Tact 1.13 introduces a major new feature – replies.

Tact previously already had a “Reply” feature, but it wasn’t a real reply. All it did was quoted the message into the input field, and you could then write your own comment. This was useful, but it didn’t link the original message and reply together in a meaningful way, didn’t let you follow multiple replies, or do anything else that’s expected in a modern communication app.

As we ourselves used Tact in group chats, sometimes with multiple topics discussed simultaneously, the lack of replies became a real pain point. You couldn’t distinguish multiple topics, and if you wanted to reply to something that had been said before, it wasn’t really possible without quote. Multiple replies and multiple levels of quotes sometimes cluttered chats.

Now, Tact has real replies. When you reply to a message, the original and the reply are linked together in a meaningful way, and this linking continues as more replies are added. Original messages in chat show how many replies they have, and replies are clearly indicated. By tapping on the original message or any reply, you enter a new Replies view where you can see the original with all its replies—a thread, if you will. You can continue replying either in the Replies view or in the main chat view.

Longer replies and quoted texts are truncated in the main chat stream, but keep fully displaying in the Replies view. This ensures that everyone in the chat is somewhat aware of what is going on, but not bombarded with long reply content, unless they choose to go to the Replies view.

We have been using various chat apps for both work and personal purposes for many years, and took inspiration from many of them when designing replies in Tact. Following the Tact approach of having a viewpoint and making meaningful choices so you as the user doesn’t have to, there aren’t any knobs or controls to tweak the reply behavior. For example, there isn’t a separate control to indicate whether to share a reply into the main chat or not. All replies are always shared, but in truncated form, which feels like a good balance.

We hope you find replies in Tact useful and usable. Let us know what you think.