TextChatService is now the default for new experiences!

[LordMerc (Merc)]

Bubble Chat is now integrated into TextChatService!

We are currently researching options for this and will likely ship a solution early next year.

[ianchua1 (iii)]

Thanks for letting me know and for the swift reply

[capserg]

The only issue I have with the new chat is that it ignores the DisplayOrder property of ScreenGui objects, so I can’t put menus above the chat

Old chat

New chat

[kingerman88]

It is listed that TextBox is a property of ChatInputBarConfiguration | Roblox Creator Documentation

However, through a bit of testing, I only found it to be nil. Which is really unfortunate, since now we don’t have any method of accessing the textbox used for input. (For chat autocompletes and anything similar to that)

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Additionally, more of a preference thing, but I’d rather be able to disable this button. I just find it taking up space :l

[Automationeer (Eleanor)]

@SubtleShuttle

We will not require TextChatService for new experiences until a majority of developer needs are addressed.

How will this TextChatService requirement work? How will it affect experiences that are reuploads from an existing or generated place file which uses legacy chat?

Also, will issues with TextChatService and Player.Chatted be addressed? If so, on what sort of timeline?

[ValiantWind (Val)]

I said this in the previous 2 threads:

TextChatService: New Chat Window Customization and Delivery APIs

I will once again say the one feature I’ve been wanting since TextChatService had been announced: Channel Bar. Please. The channel bar is the only reason I’m not switching over.

Bubble Chat is now integrated into TextChatService!

Please add a Channel Bar for different Chat Channels. It’s the one thing that’s preventing me from enabling TextChatService for my game.

and I will say it again.

PLEASE implement a channel bar.

That’s the one thing that’s preventing me from migrating to TextChatService.

[SubtleShuttle]

Hi,

Please read the post again for more information on “Channel Bar”.

• We will be addressing developer needs for their experiences to migrate to TextChatService. Top examples include granular bubble chat customization and TextChannel UI support.

What part of the messaging was confusing/unclear? We’d appreciate this feedback so we can clarify in our future communication!

[SubtleShuttle]

We plan on communicating a long-term approach (we’re talking many months) in which developers are given proper messaging and time to migrate to TextChatService once customization feature parity is reached.

For the Player.Chatted, what part of TextChatService does not allow same functionality as Player.Chatted? (i.e. OnIncomingMessage, etc)

[ValiantWind (Val)]

@SubtleShuttle

What part of the messaging was confusing/unclear? We’d appreciate this feedback so we can clarify in our future communication!

What’s confusing is that the same thing has been said both posts and for some reason I still haven’t seen it implemented unfortunately.

Now that ChatService is deprecated, this is significantly decreased my workflow.

[SubtleShuttle]

Can you elaborate on “lag more frequently”? It’s difficult for us to action on this without any details, i.e. device type, experience, network connection, reproduction steps, etc. Any additional information would be helpful!

[SubtleShuttle]

Could you elaborate by “almost all properties of each chat message” not covered by the current API?

[SubtleShuttle]

This is something we’re actively investigating!

[SubtleShuttle]

Understand that the legacy system allowed for forking the scripts. It is realistically not possible for us to update such a system w/o breaking forked versions (i.e. if you modify a few lines of some scripts in the system, it is difficult for us to reliably roll out any updates to the near-infinite permutations of modifications of a forkable system). The TextChatService API should allow for creation of custom user interfaces if the default one is insufficient, but we’re aiming to introduce more customization options (such as channel tabs) so a completely custom front end is not necessary to meet the needs of most developers.

If you have any issues or concerns with TextChatService and the new default UI, we would appreciate your continued clear and communicative feedback so that we can address any needs and clarify any gaps in understanding with the community.

[SubtleShuttle]

Can you elaborate what you mean by “channels and developer UI injection portals”?

[PeZsmistic]

I have talked about this a lot in previous threads about TextChatService. Since the last time I checked, there was no built in UI to change between chat channels, and there was no way to mod the chat UI with additional buttons so adding this functionality myself in a cohesive way without totally separate UI is impossible.

Replies with context:

New In-Experience Text Chat System Public Release!

