Chat

A chat launcher on every page of your community. Members message each other privately, join public rooms, or start invite-only rooms of their own — without leaving the page they were reading.

It runs on your own server, over your own WebSocket. There is no third-party chat service in the loop, no per-message pricing, and no monthly bill that grows with your community.

What members get

• A launcher that is always there. Bottom corner of every page, with an unread count. Open it and their conversations and rooms are right there.
• Private messages. One to one, with history. Start one from the list of who is online.
• Public rooms. You create these in the AdminCP and choose which groups may enter.
• Private rooms. Invite-only, owned by whoever made them. Give a group permission to create their own, or keep it to staff.
• Typing indicators, so a conversation has a rhythm rather than a series of surprises.
• Images and files. Pictures appear inline; documents arrive as a labelled link.
• It works on a phone. The floating window becomes a full-screen panel rather than a postage stamp.

What you get

• Per-group permissions. Who can use chat at all, and who can create rooms. Off for every group until you say otherwise.
• Moderation. A "Can moderate chat" permission that reaches every room, including private ones. Delete anything, mute anyone.
• Room owners manage their own. Invite, remove and mute inside a room they created — and nothing outside it.
• Attachments live where your files live. S3, R2, Backblaze, FTP, or local disk. Whatever you have already configured.
• Core's ignore list is honoured, in both directions.
• Members browsing anonymously are never listed. They asked not to be seen.

Private by construction

Every channel a browser is allowed to listen on is decided by your server and cryptographically signed. The WebSocket gateway verifies that signature and knows nothing about rooms or permissions — so there is only ever one copy of the rules.

That applies to public rooms as much as private ones. It would be simpler to let the gateway wave through anything that looks like a room, but the same shortcut would wave through a private room to anybody who guessed a number. It does not.

Requirements

• Invision Community 5
• Realtime, installed and connected, with its gateway deployed

Audio and video

Voice and video calling is a separate add-on, sold on its own or bundled with this. Chat ships the extension points it needs, so installing the add-on makes a call button appear — and not installing it leaves no trace of a missing feature.