message never becomes the preview: the row shows the last message still standing.

On a phone, an open thread takes the whole screen with a slim bar at the top, so the messages keep the room while you type. The arrow in that bar goes back to the list.

Finding things#

Search threads, above the thread list, matches thread names and the last line in each. Inside a thread, the magnifier searches the messages on this device, and choosing a result scrolls to it.

A long thread opens where you stopped reading, with a line marking what is new. Scroll up and a pill appears to bring you back to the bottom, counting anything that arrived while you were reading further up.

Getting told#

You get one notification when a thread you have not read has something new, and no more until you read it, so a busy thread does not buzz a phone forty times. Type @ and a name to mention someone: they get a notification of their own for that message, even when they already have an unread one from the thread.

To hear nothing from a thread, open its details and choose Mute this thread. It stays in the list, just quietly, and that covers mentions too.

The bell holds one list per person. A question waiting for you in a team workspace still reaches you while you are in your personal one. A row from another workspace names it, and opening the row switches to that workspace before it opens the thread. See Sharing and permissions for how connections work.

Push notifications on this device#

With the app closed, a notification can still reach the device. Turn it on in Settings→Notifications, once on each device, because permission to interrupt you belongs to the phone or laptop and not to your account.

• A banner carries whatever the bell would carry: a chat message, a chore waiting for approval, a salary that landed.
• If you belong to more than one workspace, the banner's title starts with the name of the one it is about, and tapping it lands you there.
• Tapping a banner reuses the tab you already have open. Nothing pops up while you are looking at Margin, since the bell and the sound have already told you.
• Muting a thread silences its banners too.
• Send a test goes the same way as a real notification and reaches every device you have turned on.

Push on an iPhone or iPad

1. Open themarginapp.com in Safari and tap Share.
2. Choose Add to Home Screen.
3. Open Margin from the new icon and go to Settings→Notifications. The switch only works from the Home Screen app.

Sounds#

Settings→Notifications also has six short sounds: Glass,

Marimba, Wood, Bell, Pop and Chime, plus Silent. You choose one for each of three things: anything the app needs to tell you, a chat message, and someone mentioning you. Tap one to hear it.

Your three choices and the volume follow your account to every device. The on/off switch can also be set per device, so a work laptop can stay quiet while your phone does not.

A few moments stay silent on purpose:

• a message in the thread you are reading, or one that lands while you are typing in that thread's box;
• the first few seconds after the app opens, because the first sync arrives as a pile of history and nobody wants to hear all of it at once;
• anything before your first click or key press on the page, because browsers refuse to play sound until then. The message still arrives, just silently.

Threads about a thing#

A thread can belong to a record. On a record of money owed, Discuss this opens that debt's own thread, and once one exists the button reads Open the conversation, so both people always land in the same place. Margin Intelligence can find a record's thread when you ask about the record.

Someone not on Margin#

They have no account to send to. Instead, open the thread's details and choose Download the transcript: a plain text file you can send them any way you like.