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Update: As of February 23, 2016, the new mobile version is the default. If you've tested the new version before this date, nothing will change for you (even if you've disabled the new version since, in which case it will continue to be disabled).

Remember 2010, when smartphones looked like this?

           photo of a candlestick phone

Back then, we created a mobile version of chat, so that people could use the bare minimum of features on those and similar phones.

Well waddayaknow, suddenly it's 2016, smartphones for some reason now look like this:

           photo of a Google cardboard

– and the "bare minimum" seems a little underwhelming.

So we made something (special credit goes to Paweł and Chris).

Above all else, the most important thing is that you can finally interact with arbitrary messages:

           screenshot of the new mobile chat with a selected message and various options

– you can reply, edit, get the permalink, star, etc. (assuming relevant permissions, of course). Just click1 a message to interact with it. If you can't, because the whole message consists of just a link (and you don't want to click the link, you want to select the message), then click somewhere around it and if necessary use the up/down arrows to move the selection to the correct message.

Only the rooms list and the live chat itself currently use this new version, and we consider this whole thing a beta.

Oh, and in this new version, you can submit new messages by just pressing Enter.

Give it a spin, and as always, post issues here on Meta.

If you want to stick with the old version, you'll find a checkbox on the "prefs" tab of your chat profile with which you can disable the new mobile version.2

1I know it's not really "clicking" on a phone, but you know what I mean.

2You can check or uncheck that box on your desktop computer – it only sets the preference that when you look at the chat on your phone, then you want or don't want to see the new version. If you're active on more than one of the three chat sites (chat.meta.se, chat.se, and chat.so), then you have to change the setting on each of them.

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32
  • 1
    Finally. This is so cool. Kudos to Paweł and Chris and everyone else that made this happen. Here's a Unicode face: (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ
    – M.A.R.
    Jan 27 '16 at 14:13
  • 2
    @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. is that a mobile-friendly Unicode face?
    – Oded
    Jan 27 '16 at 14:14
  • Prolly @Oded; my mobile doesn't break too much when I post it.
    – M.A.R.
    Jan 27 '16 at 14:15
  • 2010 seems pretty backward place(technology-wise), after reading this. :/
    – DroidDev
    Jan 27 '16 at 14:17
  • 12
    Wow, I've just realised 2010 was a) 6 years ago and b) predates IE9 by a year. We've come far in the past 6 years...
    – Dan
    Jan 27 '16 at 14:19
  • 6
    I've been testing this interface for a few weeks now and I have to say it's a pleasure to use. Many thanks to balpha, Pawel, and Chris!
    – hairboat
    Jan 27 '16 at 14:20
  • But.... Chris no longer appears to work for SE, for a while? Does it mean you hired him as external contractor for this project?
    – Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3
    Jan 27 '16 at 14:35
  • 5
    @ShadowWizard No, this was Chris's last project while he worked at SE.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Jan 27 '16 at 14:54
  • 1
    @balpha just nitpicking, but what kind of answers can one post here? Bug reports and feature requests should be posted as new question, which makes sense, "Cool, thanks!" or "Man, it's terrible!" should be only comments... so think that if this is a pure announcement, it better be closed to prevent users from answering by mistake. :)
    – Shadow Wizard Is Vaccinated V3
    Jan 27 '16 at 15:00
  • @ShadowWizard: Bug reports / feature requests?
    – Cerbrus
    Jan 27 '16 at 15:15
  • Most important feature set of the decade, thanks so much
    – TylerH
    Jan 27 '16 at 15:16
  • 1
    Do you want bug reports? Because that's how you get bug reports! PS: thanks for the new interface :)
    – Florian Margaine
    Jan 27 '16 at 15:19
  • 4
    s/click/tap/g
    – fredley
    Jan 27 '16 at 17:02
  • 1
    So, status complete?
    – MBraedley
    Jan 27 '16 at 19:06
  • 1
    Another status-completed? :D
    – Jason C
    Feb 24 '16 at 12:39
31

Fantastic news!

Predictably, this does not work at all with Chatsey, and since it is no longer required due to the fab new UI, I'll just take it down.

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  • 13
    Chatsey is awesome. Thanks for all of your work on it!
    – Haney StaffMod
    Jan 27 '16 at 16:51
  • @Haney It was fun to build, but I'm super happy to not need it any more!
    – fredley
    Jan 27 '16 at 17:01
  • 5
    Well, don't take it down forever until this gets out of beta, just in case...
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 27 '16 at 19:00
  • @monica Good point. The apk and source will always be available, the only thing I'd take down is the listing on the Play Store.
    – fredley
    Jan 27 '16 at 19:04
  • 1
    It's going to be weird to not have Chatsey installed anymore
    – SaintWacko
    Jan 28 '16 at 22:34
  • 3
    I can't use the new chat because of accessibility issues -- they baked in smaller fonts and the page doesn't zoom. As long as old chat is available and this problem isn't fixed, I'll have a use for ChatSEy. I really hope they can do something about that, as I assume that at some point old chat will cease to be available and I'd hate to be shut out when that happens. I rely on my phone to keep an eye on chat.
    – Monica Cellio
    Feb 4 '16 at 4:15

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