Roomy basics

So you've ended up in a Roomy space. It'll look something like this, though probably with just a single space icon in your left-most sidebar since you've just arrived.

The basics of Roomy are the the same as other group messaging apps like Discord or Slack; there are channels, you write posts in them and those posts can be replied or reacted to.

Images? Yes! Gifs? Not yet😿

You can also hover over a post and click on this icon..

that'll let you create a new thread from that post (moderators can string several posts together).

This is where Roomy and the likes of Discord diverge.

In Discord, threads are considered digressions; temporary sidebars with a limited time in the spotlight.

In Roomy, threads are how you put evergreen topics into the long-term memory of your community.

NOTE: When threadified your post will disappear from the channel feed and reappear in the sidebar with its given title. Like many things in Roomy alpha this isn't how we intend for it to work, it's just where it's at right now.

Every thread that's been created in any channel is aggregated and shown in the global Index of the space.

The real magic behind it all that we haven't got the UI to show off yet is that behind the scenes Roomy works very similarly to a git-like version-control system. Posts can be moved around losslessly while maintaining a clear record of provenance, from half-baked thought to polished article. Zeu presented this notion of message gardening at last year's ATmosphereConf, some half-dozen iterations ago.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qp9jI6L2Tsg?rel=0

This means that following the conclusion of this year's ATmosphereConf the moderators of the space will subsequently have the ability to curate the archives for optimal readability.

Known Issues

Being pre-eminently alpha software, there are a lot of things that don't yet work as intended in Roomy. Some of these include:

Can't yet create new threads from the global Index (nor a channel's Threads)

Can't yet mention people

Reactions widget is very slow

Index won't render participant's avatars until you've visited the thread.

will add to this list as people remind us what's wonky