---
title: Sending chat messages
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

This topic presents the various types of chat messages and ways to send them.

## Message types

Chat users may encounter the following types of messages:

- **Classic** - messages posted on the live site into a room.

![](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k8/sending-chat-messages/22.png)

- **Whisper** - messages posted in the room, but only to a particular user designated as recipient

![](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k8/sending-chat-messages/11.png)

- **System** - messages generated by the system, informing about users joining and leaving rooms, and sent invitations.

![](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k8/sending-chat-messages/5.png)

- **Announcement** - messages sent from the Chat application's UI.

![](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k8/sending-chat-messages/4.png)

When a user joins a room, system messages posted earlier are not displayed to them by default. This behavior can be adjusted in **Settings -> Community -> Chat -> First load of messages**.

## Sending messages

Once joined in a room, users can start sending messages. A message typed into the text box can be sent either by clicking the **Send** button or by pressing **Enter**.

A new line can be inserted by pressing **Shift + Enter**.

Users can send messages either to all users present in the room, or to a selected user. Recipient of the message can be specified via the drop-down list below the message text box.

![Selecting a message recipient](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k8/sending-chat-messages/3.png "Selecting a message recipient")

If user selects **Everyone**, the message will appear to all users in the room.

If a particular user is selected, then only the selected user will be able to see the message. The following example shows how such message appears to the sender:

![](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k8/sending-chat-messages/2.png)

The recipient will see the message as follows:

![](https://docs.kentico.com/docsassets/k8/sending-chat-messages/1.png)

After a private message is sent, the selector will revert the selected recipient back to Everyone. To prevent this and keep sending messages to a specific user, the sender should check the check-box on the left-hand side of the selector.