SolarOS 4.6.8 manual · app

chat

Two-pane provider-neutral conversation client. The left pane lists gateway and radio conversations, the right pane shows bounded shared history, and the bottom line is the message/command input. It opens and remains useful offline; network or radio transport jobs connect independently.

Usage:

chat [gateway|meshcore|link|conversation-id]

With no selector, Chat opens a unified view and initially selects the newest unread conversation. A provider name filters the list. A decimal conversation ID opens exactly that conversation.

The background gateway-sync job owns the gateway transport connection, retries, and joined-channel replay. The shared messaging service owns queued outbound messages and gateway-sync consumes only gateway requests. Start it explicitly with job start gateway-sync, just like email-sync. Closing or suspending chat does not disconnect an already-running synchronizer. Incoming messages remain in the shared bounded messaging store and publish bounded notifications to the universal inbox; reopening the app replays retained conversations from every provider. With SD storage, full messages are retained under /.messages/messages.bin. On internal flash, Chat restores the compact message copy already retained in /.inbox/messages.bin, so it consumes no second flash ring. Both backends deduplicate transport replays by stable message identity and keep linked Inbox read state aligned.

Unlike email-sync, gateway-sync takes no interval argument: it waits for Wi-Fi and reconnects with exponential backoff while remaining in the running state.

Gateway setup and room lifecycle use gateway status, gateway configure, gateway connect, gateway disconnect, gateway rooms, gateway join, gateway leave, and gateway delete. Gateway synchronization runs only under the gateway-sync job name.

Conversation rows show provider, unread, and security state. Outbound rows show queued/sending/sent/delivered/failed state. Use /new CONTACT_ID to open a direct conversation with the contact's preferred endpoint. Sending to a discovered endpoint asks for a second Enter confirmation; blocked endpoints cannot be messaged.

The conversation header reports the selected provider's state. Gateway uses disconnected, connecting, and connected; connectionless MeshCore and Link providers use stopped, starting, ready, and error.

In-app commands:

/help
/new contact-id
/status
/quit

Controls:

• Tab changes focus between conversation list, messages, and input.
• Up/Down navigate the focused pane or input history.
• Enter sends input or opens the selected conversation.
• Page Up/Page Down scroll messages.
• Esc or app-exit key exits.