List item How Do I Create Group Chat?
If I create a group of say two others (Joe Doe and Liz Doe), and myself; if the others are in my Contacts, and they’re in Group Chat, will that cause problems?
Yes. I searched a lot for the ‘How To’ using two AI, and Puri own “Search” tools. Just got the same 2 that have nothing to do with Groups
TIA,
~s
Which app and message protocol are you referring to? Chats/Chatty, the default messenger, sends old regular SMS (and MMS) messages [for GSM phones], as well as can send XMPP [for internet] messages, if it’s set up.
I think that the Chats “New Group Message” feature only works with XMPP and you need to have that set up (other users need to use that too, obviously). It’s not what I’ve used, so can’t say for sure. There are other, better XMPP apps out there (try Dino for isntance) and Chats XMPP apparently isn’t even actively developed anymore, according to it’s git site. And there are other group chat messenger apps that use other protocols and multiple protocols (which is a separate thread topic).
I haven’t needed groups with SMS for a long time, so someone else may have a better answer. The old way of sending SMS group messages was, that some old phones used to have receiver lists that you could easily select to send messages to - Chats doesn’t have that feature, unfortunately. You can still add several receivers, but it’s cumbersome if there are many (but then you have that thread).
I think it would be a neat addition to have a grouping function to easily send to several people - but that might be best implemented in Contacts app. This did get me has me thinking of a workaround, if it’s possible to create a specifically formatted contact with multiple numbers that Chats would except, but I doubt it. I can see that there would be a usecase to have this kind of feature there.
The annoying part though with SMS (and MMS) is that, unlike in a email thread, all the other receivers and their contact do not pass on to others, so they would still have to maintain their own group lists. This is why a proper chat apps and protocols are better for groups.
I agree that Chats is not very forthcoming in informing on what to do (I have my own problems with it). If indeed it’s Chats and SMS text messages you are referring to in the first place…
In Chats: “+” > “New SMS/MMS Message” > (Create name for group) > “Add members from contacts” > (Search for and select a contact, or type a number) > “Add” > (Repeat for additional contacts/numbers) > “Create” > (Type message) > “Send”
I initially got an error message when attempting to create a group. It was apparently because the contact numbers had some non-numerical content added, e.g. “tel:” or “mobile:” etc. (My contacts were all imported to the L5, not created on it, so that might have caused the error for me.)
If that happens, swipe up to dismiss the error, and first either correct the formatting for that entry in the Contacts app, or just type the number directly when creating the group.
To see the participants in an existing group conversation: (3-dot menu) > “Chat details”
No. Initiating a group chat in Chats won’t make any changes to your Contacts app. It only starts a conversation with the grouped numbers in Chats.
If you, for example, have an ongoing chat with Joe Doe and an ongoing chat with Liz Doe, and then start a group chat with Joe and Liz Doe, you’ll see three separate conversations involving the Does in your list of chats. You can then choose whether to chat with them individually or both together.
Sample list of ongoing conversations in the Chats app:
Replies to you from the group members will be in the group chat. Replies to you from individuals will be in the individual chats.
If at some point you would like to communicate with Joe and Liz and Cindy in a group, you have to create an additional group with those three; you can’t add (or subtract) someone to an existing group after the fact.
So, then: