Chat

• Chat Features
• Reply to Chats
• Delete and Edit a Chat Post
• Add Sounds to chat or Ping
• Add Code to Chat or Ping
• Chat Notifications

Sometimes posting a message isn't necessary, and you want to chat in real time. The Chat room is the place to be!

Every project has its own Chat room. To enter a Chat room, open the project and click the Chat room:

Scroll up in a chat window to view what you missed. When you want to add a comment, type your text at the bottom of the window and hit Enter:

Chat Features

Click the A icon in chat to reveal a formatting toolbar you can use to add some spice, clarity, and emphasis to your message:

• Bold
• Italic
• Strikethrough
• Colors
• Headings
• Hyperlinks
• Quote block
• Code block
• Bulleted & numbered lists

Right alongside it, there's a quick emoji picker! 🚀 To use the full emoji picker, try  control + command + space bar on a Mac. On Windows 10, use the Windows key + ; to pull up all the options. Older versions of Windows will work too:

You can also drag and drop saved images, use the attachment option to instantly post what you attach, or you can paste image URLs into a chat line — perfect for all the essential cat GIFs you need to share with the team.

When you paste a public URL into a Chat, a handy link preview pops up automatically:

This feature helps everyone in the chat get a better idea of what's being shared, so they know exactly what they're clicking on. If you need to, you can remove the preview:

Or, if you change your mind after sending the message, just edit the message and take out the preview the same way. No worries!

To grab someone’s attention in Chat, you can @mention them by typing the @  symbol followed by their name. They’ll receive a notification for the mention:

To see all the files posted in a Chat room, look for the  ••• menu in the upper right corner of that Chat room:

You'll then be able to browse everything uploaded to that particular Chat room!

Reply to Chats

If you want to reply to someone's chat message, you can the click the ••• next to their chat and select the ↩ Reply option to reply directly to that message:

You can use all Chat features in your replies, including formatting and images.

Delete and Edit a Chat Post

If you need to delete or edit a message you posted, click the "•••" button next to your post.

Select "Delete" to remove what you've posted or select "Edit" to change what you've written:

Add Sounds to Chat or Pings

The Chat tool supports sounds! All the sound commands begin with /play. Here's an example of /play greatjob

Here is the current list of supported sounds:

"56k","ballmer","bell","bezos","bueller","butts","clowntown","cottoneyejoe","crickets","curb","dadgummit","dangerzone","danielsan","deeper","donotwant","drama","flawless","glados","gogogo","greatjob","greyjoy","guarantee","heygirl","honk","horn","horror","inconceivable","letitgo","live","loggins","makeitso","noooo","nyan","ohmy","ohyeah","pushit","rimshot","rollout","rumble","sax","secret","sexyback","story","tada","tmyk","totes","trololo","trombone","unix","vuvuzela","what","whoomp","wups","yay","yeah","yodel".

Add Code to a Chat or Ping

Click the  A icon to bring up the code option that looks like < > then paste whatever code you'd like to share with folks:

Alternatively, you could also add code in a chat by writing your message in this format:  /code log | <content>

Here's how it will look when you post your message: 

Chat Notifications

Click the Campfire tool and you'll see right away if you're set up to be notified. Click the 🔔 to turn off notifications or toggle them back on:

You can expect to be notified within Basecamp when someone starts chatting in a Chat room that you're getting notifications for. However, you won't receive a notification for every single new line item in the chat. 

Say 5 people started chatting while you were on lunch. When you come back to Basecamp, you'll see just one notification:

Push Notifications

If you have push notifications enabled, you'll only receive push notifications if:

• You are @mentioned
• There is a new message after chat has been idle for 6+ hours

You can read more on our philosophy around chat notifications in our piece on Group Chat, Group Stress.

No Notifications

What if you don't need Chat notifications or maybe, any notifications from this project? Change your participation type to "Just following"!

Remove the Chat tool

You can hide a tool from a Project if it's not needed. See if a clear space really does organize the mind!
Here's how: Changing Tools

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Next up: Message Board →

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