Selecting from the conversation
Clicking a message
Behaviour → Clicking a message decides what a click on a message does:
| Choice | A click |
|---|---|
| Selects the participant (sender) — the default | Selects the sender, in the Participant or From field |
| Selects the recipient (From → To) | Selects who the message went to, in the To field. It needs a To dimension, in either model |
| Selects the conversation | Selects the message's thread. A message with no thread, in From → To, selects everyone in the exchange in both From and To, so the view narrows to it with both sides kept |
| Selects the message | Selects its Message ID |
| Opens the details | Opens the message's details, and selects nothing |
| Does nothing | Nothing |
A single value toggles, as a click in Qlik Sense always has: a second click on the same value takes it back. A set of values — the recipients of a message to several people, or both sides of an exchange — replaces that field's selection, because toggling a set flips each value on its own.
The selection goes through the object's own selection mode: confirm it with the tick, or cancel it with the cross, as in any chart.
A click on the avatar does what a click on the message does. It is the same message, pointed at from a finger's width to the left. The avatar adds no stop for the Tab key: the message beside it already offers the same action, and one stop per conversation is the point of moving between messages with the arrow keys.
What is not a click on the message
- A drag that selects text. Message text can be selected and copied with the mouse; a click that ends a text selection selects nothing.
- A link in a markdown message opens its page in a new tab, and selects nothing — even where the link holds a highlighted keyword.
- The copy button copies the message, and selects nothing.
- The Details link opens the details, and selects nothing. Reading a message never selects.
When a click selects nothing
Requires Chatbox.qs 0.6.2 or later
In 0.6.0 and 0.6.1, a click on a message also selected while the sheet was being edited.
As on a native chart, a click on a message selects nothing:
- while the sheet is in edit mode, where a click on a chart only picks the object for editing;
- in an image or PDF export;
- while Qlik Sense holds the object inactive;
- for a moment after a selection, while the new messages are read.
The message then shows no pointer, and neither does its avatar, so nothing on the screen offers a click that would do nothing. A message whose click would have nothing to select — a sender with no value, say — shows no pointer either.
Opens the details still opens them in edit mode, and so does the Details link: neither selects anything.
When Qlik Sense refuses the click
When Qlik Sense refuses a click's selection — usually because the field is locked — the corner of the object says so, naming the field. For a sender field called Author:
Qlik Sense did not select in Author; the field may be locked
and the selection is cancelled, the confirm bar with it. When Qlik Sense refuses one value in a selection it lets go of every value picked in that selection, so anything picked before the refused click — other messages, lane headers — goes too, and there is nothing left to confirm.
- Where the dimension is an expression rather than a field, the notice names the dimension instead.
- Where the engine fails outright, the notice says Could not select in Author: Qlik engine error 6003, with the engine's own error number.
- A click Qlik Sense accepts says nothing: the selection bar shows it already.
Other things that select
| Click | Selects | How |
|---|---|---|
| A lane's header | Its conversation | Through the object's selection mode, several at a time — see Conversations side by side |
| A highlighted keyword | Its value in the highlight field | At once, and the corner says what was selected — see Highlighting keywords |
| A legend chip | Its category in the category field | At once, as above |
A keyword or chip selects at once rather than waiting for the tick, because the tick confirms the values in the object's own data, and the highlight field is not part of it.
From the keyboard
The keyboard never makes the selection a click on a message makes. Enter on a message opens its details — or, when the keywords were stepped through last and the one stepped to is in the message, selects that keyword's value. The keys are in the Reference.