Messages

Messages

Messages let somebody on one Kinboard device say something to the rest of the house: “Back by 6”, “Dinner is ready”, or any other short note that should be seen rather than left in a list.

Messages are different from Notes. A note remains a document until it is deleted. A message interrupts the board briefly and remains waiting until somebody confirms they saw it.

Send a message

1. Find the Messages widget on the dashboard.
2. Select Say something.
3. Enter up to 200 characters and select Send.

Every other active family screen receives the message over Realtime. For its first minute it appears as a large panel above the dashboard widgets. It then collapses into the Messages widget and stays there until acknowledged. The screensaver does not cover a message while it has the large attention state.

The sending device shows the message as Waiting for someone to see this. It does not interrupt or notify itself.

Acknowledge or withdraw

On another device, select Got it. The first acknowledgement clears the message from every family screen at once. There is one household-wide acknowledgement rather than a separate copy for every device.

The sender sees Withdraw instead. This removes a message sent by mistake and also gives a one-device household a way to clear its own message.

Push notifications

Subscribed devices receive the message immediately, except for the device that sent it. Tapping the notification opens that exact message. If somebody else already acknowledged it, Kinboard explains that it has already been seen.

Messages are sent even during configured quiet hours because they are written by a person at that moment rather than scheduled by Kinboard. A push failure does not discard the message: connected screens still receive it over Realtime.

Settings and troubleshooting

Messages is enabled by default. Settings → Widgets is also the feature switch: hiding the Messages widget stops message takeovers on the family dashboard.

Problem	Check
A screen does not update immediately	Confirm Realtime is healthy and reload once; the client also polls as a fallback.
No phone notification	Enable notifications on that device and use Settings → Notifications → Send test.
The sender gets no takeover	This is intentional; the sender sees a waiting row instead.
A message vanished everywhere	Another device acknowledged it, or the sender withdrew it.
Messages never appear	Enable Messages under Settings → Widgets. This is a family-wide setting.

See Notifications for push setup and Notes for long-lived household notes.