Conversation with an operator

At the top there’s a heading: “Welcome!” (or the Welcome message from the Welcome section) and a line about the response time. Below it is the message feed, and at the bottom the input field.

What appears in the feed:

• The visitor’s messages: on the right, in the accent color.
• The operator’s messages: on the left, with an avatar (the operator’s photo or, failing that, the project logo or a letter) and a caption with their name.
• Notices about conversation events: an operator took the conversation, transferred it, snoozed it, resumed it, reopened it or closed it. They arrive as bot messages (on the left, marked BOT) and stay in the history after a page reload.
• Buttons under some automatic messages, for example in the reminder before an auto-close.

SettingsWidget BuilderPrivacy, the Show 'operator seen' indicator to visitor toggle (conversation.privacy.operator_seen_enabled, on by default). When the operator opens the conversation in the dashboard, a “✓✓” read mark appears under the visitor’s messages: under the latest one and all earlier ones. It means “the operator opened the conversation”, not “the operator read every word”.

A 350 ms long-press (on touch screens) or a 600 ms hover on an operator’s message opens a panel of 4 emoji. A tap adds the reaction, and a counter appears under the message. Only operator messages can get reactions. The builder has no separate reactions toggle: they’re always on.

Some automatic messages come with buttons, for example the reminder before an auto-close. Operators don’t attach buttons of their own to replies. A button is one of three kinds:

• url and deeplink: open the link in a new tab;
• callback: sends the press to SupportHub: POST /api/webhooks/widget/{ws}/messages/{id}/inline-callback with {target}. An internal note with the button’s target appears in the conversation, and an operator who has that conversation open gets a pop-up notification, “Visitor tapped: target”.

The buttons are only visible while the conversation is open: after a page reload, they’re no longer under the message.

The texts are set in SettingsWidget BuilderSystem Messages, separately for Russian and English. For messages with a toggle, turning it off hides the message entirely.

Each operator action (taking, transferring, snoozing, resuming, reopening, closing) puts exactly one notice in the conversation. The server writes and stores it, in the language the visitor’s widget is shown in, so after a page reload the history has the same line. The ticket-created confirmation appears right after the visitor’s first message.

In an existing conversation, a button between the messages and the input field carries the text from Widget BuilderHours & Avail.'Close ticket' button text (“Close ticket” by default; an empty field means no button). Pressing it asks “Close this conversation?”; after “Yes, close”, the widget sends POST /api/webhooks/widget/{ws}/ticket/{tid}/resolve (the conversation gets the resolved status) and takes the visitor back to the start of the tab. If the request fails, “Could not close. Please try again.” appears for 4 seconds.

If the conversation is open, the input field is hidden and the “Continue” and “Open a new conversation” buttons appear instead. The feed gets the Ticket closed message (unless it’s turned off in the builder).

If Widget BuilderConversationCSAT rating prompt is on (it’s off by default), a rating card appears in the feed after the conversation is closed, whether by an operator, by the visitor or by auto-close: the Rating prompt text (“How did we do?” by default) and five stars. Once the visitor picks the stars, an optional comment field and a Submit button appear. The widget sends POST /api/webhooks/widget/{ws}/rate, and the card changes to “Thanks for your feedback!”. If sending fails, the card stays and the visitor can try again.

Until the conversation is rated, the card shows again every time the visitor opens that closed conversation. Where operators see the rating is covered in Rating system.

When the visitor sends a message, the widget always scrolls to the bottom. When an incoming message arrives, it scrolls down only if the visitor was already at the bottom. If they’re reading older messages, the view doesn’t jump; on a computer, a round arrow button to the latest messages appears instead.

Clicking a photo in the conversation opens it full screen. Zoom with the buttons, the +/-/0 keys, Ctrl + mouse wheel, a pinch or a double click; drag to pan. Close it with Esc, a click on the background or the × button. Videos play right in the feed.