Chat

Chat in 5Stack covers direct messages and every room you're part of: matches, teams, lobbies, draft rooms, tournaments and organizers. It all lives in the Chat app on the hub dock, match and draft rooms also sit on their own pages, and match chat is relayed both ways between the browser and the game server.

Rooms

Room	Who's in it	Messages kept for (default)
Match chat	Both teams in a match	1 hour
Team chat	One lineup in a match	1 hour
Queue chat	Your matchmaking lobby	1 hour
Draft lobby chat	Everyone in a draft room	1 hour
Tournament chat	A tournament's teams, free agents and organizers	7 days
Organizers chat	Match Organizers and above	24 hours
Direct messages	Two players	365 days

Retention is set per kind of room by an administrator under Settings → Application → Chat Settings (see Integrations). Direct messages are stored in the database rather than expiring with room chat.

When a draft room becomes a match, its chat carries on in the match room.

A tournament's chat stays open for 7 days after the tournament finishes, so nobody is cut off mid-conversation. The chat header shows an amber Ended · closes in … stamp counting down to when the room closes. The tournament page has a Chat Room button beside its tabs, with the room's unread count.

The chat rail

Every conversation you're in is a tab on the rail of the Chat app. Drag tabs to reorder them (on a touch screen, long-press first), and Remove from bar takes one off. Pop out to window opens the conversation in its own window for a second monitor.

Unread badges count from the moment you sign in. Match and team chat never count toward unread: in-game chat is relayed into those rooms line by line, and you have already read it in the game.

The participant list links every player to their profile.

Writing messages

• Enter sends, Shift+Enter starts a new line.
• Messages can be up to 2000 characters. A countdown appears beside Send for the last 200.
• Up arrow in an empty box edits your last message.
• Typing /gif offers a GIPHY search (see GIFs).

In a match, the box switches between Everyone ("Both teams — also shown in game chat") and Your team ("Your lineup only — not shown in game chat"). Ctrl+Enter sends to the other one without switching. The message list filters to All, Everyone or Team.

Each player can send 5 messages every 3 seconds, across every room.

Reactions

React to any message with one of 24 reactions. Hovering a message shows a toolbar with three quick reactions and Add Reaction, which opens the full picker. Reactions show as pills under the message with a count and a tooltip of who reacted; click your own pill again to take it back. On a touch screen the reactions are in the message's menu.

Reactions send no notifications and are not relayed into the game.

Editing and deleting

You can edit or delete your own messages for 10 minutes after sending them, direct messages included. Both are in the message's menu (Edit Message, Delete Message). In the editor, Enter saves and Esc cancels. An edited message shows (edited), with the edit time on hover.

Only messages sent from the website can be edited or deleted this way. Lines that came from the game can't.

Every edit and delete in a group room is recorded, so an abusive message can't be edited away.

Attachments and GIFs

The + in the composer attaches images and videos or sends a GIF. You can also paste files or drag them onto the conversation.

• Up to 4 files per message: PNG, JPEG, WebP or GIF images, and MP4, WebM or MOV videos.
• Works in queue, draft, tournament, organizers and direct chat. Match and team chat stay text-only.
• Uploads start straight away, and Send says what it's waiting for.
• Images show inline, videos open in a lightbox, and GIFs play inline.

Administrators set the largest file size and each player's daily upload allowance. Files are only served to people who can open the room. They are deleted when the room's messages expire, when a direct message is pruned or deleted, or after 24 hours if they were never sent.

GIFs need a GIPHY API key, set by an administrator. Without one, the + only attaches files. With one, it opens a picker with search, Trending, and "Powered by GIPHY". Searches go through the 5Stack API, so the key never reaches a browser.

Direct messages

Message a player from the Message button on their profile, or start a new conversation from the Chat app. A direct message opens as its own tab, showing the person's avatar.

Message requests

You don't have to be friends to message someone. A first message from a non-friend lands as a message request:

• It waits under Message requests on the recipient's chat rail. It doesn't open a tab, count toward unread badges, flash the tab, or send a push.
• Opening it shows the conversation with a banner. Replying accepts the request; Deny hides it without telling the sender.
• The sender can't send a second message until they get a reply. Their composer is locked with "Waiting for {name} to reply to your message request."

Players who only want messages from friends turn off Message requests under Settings → Blocked Players. Their profile then shows no Message button to non-friends.

Friends can always message each other, and a block closes direct messages both ways (see Blocking).

In-game chat

Match chat is relayed in both directions between the web and the match server:

• All chat in game appears in the match room on the web.
• Team chat in game (say_team) appears in your team's private room on the web. A team line never reaches the room the other team reads.
• Everyone messages from the web appear in game chat. Lines from Match Organizers and above carry a red [organizer] tag, which a player can't fake through their name or message.
• Your team messages from the web stay on the web.

A relayed line is flattened to one line and cut to 240 characters in game, with formatting codes stripped. A gagged player's chat is blocked in game and isn't relayed.

Moderation

Moderators and above get a moderation menu on every message in group rooms:

• Moderate {name} issues a warning, gag, mute, silence or ban on the author without leaving chat (see Moderation & Sanctions).
• Delete Message removes the line for everyone, after a confirm that quotes it. Each delete is recorded with who deleted it.

A gagged player sees "You're gagged and can't send chat messages." in place of the composer in group rooms. They can still take back reactions and delete their own messages, but not add or edit. Direct messages aren't moderated: a gag doesn't apply there, and the moderation menu doesn't appear.

A deleted message's files are hidden from the room but kept for moderators until they would have expired.

Match chat log

Once a match has ended, moderators and above get a Chat Log tab on the match page. It keeps every match and team chat line, from the web and the game, for 7 days after the match ends, well past the live rooms' own retention.

• All Chat and each team's chat side by side, with local times and a Web tag on lines sent from the browser.
• Deleted lines stay, marked "deleted by" whoever removed them.
• Edited lines keep their original text and the last four versions, each with when it was written.
• A per-map filter, following the map picked on the match page.

If you played in the match, team chat is hidden from you and the tab says so. The same goes for a moderator on either team's roster, or on any team in the same tournament. A very long match's log is capped at 5000 lines, and an amber warning marks a log that was cut short.

Notifications

Chat never adds to the Inbox. New messages can reach you as a push, a flashing browser tab and a sound, and each of those is set under Settings → Notifications. See Notifications.