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zjs81
c229b0369e
- Updated supported languages to include Hungarian, Japanese, and Korean. - Added new on-device message translation feature with detailed usage instructions. - Introduced emoji reactions in chat with user interface and functionality details. - Implemented linkification for automatic detection of URLs and meshcore URIs in messages. - Added GPX export functionality for contacts with GPS coordinates. - Enabled pinch-to-zoom for chat text scaling. - Documented background service for Android to maintain BLE connection in the background. - Revised BLE protocol documentation to reflect changes in connection state machine and command codes. - Updated channels documentation to clarify message display and interaction options. - Enhanced chat and messaging documentation with new translation button and message metadata. - Clarified contact actions in contacts documentation. - Adjusted map and location documentation for improved node name visibility and filter options. - Revised navigation documentation to streamline disconnection process. - Improved notification documentation to specify batch notification behavior. - Updated repeater management documentation to reflect new features and settings. - Enhanced scanner and connection documentation for device filtering and connection timeout. - Expanded settings documentation to include new translation options. - Removed jni plugin references from generated plugin files for Linux and Windows.
6.7 KiB
6.7 KiB
Chat & Messaging
Overview
The app supports two chat modes:
- Direct messages: Encrypted point-to-point messages to individual contacts
- Channel messages: Broadcast messages to shared channels (see Channels)
This page covers direct messaging. For channel chat, see the Channels documentation.
How to Access
From the Contacts screen, tap any Chat-type contact to open the ChatScreen.
Chat Screen Layout
App Bar
- Title: Contact name
- Subtitle: Current routing path label (e.g., "2 hops", "flood (auto)", "direct (forced)") and unread count. Tapping the subtitle shows the full path details.
- Action buttons:
- Routing mode (waves icon): Switch between Auto, Direct, and Flood routing
- Path management (timeline icon): View recent paths with hop count, round-trip time, age, and success count. Paths are color-coded by direct repeater (green/yellow/red/blue for ranked repeaters, grey for unknown). Tap a path to activate it (the device verifies and confirms via snackbar), long-press to view full path details, set custom paths, or force flood mode. A warning banner appears when history reaches 100 entries.
- Info (info icon): Contact info dialog showing type, path, GPS coordinates, public key, and SMAZ compression toggle
Message List
- Scrollable list with newest messages at the bottom
- Outgoing messages: Right-aligned, primary color background. Failed messages change to a red-toned error container background
- Incoming messages: Left-aligned, grey background with a colored avatar (initial letter or first emoji of sender name; color is deterministic from a hash of the sender name)
- Bubble width capped at 65% of screen width
- Hyperlinks rendered as tappable green underlined text
- Pinch-to-zoom: Two-finger zoom (0.8x–1.8x) and double-tap to reset
- Jump to bottom: Floating button appears when scrolled away from the bottom
- Lazy loading: Scrolling to top loads older messages from storage
Input Bar
- GIF button (left): Opens GIF picker bottom sheet
- Translation button (optional, between GIF and text field): Shown only when translation is enabled in App Settings. Tap to configure outgoing-message translation language and on/off toggle.
- Text field (center): Auto-capitalization, enforces UTF-8 byte limit in real-time
- Send button (right): Submits the message
- On desktop: Enter/Numpad Enter also submits
- When a GIF is selected, the text field shows an inline GIF preview with a dismiss button
Message Types
| Type | Wire Format | Display |
|---|---|---|
| Plain text | Raw UTF-8 string | Inline text with link detection |
| GIF | g:<giphy-id> |
Inline GIF image from Giphy CDN |
| Location pin | m:<lat>,<lon>|<label>|... |
Location icon + label; tap to open map |
| Reaction | r:<hash>:<emoji-index> |
Applied to target message as emoji pill |
Message Status
Outgoing messages display a status indicator:
| Status | Icon | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Pending | Grey double-check | Queued, waiting for device to transmit (visually identical to Sent) |
| Sent | Grey double-check | Device confirmed transmission (visually identical to Pending) |
| Delivered | Green double-check | Remote node acknowledged receipt |
| Failed | Red X | All retries exhausted |
Message Tracing Mode
When enabled in App Settings, additional metadata appears inside each bubble:
- Timestamp (HH:MM)
- Retry count (e.g., "Retry 2 of 4") — only shown for outgoing messages where at least one retry has occurred
- Status icon (outgoing only)
- Round-trip time in seconds (if delivered)
Message Length Limits
- Direct messages: 156 bytes (UTF-8) — enforced in real-time by the input formatter
- Channel messages: 160 minus sender name length minus 2 bytes for the
"<name>: "prefix - Over-length paste shows a snackbar error
Send Queue
Only one message per contact can be in-flight at a time (to avoid overflowing the firmware's 8-entry ACK table). If you send multiple messages rapidly, they are queued and sent sequentially — each waits for the previous one to be delivered, fail, or exhaust retries before transmitting.
Retry Mechanism
When a direct message is sent:
- The app computes an expected ACK hash:
SHA256([timestamp][attempt][text][selfPubKey])[0:4]— matching the firmware's hash calculation. If SMAZ compression is enabled, the compressed text (not the original) is hashed - On device acknowledgment (
RESP_CODE_SENT), the message transitions to "sent" and a timeout timer starts - Timeout duration: Preferably from the ML timeout prediction service; otherwise calculated from LoRa airtime physics:
500 + (airtime × 6 + 250) × (pathLength + 1)ms for direct paths,500 + 16 × airtimems for flood (airtime is estimated from the radio's current spreading factor, bandwidth, and coding rate) - On timeout, the message is retried with exponential backoff:
1000 × 2^retryCountms (1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, 16s...) - Max retries: Configurable (default 5, range 2–10)
- After max retries, the message is marked "failed" — but a 30-second grace window remains during which a late ACK can still resolve the message to "delivered"
- If Clear Path on Max Retry is enabled (App Settings), the contact's stored routing path is automatically cleared when max retries are exhausted
- Auto route rotation: When enabled (and no manual path override is set), the retry service uses a diversity window to avoid re-using recently tried paths, cycling through known routes on each attempt
Manual Retry
Long-press a failed message → "Retry" to re-send using the current routing settings.
Reactions
Add emoji reactions to incoming messages (not your own):
- Long-press (or right-click on desktop) a message
- Select "Add reaction" from the context menu
- Choose from quick emojis (thumbs up, heart, laugh, party, clap, fire) or browse the full emoji picker
- Reactions appear as pills below the message bubble with emoji and count
- Pending reactions show at 50% opacity with a spinner
- Failed reactions show a red retry icon (tap to retry)
Context Actions (Long-Press / Right-Click)
| Action | Availability | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Add reaction | Incoming messages only | Opens emoji picker |
| View path | Mobile: tap bubble directly; Desktop: long-press/right-click menu | Shows message routing path |
| Copy | All messages | Copies text to clipboard |
| Mark as Unread | Incoming messages only | Marks this message and all subsequent incoming messages as unread |
| Delete | All messages | Removes locally (not from mesh) |
| Retry | Failed outgoing messages | Re-sends the message |
| Open chat with sender | Room server chats | Opens 1:1 chat with the message sender |