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Zulip User Documentation (draft)

**Caveat**: This file is intended to collect all proposed user documentation into one place. Ultimately, a single file is probably not the best format for documentation when it is published to the world, but for purposes of discussion it seems easiest to put everything into a solitary and linear page. ---

Zulip is a chat app. Its most distinctive characteristic is that conversation among a group of people can be divided according to subject “streams” and further subdivided into “topics”, so much finer-grained conversations are possible than with IRC or other chat tools.

Most people use Zulip on the Web. There are also mobile apps for Android/iOS, and desktop apps for Mac/Linux/Windows, as well as a cross-platform version and a version for Platform 9. See the documentation on apps for more information.

One Zulip account, associated with a particular organization, is known as a “realm”.

Using Zulip

Account Basics

Messages

Sending

Reading

  • View the Markdown source of a message
  • View the exact time a message was sent
  • View information about the message sender
  • View an image at full size
  • Collapse a message
  • Star a message
  • Share a message or conversation (permanent link)

Editing

Searching

People

  • See whether someone is here or away
  • Invite a friend to Zulip
  • Send someone a private message
  • Send a group of people a private message

Streams & Topics

Notifications

Integrations & Bots

Apps

  • Use Zulip on Mac OS
  • Use Zulip on Linux
  • Use Zulip on Windows
  • Use Zulip on Android
  • Use Zulip on iOS
  • Use Zulip in a terminal
  • Connect to Zulip over IRC/etc (not implemented?)

Old table of contents:

The Zulip browser window

There are three panes in your browser window.

  • The middle one, the “message table”, is the stream of messages.

  • To its left is the “left sidebar”, showing “filters” or “views” for different kinds of messages, and below it a menu of streams you are subscribed to.

  • On the right side of the browser window is the “right sidebar”, showing users and some configuration settings:

    Left sidebar Right sidebar

  • If your browser window is narrow, you’ll see only the message table, or the message table and the left sidebar but not the right sidebar.

Go back to “The Zulip browser window” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Posting and replying

… To a stream | … To individual users | Some facts about messages | Editing past messages

At the bottom of your screen, choose whether to post to a stream or to individual users. New message

Posting and replying to a stream

  1. If you click on a message, the default action is to open a text-box for you to enter a new message.

  2. If you would rather post something new, click “New stream message” at the bottom of your screen (or select a stream from the list on the left side of your screen). Post to stream

  3. Enter a stream name, or the beginning of one. Private (“invite-only”) streams show a lock next to the name.

  4. Enter a topic name — we recommend keeping them brief, and they are truncated after 50 characters.

  5. Enter your message.

Go back to “Posting and replying” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Posting and replying to individual users (“PM”: private message)

Post to user

  • Enter the name or email address of a user, or the first letters of one. There is no topic when you PM someone.

  • You can send a message to multiple users at once, by separating their email addresses with a comma. Each recipient will see all the other recipients. For several days, the list of recipients will appear under “GROUP PMs” at the lower right corner of your screen.

  • If you’re bashful about using the pronoun “I”, you can get your own registered name to appear boldfaced in a message by entering /me. At present it has to be the first thing on a line, and followed by at least one non-space character. Some people find it easier to say things like /me is puzzled or /me nods than to use a massively freighted word like “I”.

Go back to “Posting and replying” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Some facts about messages

  • The paperclip icon (paperclip) under the message field lets you attach files, including images, sound, and video. These are uploaded to a server and a link is supplied, but we display a thumbnail if we can. You’ll see the link in Markdown format: [link_text](link_URL)

  • Zulip uses a subset of GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), and the A icon under the message field brings up a cheat-sheet for what we support. You can also see that cheat-sheat by going to the cog (cog) in the upper right corner of the right sidebar and choosing “Message formatting” from the drop-down menu.

  • If a message is interrupted before you send it, the next time you open the “New stream message” interface you’ll see “Restore draft” below the message field. Currently we only save a single interrupted message, and if you log out of the Zulip site or close the tab, the message will be deleted.