How do channels work? When this was in beta I could not see a way to have elective always-available channels that players could switch between on the fly (e.g. general versus roleplay-specific chat) because there was no documentation. Still cannot find anything of the sort. Was this feature dropped? I guess I can allow players to form chat groups (custom channels), but there’s no nice way to present this within the UI of the chat window, or to allow them to swap channels in a self-contained way.…

Chat Feedback - Whisper, Performance and Customization:

@PeZsmistic

I am currently using channel tabs to separate out different categories of chat, since my game is building + RP. I have a dedicated RP chat channel.

It is very important that my chat window can be resized. A lot of chat happens in my game and since RP is a major component, players find it very useful to see as much chat as possible all at once when needed. It’s also useful for them to shrink the chat window when they’re building but still want to keep an eye on chat.

[bluebxrrybot (blueberry)]

You can change the TextColor and BackgroundColor of all the bubbles at once, but it would be nice to change the TextColor for a specific chat bubble, or at least from a specific person. For example, a VIP or Admin would have gold text, but everybody else would have normal text. It would also help if we can change the voice chat icon image color, and mic volume color.

[nidbahn]

@SubtleShuttle

If you opt-out, please let us know why so we can improve TextChatService to address your needs.

This isn’t exactly a deal breaker for me, but currently it’s pretty difficult to design UI around the new text chat window because of a few reasons:

1. WidthScale and HeightScale properties of ChatWindowConfiguration are poorly documented and their behaviour is pretty counterintuitive. Based on their description and on how other UI objects behave, I’d expect them to be a fraction of the screen’s size, but that’s clearly not the case as their default values are 1 but the chat window doesn’t scale across the entire screen.
2. The new chat window always displays over custom GUI items.

[bluebxrrybot (blueberry)]

@nidbahn

WidthScale and HeightScale properties of ChatWindowConfiguration are poorly documented

Scale the width and height.
Configure the chat window.

@nidbahn

1. The new chat window always displays over custom GUI items.

It is in CoreGui.

[SubtleShuttle]

If you can list out specifically what questions you’d like to be answered within the scope of "required’, we would appreciate that, instead of “what do you mean by “required””. We would like to be clear and concise in our messaging and if you have any specific questions regarding this we’d be happy to take those into account during our multi-month rollout of TextChatService.

With respect to some the questions that were specific enough for comprehension and appropriate response:

Non-player TextSources: We’re currently working on this and designing the appropriate API to make this a seamless experience that aligns with some long-term initiatives. We hope to get this resolved soon.
Channels: As you are aware TextChannels are currently available. We plan on rolling out Channel tabs UI to make channel switching easy without calling any specific API from the developer’s end. We also plan on introducing more step-by-step tutorial-like guides to clarify TextChannel usage. As you may be aware we’ve been revamping our documentation and you probably have noticed we’ve significantly increased the amount of resources available for guides on customizing chat elements.
Clear: This is also something we’re investigating! As you may have noticed, we’re taking a phased approach and methodologically reaching parity with the legacy system. We prioritized the most frequently used features and interfaces. We’re happy and confident that we’re now in a position to tackle some of the more uncommonly used aspects (such as clear) of chat and we’re excited to be moving on to these parts.
LoadDefaultChat: Have you looked into ChatInputBarConfiguration.Enabled and ChatWindowConfiguration.Enabled? If you have, how does this not address your needs?

As you are well aware, we’ve been consistent and long-term with our communication with TextChatService rollout:

• New Beta In-Experience Chat System for Channels, Filtering and More!
• New In-Experience Text Chat System Public Release!
• Bubble Chat is now integrated into TextChatService!
• TextChatService: New Chat Window Customization and Delivery APIs

We aim to continue this level of correspondence with the community and address any issues and questions. To help us better serve this goal, we appreciate your continued clear and communicative responses.

[SubtleShuttle]

We haven’t provided a specific timeline for channel tabs, but we do hope to introduce some form of a timeline with features now that some milestones have been met and TextChatService is default for new experiences (and hence, a lot more visibility + demand for details). We appreciate your patience as we try to scale the system and balance various requests and internal initiatives.

Deprecation does not mean complete removal or loss of function, so we would appreciate some clarification for what you mean by “significantly decreased my workflow”. We would like to investigate edge cases and see how our rollout impacts unique, uncommon flows to better cover all developers.