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Message screen

Messages Screen

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Overview

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The Messages screen is split into three modes — DMs, Channels, and Rooms — selectable with UP/DOWN on the mode-select screen. Each mode shows the corresponding list of conversations with unread counters.

Sending messages

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Press Enter on a contact or channel to open its history, then press Enter again (or select the [+ send] button, anchored at the right edge of the history) to compose a message. Choose between:

  • Custom message — opens the on-screen keyboard
  • Q1–Q10 — quick reply templates editable in Settings › Messages

While typing, UP from the top letter row enters cursor mode — LEFT/RIGHT move the insertion point, UP/DOWN jump to start/end (then to the grid on a second press), Enter/Cancel exit from anywhere — so you can edit mid-text, not just at the end. Hold Enter on a letter with accented variants (a, e, c, n, o, s, z…) opens a one-row accent popup instead — LEFT/RIGHT picks, Enter inserts, Cancel dismisses. Full key set (Shift, T9, Cyrillic/Greek) in the UI framework guide.

The keyboard supports placeholders that insert live data at send time:

Placeholder Value Availability
{time} current time (HH:MM) always
{loc} GPS coordinates always ("no GPS" if no fix)
{temp} temperature sensor connected
{hum} humidity sensor connected
{pres} barometric pressure sensor connected
{alt} altitude sensor connected
{lux} luminosity sensor connected
{co2} CO₂ concentration sensor connected

Sensor placeholders appear automatically in the placeholder picker when the corresponding sensor is active. {time} and {loc} are always shown.

Rooms — logging in

Posting to a room server needs a login handshake — the device does this on its own, no phone app needed. First Enter on a room opens a password prompt automatically; type it and press ✓ (empty for no-password rooms). On success the chat opens automatically, no second Enter needed.

  • Passwords are remembered across reboots. After a successful login it's saved on the device, so picking that room again — even after a power cycle — logs back in silently.
  • A wrong or changed password self-heals. A failed login forgets the saved password, so the next Enter prompts for a new one.
  • Re-login any time with Hold Enter on the room → Login… — useful to switch passwords without waiting for a failure.
  • Log out with Hold Enter → Logout (only offered once logged in). Forgets the saved password, so the next open prompts for one again.
  • Passwords set from the phone app are saved on the device too, so it can post to that room standalone after a reboot.

The on-screen keyboard's default (Latin) page is ASCII only. Typing accented or non-Latin characters — Polish, Czech, Slovak, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Nordic diacritics, Cyrillic, or Greek — needs Settings › Keyboard › Alphabet set to the matching language first; the keyboard's #@/abc key then cycles Latin → that alphabet → Symbols → Latin. A password containing characters outside whatever's currently enabled can still be set from the phone app — the device stores and replays it byte-for-byte.

Message history

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Messages appear as chat bubbles sized to their content — right-anchored for outgoing, left for incoming — with sender name and a compact age indicator (3m, 2h, >1d) in the top-right corner. List runs newest at the bottom; opening a history starts at the latest message, scrolling up goes further back.

Short Enter on a message opens it in fullscreen. Hold Enter — on a history row or in fullscreen — opens the same options menu: Reply, plus Navigate / Save waypoint when the message contains a location (see Fullscreen message view). You don't need to open the message first.

Fullscreen message view

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Navigate between messages with LEFT (newer) and RIGHT (older). Long messages scroll with UP/DOWN.

If the message is a reply addressed to someone (@[nick]), a To: nick bar is shown below the sender name and the body is displayed without the address prefix.

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Hold Enter in fullscreen opens the options menu. It always offers Reply for an incoming message, and when the message contains a location it adds two more:

  • Navigate — opens the bearing/distance view to those coordinates (the same two-bearing screen as Waypoints and Nearby; Back returns to the message).
  • Save waypoint — stores the location as a waypoint (visible on the trail map and in the Waypoints list).

A location is any lat,lon pair in the text — exactly what the {loc} placeholder inserts — so you can navigate to anything a contact shares. A [WAY]lat,lon label share also carries a name, used as the waypoint label. This works on DMs and channel messages, incoming or outgoing.

Context menu — contact list

Hold Enter on a contact entry opens a context menu:

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Item Action
Mark as read Clears unread counter for this contact
Notif: default / OFF / ON Per-contact notification override — LEFT/RIGHT to cycle
Melody: global / M1 / M2 Per-contact melody override — LEFT/RIGHT to cycle
Pin to dial / Unpin (slot N) Pin this contact to a Favourites Dial slot; if already pinned shows which slot

When Pin to dial is selected, a slot picker opens (Slot 1–6 showing current occupant name or "empty"). Choosing a slot that already holds another contact moves the new contact there.

In the Rooms list the context menu instead offers:

Item Action
Login… Opens the password prompt to (re-)log in to this room (see Rooms — logging in)
Logout Only shown once logged in. Forgets the saved password so the next open prompts for one again

Context menu — channel list

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Hold Enter on a channel entry opens a context menu:

Item Action
Mark all read Clears all unread for this channel
Notif: default / OFF / ON Per-channel notification override — LEFT/RIGHT to cycle
Melody: global / M1 / M2 Per-channel melody override — LEFT/RIGHT to cycle
Fav: yes / no Add or remove this channel from favourites — LEFT/RIGHT to toggle
Edit Opens the Add/Edit form below, pre-filled with the channel's name
Delete Removes the channel immediately (no confirm prompt)

Adding / editing a channel

Joining or creating a community channel no longer needs the phone app. The Channels list ends with "+ Add channel" — Enter picks a channel type; Edit from the context menu changes an existing channel's name/secret directly, skipping the type picker.

+ Add channel first asks which type to create — the same three the phone app offers:

  • Public — instantly re-adds the well-known default public channel, no fields needed. Useful if it was deleted and you don't remember its key.
  • Hashtag — type a topic (e.g. test); name (#test) and secret (first 16 bytes of sha256("#test")) are both derived from it. A topic-based public chat — anyone typing the same topic elsewhere lands on the same channel, separate from the default Public one.
  • Private — the manual Name + Secret form:
Field Notes
Name Up to 31 characters
Secret LEFT/RIGHT toggles between two entry modes; Enter opens the keyboard for whichever is selected
  • Passphrase (default) — type any text; the device hashes it to the channel's 16-byte secret. Easiest to agree on verbally — same idea as a room password.
  • Hex key — the exact 32-hex-character secret (channel QR code format, see QR Codes), for joining with a secret you were given rather than a new passphrase. An all-zero secret (00…0) is rejected — reserved internally for an empty slot.

Select [Save] to commit. The secret can't be redisplayed once saved (only the derived key is kept) — editing later means typing a new one, same as re-logging into a room.

Mark all read

Hold Enter on the DM / Channels / Rooms mode-select screen to clear all unread counters for the highlighted category at once.