  • Type a tab and then the “return” key to click the Send button without having to use your mouse.

  • Typing “return” will begin a new paragraph within your message; if you want typing “return” simply to send your message, check the “Press Enter to send” box under the message field. It stays checked until you uncheck it.

  • If you want greater separation of your paragraphs, enter a non-breaking space (option-space on Macintosh) on a line alone between other paragraphs.

Go back to “Posting and replying” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Other common questions

Keyboard shortcuts | Searching | Filtering | Date of a message | Change topic title or stream name | Edit topic titles | Message formatting | User status | Interact with Zulip by email | Emoji | Customization | Muting vs. unsubscribing

Keyboard shortcuts

Go to the cog (cog) in the upper right corner of the right sidebar and choose “Keyboard shortcuts” from the drop-down menu.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Find starred messages

If you have starred a message and sometime later want to find it again, you can bring up all the message you have starred by clicking the "Starred messages" view (in the filters at the top of the left sidebar).

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Show only particular messages

  • Show only messages in a particular stream

    This is called “narrowing” to a stream. The simplest way is by clicking on the stream’s name in the left sidebar.

  • Show only messages in a particular topic

    Click on the topic, on a message containing it in the message table. You can do the same thing by clicking on a stream in the left sidebar to open a list of recent topics, and then click on a topic there. Only the most topics are listed, though; if you want to find an older topic, you may have to use the search box (above the message table) or scroll back in time by hand.

  • Show only messages with a particular user

    Click on the user’s name in the right sidebar and your PM history will appear. If you have had group-PM conversations, they will only show up if you “narrow to” private messages with all participants — narrowing to just one user will not show group PMs including that user.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Date of a message

If you “mouse over” the time stamp of a message (upper right corner of the message), you’ll see a fuller date-time stamp and time zone.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Changing the title of a topic or stream

If discussion drifts, at what point should the title of a topic or stream be changed?

In the end, this is a question of community culture within your organization. But here are some thoughts:

  • Topics: Topics drift more often than streams. Some people like to announce that they are “moving” or “forking” the topic and then creating a new topic with its own title — the new title could, if you wish, say “was ‘former topic’” or “forked from ‘previous topic’”. Also, please see Editing a topic titles, below.

  • Streams: If a stream has to be divided, it is best to retire the original stream complete, otherwise the separated-out subject may periodically reappear in the original stream. This is is an issue for administrators to watch for.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Editing a topic title

As long you have contributed a message to some topic, you can edit the topic title. Go to one of your own messages in that topic and follow the instructions for editing it. Notice that the topic title is now editable, too. You will be offered the chance to change the topic in one of three ways:

  • Change only this message topic
  • Change later messages to this topic
  • Change previous and later messages to this topic

Your edits will be applied if you “save” the message, even if the body of the message is unchanged.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Message formatting

Zulip uses a subset of GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), To see the current subset, go to the cog (cog) in the upper right corner of the right sidebar and choose “Message formatting” from the drop-down menu.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

User status

… is marked by little circles to the left of a user’s name:

  • A green circle () means the user is “active” — the browser has determined that the Zulip page has “focus” at the moment on the user’s computer.

  • A white, circle () means the user is not active and was not recently so.

  • A orange half-filled circle () means the user is “not active” but was recently so.

The same information is available by mousing over a given user’s name.

If you have messaged multiple individual users, their names will appear at the bottom of the right sidebar. In that case, a pale green circle () means that some are recently but not currently active, while others are state unknown. A regular green circle () means they are all at least recently active.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Interacting with Zulip by email

You can receive all activity from all streams, or just some streams, or just messages in which you were mentioned, by playing with the Settings — go to the cog (cog) in the upper right corner of the right sidebar and choose “Settings” there. You can also post to a stream by email — the Manage Streams pane shows you the email address to use for any particular stream.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Emoji

  • Adding emoji to a message. There are two ways to do this:

    • Zulip fully supports Unicode, so if you find any emoji you like and paste them into your message (👛🚹🏪🎿), they will be accepted. You can browse the Unicode Consortium's full list of emoji, although our emoji images may differ from what you see there.

