If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Group chat software update
TheMix
Posts: 3,094 Boards Guru
Hello Mixers!
Today, we're rolling out a big software update for group chat. This includes a bunch of new features, a tonne of bug fixes, and improvements to our moderation and safety tools.
Ordinarily, we would have spent time testing this with you folks and perhaps made a few changes at a time rather than all at once. Unfortunately an unfinished version of this update was accidentally released last week, and since then we've had no choice but to focus on fixing what was released. We're super aware that this is a lot to adjust to and not the best way of doing this, so thanks for bearing with us.
The good news is this update is now finished, and we're happy to say pretty much everything functions properly. In this post we've included a full list of changes, bug fixes, and known issues.
EDIT: Your feedback matters so please keep it coming! We're very open to changing what we're able to change, and generally making sure chat works as well as it can for all of us. 😊
Known issues
New features
Bug fixes
Changes made since launch
Please pop any questions, additional issues, or general feedback below. 😊
Mike & the team ✨
Today, we're rolling out a big software update for group chat. This includes a bunch of new features, a tonne of bug fixes, and improvements to our moderation and safety tools.
Ordinarily, we would have spent time testing this with you folks and perhaps made a few changes at a time rather than all at once. Unfortunately an unfinished version of this update was accidentally released last week, and since then we've had no choice but to focus on fixing what was released. We're super aware that this is a lot to adjust to and not the best way of doing this, so thanks for bearing with us.
The good news is this update is now finished, and we're happy to say pretty much everything functions properly. In this post we've included a full list of changes, bug fixes, and known issues.
EDIT: Your feedback matters so please keep it coming! We're very open to changing what we're able to change, and generally making sure chat works as well as it can for all of us. 😊
Known issues
- FIXED You may need to clear your cache once to see the new group chat
- FIXED Mods are unable to close rooms until everyone leaves
- FIXED Mods are mute-able (please don't mute them!)
- FIXED An old version of the chat guidelines still appears when entering group chat through The Mix website, and you need to agree to this before joining
New features
- Message reactions are now available - smile, hug, thumbs up, thumbs down (the thumbs down reaction will be removed in a future update)
- Automatic messages announce when people enter or leave a room
- You can now tag other members by using @name
- All chatters must agree to the guidelines before logging in
- Message character limit has been greatly increased
- Moderators can pin messages to the top of the chat
- Video, GIF, and image links will now display a preview
- The room list now appears when the rooms button is clicked above the chat window
- Behind the scenes functionality for mods and staff has been improved
- Emoji will now be displayed as images rather than code in the text box
- Browser notifications can keep alerts on when tabbed out of group chat
- The Mix colours are now displayed in the top left of chat
Bug fixes
- Messages no longer appear multiple times when using Microsoft browsers
- Guests can now send messages
- The user list is now completely visible on mobile
- Entering passworded rooms on mobile now works consistently
- You can now consistently view images sent from desktop on mobile
- User is typing message no longer lingers when that person leaves
- Several interface and navigation bugs have been fixed
- Moderation and banning tools are now more effective
Changes made since launch
- The colour of text, message bubbles, and tags have been updated to increase readability
- On mobile, text has been added to the 'chat bubble icon' to explain you need to press it to enter group chat (this wasn't super obvious before but should be now)
- New autolinks have been added based on your suggestions
Please pop any questions, additional issues, or general feedback below. 😊
Mike & the team ✨
Our DMs are monitored Monday - Friday (10am - 5pm) with limited cover on weekends. We have a great team of moderators looking after the community outside of those hours to check in on any reported posts.
We're not able to provide support on this account. If you need support urgently for any reason, please call 999, go to your nearest A&E or contact Crisis Messenger by texting THEMIX to 85258.
Post edited by TheMix on
0
Comments
Also the colours are way to bright and I find hurt my eyes and it’s quite difficult to distinguish between our message and other peoples messages because the colours of the text boxes are so light compared to that they used to have been.
I’m also concerned about the appropriateness of the emoji reactions … I’m particular there place in SC as I know you’ve said thumbs down will be removed in a future update but when is that update as right now someone could pour there heart out on SC just to receive a thumbs down or even a thumbs up …. I’m just not sure if reactions are suitable for Support chats
Totally hear this, and I'm neurodivergent myself so I can empathise! Honestly, we didn't plan for all the changes to happen at once, because we know that's not ideal and can be a lot to adjust to. Our aim was to be able to test this new build with you folks and give you more of a preview. Unfortunately the accidental launch last week meant that was no longer possible, so we had to focus on fixing what had already released.
Thank you for bearing with us though and for being patient.
We've had this feedback from a few folks and we completely agree. We're going to try out some new colours today and make sure chat feels visually accessible.
We've already made the bubble for your own messages a darker blue (similar to the old chat) and made the text white so it's nice and readable, so hopefully that helps!
This was a concern of ours too, and I really appreciate you both raising this. The current plan is for the thumbs down reaction to be removed basically ASAP - hopefully within a few days. Unfortunately it hasn't been possible to remove it sooner and we were stuck with it for yesterday's launch, but the mods will be there to make sure it's not used negatively.
We'll be continually reviewing how things are going with reactions, because they are a new addition to group chat and it might be that they don't work (or that some of them don't). If that ends up being the case and you folks would rather remove them, that will definitely be an option.
The hope is (similar to the boards) that reactions don't replace actual responses, but let everyone show a little more support to each other in an easy way. But we'll see how we go. 😊
Alternatively, you may be able to get in via this page (may take a while to load)
It sounds difficult that you cannot get on to group chat when you want to. Have you tried an incognito/private browser?
If clearing cookies fails, you could try an incognito/private browser. Though, it varies between devices and browsers. What device and browser do you try to use to access it?
Please feel free to keep us in the loop. We'll do our best to help you to access the group chat