Channels and messages

Channels are where conversations happen in a community. This page covers setting up channels and everything you can do with messages. Most of the message features also work in direct messages.

Channel types

Type	Icon	What it’s for
Text	`#`	Messages, images, files and games.
Announcement	Megaphone	Works just like a text channel. The megaphone icon tells members it’s for important updates.
Voice	Speaker	Talking, video and screen sharing. See Voice. Voice channels don’t have a text chat.
Category	None	A heading that groups channels in the sidebar.

Create a channel

You need the Manage channels permission.

Select the community’s name at the top of the sidebar and choose Create channel. To create a channel inside a category, you can also select the plus button next to the category’s name.
Choose Text, Voice or Announcement.
Enter a Channel name and pick a Category (or No category).
Select Create.

Text and announcement channel names are saved in lowercase, with dashes instead of spaces, so “Game Night” becomes #game-night. Voice channel names keep their capital letters and spaces. Names can be up to 64 characters, and a community can have up to 250 channels and categories in total.

New channels are added at the bottom of their category.

Create a category

Open Create channel as above.
Select Create a category instead.
Enter a Category name and select Create.

Edit or delete a channel

You need the Manage channels permission.

Hover over the channel in the sidebar and select its gear icon.
In Overview, change any of these, then select Save changes:
- Channel name
- Topic (text and announcement channels): up to 1,024 characters, shown in the channel header.
- Slowmode (text and announcement channels): how long members wait between messages. Choose from Off, 5s, 10s, 30s, 1m, 5m, 15m, 1h or 6h.
- Category: moves the channel to another category. Moving a channel doesn’t change its permissions.

The Permissions tab lets you allow or deny permissions for specific roles and members in this channel. It needs the Manage roles permission too. See Roles and permissions.

To delete the channel, select Delete channel and confirm. Every message in it is deleted for good.

Select a category’s name to collapse or expand it. Rally remembers your choice in this browser. The channel you’re viewing stays visible even when its category is collapsed.
Channels that aren’t in a category are listed at the top.
To move a channel into a different category, change its Category setting.

Send a message

Type in the message box at the bottom of the channel, then press Enter or select Send. Press Shift + Enter to start a new line.

Messages can be up to 4,000 characters. A countdown appears under the box when you get close.
If you switch channels before sending, your unsent text is still there when you come back, until you reload the page.
When people are typing, you’ll see a line like “Sam is typing…” under the message list.
If a message doesn’t go through, it’s marked “Couldn’t send this message.”
If you send messages very quickly, Rally asks you to slow down with a message like “Slow down — try again in 3s”.

If you can’t type in a channel, the message box tells you why: either “You don’t have permission to send messages in this channel” or that you’re timed out, and until when.

Add emoji

Select the smiley face in the message box to open the emoji picker. Type in Find an emoji to search.

Format your messages

Rally supports a set of Markdown-style formatting.

Type this	To get
`bold`	bold text
`italic` or `_italic_`	italic text
`*bold italic*`	bold italic text
`__underline__`	underlined text
`~~strikethrough~~`	~~strikethrough~~ text
`\|\|spoiler\|\|`	a spoiler: hidden until someone selects it
`code`	`inline code`
`# Heading`, `## Heading` or `### Heading`	a large, medium or small heading
`- item` or `* item` (one per line)	a bulleted list
`> quote`	a quoted line
`>>> quote`	a quote that runs to the end of the message

For a block of code, put three backticks on the lines before and after it. Add a language name after the first three backticks to label the block:

```js
console.log("Hello, Rally!");
```

Links: web addresses that start with http:// or https:// become links automatically. To show different text for a link, use [text](https://rally.place). Hover over a link to see where it goes. Links open in a new tab.

Show a character as-is: put a backslash in front of it. For example, \*not italic\* shows the asterisks instead of making the text italic.

Mention people and roles

Type @ followed by the first letters of a name.
Pick the person or role from the list that appears. Use the arrow keys and Enter or Tab, or select it with your mouse.

What you can mention:

People: anyone in the community. You can search by display name, nickname or username. In a direct message, you can mention the people in the conversation.
Roles: notifies everyone with that role. You can mention roles that allow it, and any role if you have the Mention @everyone permission.
@everyone and @here: both mention everyone who can see the channel. You need the Mention @everyone permission. Without it, they stay plain text.

Messages that mention you are highlighted. A mention adds to the red badge on the channel and the community, and can trigger a desktop notification. Replying to someone’s message also mentions them. Mentions inside code don’t count.

Reply to a message

Hover over the message and select Reply.
A “Replying to” bar appears above the message box. Type your reply and press Enter.

To cancel, select the X on the bar or press Esc. Your reply shows a short preview of the message it answers.

React to a message

Hover over a message and select one of the quick reactions (thumbs up, laughing face or fire), or select Add reaction to choose any emoji. Under a message:

Select a reaction to add yours. Select it again to take yours back.
A message can have up to 20 different emoji.
Adding a new emoji needs the Add reactions permission.

Edit or delete your messages

To edit a message, hover over it and select Edit. You can also press Up in an empty message box to edit your most recent message. Press Enter to save or Esc to cancel. Edited messages show “(edited)”. You can only edit your own messages.

To delete a message, hover over it, select More (the ⋯ button), choose Delete message, and confirm. You can always delete your own messages. In a community, members with the Manage messages permission can delete anyone’s.

You need the Attach files permission, which everyone has by default.

Select the paperclip (Attach files) in the message box. You can also drag files onto the message box or paste them.
Wait for each file to finish uploading. To remove a file before sending, select the X on it.
Add a message if you like, then press Enter.

You can attach up to 10 files to a message, and each file can be up to 25 MB. These kinds of files are supported:

Kind	Formats
Images	PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP
Video	MP4, WebM
Audio	MP3, OGG, WAV
Other files	PDF, plain text, ZIP

Images show right in the chat; select one to open it full size. Videos and audio play in the chat. Other files appear as a card you can select to download.

Pin messages

Pinning keeps important messages easy to find. In a community, you need the Manage messages permission.

To pin a message, hover over it, select More (⋯), and choose Pin message. Pinned messages show a pin icon next to their time.
To see pinned messages, select Pinned messages (the pin icon) in the channel header. It lists up to 50 pinned messages, newest first.
To unpin, choose Unpin message from the same menu.

Copy or report a message

From a message’s More (⋯) menu:

Copy text copies the message’s text.
Report message sends the message to the Rally team for review. See Moderation and safety.

Unread messages

A channel with new messages shows its name in bold, with a small marker to its left.
A red badge counts messages that mention you.
Opening a channel marks it as read.
Scroll up to load older messages. When you’re far from the newest messages, select Jump to present to get back.
Dividers show where each day starts.