    • Zulip also lets you enter emoji by name, using the format :name:. So sending :octopus: :film_projector: :revolving_hearts: will produce octopus film_projector revolving_hearts can find emoji that are accessible this way by typing a colon and two or more letters of the alphabet — a pop-up menu will appear showing the first five emoji-names containing the letters you typed (consecutively).

    In addition, an emoji pop-over menu is planned, to let you choose them by eye.

  • What if I'd rather not see emoji in other people's messages?. Sorry, this isn't yet supported.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Customization

  • Zulip. For customizing Zulip itself, there is a cog (cog) in the upper right corner of the right sidebar, and it brings up a menu of options.

  • Streams. For customizing your stream subscriptions and individual streams, you can either use the “Manage Streams” menu-option under the main cog, or use the smaller cog above the list of streams in the left sidebar. The message table will be replaced with a “Streams” pane. (You can also get to this pane using the cog-icon above the list of streams in the left sidebar.) On the Streams pane you can create streams, subscribe or unsubscribe to existing streams, subscribe other people, mute or unmute a stream, and control a stream’s color and notification settings.

    For customizing an individual stream without opening the Streams pane, there is a “down-chevron” down chevron to the right of each stream-name in the left sidebar. Clicking the chevron opens a menu of options.

    Special things you can do with a stream you are subscribed to:

    • Turning off (“muting”) a stream, while staying subscribed to it.

    • “Pinning” a stream (moving it to the top of the list of streams).

    • Marking all messages as read.

    • Choosing a custom color.

    You can leave the Streams pane by clicking on Home near the top of the left sidebar.

  • Other customizations are available in the Settings pane. Please experiment with them.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Muting a stream vs. unsubscribing from it

When a stream is muted you can still see (greyed out) how many unread messages are there, and you can still read it and post to it while it's muted — useful if you only want to read the stream on demand but not have its messages populate your main Home message table.

And since subscribed-to streams are now sorted, with recently active streams at the top of the list and inactive streams below, your recently active but muted streams will be interlarded among your unmuted streams, saving space.

You can't do any of that with a unsubscribed stream.

Go back to “Other common questions” | Go back to “Table of contents”

Special terms used with Zulip

  • @mention: see mention.
  • /me: see me.
  • customization: changing Zulip's settings so that it behaves in ways you prefer.
  • emoji: small image used in chat messages, for terse non-verbal expression or cuteness; loanword into English from Japanese 絵文字.
  • filter: one of the options for viewing different kinds of messages, listed in the upper left corner of the window: Home, Private messages, Starred messages, @-mentions. Also called a "view".
  • group PM: a private message sent directly to two or more other users rather than through a stream.
  • home: a "view" in which all topics in all subscribed streams are visible, in order by date and time of posting
  • me: a reference to one's own name, formatted as /me.
  • mention: notifying another user of a message, by putting their name into the body of message after an @-sign.
  • message table: is the stream of messages in the middle pane of a fully open browser window.
  • muting a stream: turning off a stream while remaining subscribed to it.
  • narrow: to alter the view so that only a single stream, topic, or private-message history is shown.
  • pinning: a stream: moving a particular stream to the top of the list of streams.
  • PM: private message — a message sent directly to one or more other users rather than through a stream.
  • private stream: a stream of that can be joined only by invitation.
  • realm: a single Zulip account, associated with a particular organization.
  • stream: a channel of topics expected to fall within a certain scope of content.
  • subscribing to a stream: registering to receive all messages in a particular stream.
  • topic: a distinct thread of conversation within a stream.
  • unsubscribing from a stream: excluding oneself from receiving any messages in a particular stream.
  • view: one of the options for viewing different kinds of messages, listed in the upper left corner of the window: Home, Private messages, Starred messages, @-mentions. Also called a "filter".

Go back to “Terminology” | Go back to “Table of contents”