💬FamilySearch Chat is Now Live!!!
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I want to receive an email notification when I receive a message from another user. This does not appear to be a current option.
Current options are:
FamilySearch Information: Receive email that contains tips, inspiration, news, and Rootstech Information.
Discoveries about My Ancestors: Receive personalized email about my ancestors.
Receive and Offer Help: Allow me to receive an invitation from a helper, or send an invitation to help others.
Other platforms offer this option. It is very helpful since some researchers do not sign in every day or are not actively researching.
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In the webversion I accidently clicked on "Hide chat", but I cannot undo that, this is an unwanted situation!
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When receiving a new chat from someone, it would be great to have FamilySearch notify the recipient of the chat via their email address that’s registered in FamilySearch. Currently, there is no notification of a new Chat message, and if a person does not log into FamilySearch often, they would not know they have a message.
Thank you!
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The system of having a chat with some one assumes that when you open a chat against a persons entry on the link that they are still active. It may be the case that since there last time was many years ago or yesterday. So how do we know that ,that this person can be contacted. ?
Now that you have introduced sign in on the day of us the last time they were active can be shown.
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It's that simple. That's my 'new' idea. Please don't fix what wasn't broken. I'm completely sickened by what I lost in my 15 years or so of communications in familysearch messages. I'm saddened that I had to learn about my loss by going to google. At this point I will avoid communicating through "chats" as much as possible, inasmuch as "chats" has an "until death in 12 months do you part" clause. I had to learn through google that there was a December 31, 2023 deadline for downloading a text file of past messages, which is far less valuable and useful as what we already had in messages. How many ordinary users of familysearch even know what's happened, and how many know of the deadline? I feel like I'm probably talking to a wall.
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@John Raymond Cox said
At this point I will avoid communicating through "chats" as much as possible, inasmuch as "chats" has an "until death in 12 months do you part" clause.
In the transition from the old Messages system to Chat, there was a one-time conversion of old messages from the past two years (24 months, not 12 months) to the new Chat system. I share your frustration that the ability to download everything from the Messages system is not as convenient as if all the messages had been converted, but at least nothing is truly lost (assuming you do the download by December 31).
But that 24-month limit only applies to the transition from Messages. There is no expiration date on Chat messages going forward. I don't see anything in the blog post announcement Introducing FamilySearch Chat: Talk with Users in Real Time or in the Chat FAQ that talks about any expiration that would imply that there is any reason to limit your communication using the Chat system.
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Just found this today. Thanks FS for deleting all of my earlier messages. How was this mass deletion of immense amounts of useful advised to us all? I'd seen about chat and thought as most of the posters on here did that it looked a pretty useless article. But it was not highlighted that old messages would be destroyed.
Considering that FamilySearch is about saving and protecting and keeping available family history information, it feels very negative.
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@JamesBarton9 Although not all messages on the old system were converted to Chat conversations, it appears to me that all the old messages are still available at https://www.familysearch.org/messages/ (in spite of notices that they would not be available after 31 December 2023). So I would advise you to follow that link as soon as possible and then use the Download Messages button. This will enable you to preserve all the messages from the previous system. They will be in a text file, not in the new Chat system (only messages from 2022 and 2023 were converted to Chats), but at least you will have preserved the messages prior to 2022 in a way that you can access, even after the old Messages system is completely retired.
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Many thanks for the link. Either I have been too complacent about this, or FamilySearch has not highlighted the matter clearly. Regardless, I now have a Word document saved (and already headed!) on my hard drive.
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There is no option for receiving emails when private messaged, at least for me, in the web version (not mobile). I find this crazy. Every other service usually defaults to such a setting being on. Usually a PM is something you want to know about because it is another human reaching out. This leads to people not knowing they have PM’s for months or years because they don’t log in to familysearch regularly. Even though they would really be happy to know someone wrote them. It’s a strange situation.
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Mod note - Several post on the new Chat feature have been merged here.
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I can't seem to move the chat window outside of the browser window. It is always on top of the browser window. It would be nice if the chat window could be a tab on the browser, or popped out of the window somehow so it isn't in the way blocking other info on the browser.
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At least the box can be reduced in size or moved to a part of the screen where it is not blocking the information you are wanting to view. Otherwise, you just have to remember to open up the page you wish to view (while using Chat) in another tab, beforehand.
Yes, a shame can't be opened directly in a new tab, but I find this applies to other FamilySearch features (especially in using "Search"), so we just have to find workarounds, I guess.
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Latest - this morning I signed in and to my horror the whole version had been reversed to old version. Nothing like chat anywhere, even the format. Messages received since Oct 2, 2023 are gone.
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Clicking the message icon while in the help center search results takes you to messages instead of the new chat.
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I think I'm not alone in considering that a hidden feature, not a flaw... Although it only goes up to last September for me.
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To @JeffLuke's point, I use a two monitor set up and preferred to older Message system where I could move my message over to the other monitor while having full FamilySearch access on the other monitor. I've not found a way to open Chat in a new window. @Paul W does offer a workaround, but as most workarounds it is somewhat cumbersome.
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You can open a tab or a window to any other page in FamilySearch and have the chat open there. This works well in a two-monitor set up.
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- add a minimize button
- add a feature to be able to make paragraphs. Currently if you press enter to start a new paragraph, it sends the message. Much better if you click on a button to send.
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For number 2, you can get a newline by doing Shift-Enter -- although I agree 100% that pretending to be social media like this and having it send on plain Enter was, um, not the best programming decision.
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Thanks for the shift/enter; that's new to me.
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