Team Chat and File Sharing

The community room

Each community has one retained chat room, independent of booth upload state. Alley staff can inspect and participate in every community room.

• @mention teammates to get their attention; the Ping sound setting plays a chime when you are mentioned.
• Messages can be deleted; hold Shift while deleting to skip the confirmation.
• During the event lock window the room is locked along with the rest of the collaboration features. See Booth Backups and Event Lock.

Peer to peer attachments

Messages allow up to five attachments, each no larger than 500 MB.

How it works:

• The backend stores message text and attachment metadata only. The file bytes never touch the server.
• Files remain on the uploader's computer and transfer directly to the requester over a WebRTC data channel with STUN discovery.
• The uploader must be online with the original file still in place for a download to work.

The app shows explicit unavailable states when:

• the uploader is offline, or
• the local file was moved, changed, or deleted after it was shared.

Tips for reliable sharing

• Turn on Run in tray in Settings. Closing the window then keeps the app online in the system tray, so your shared files stay available to teammates.
• The current release does not use a TURN relay, so a direct transfer may be impossible on restrictive networks such as strict NATs, some VPNs, and corporate firewalls. If a transfer never starts, try a different network or have the uploader share the file another way.