Team Chat

Team Chat enables real-time collaboration between Niuton users with rooms, file sharing, and AI integration.

Features

Rooms — Create topic-based chat rooms
Messages — Rich text with Markdown rendering
@Mentions — Tag users or @Aurora for AI assistance
Reactions — React to messages with emoji
Shared Files — Per-room shared filesystem
Presence — See who's online
AI Integration — Aurora participates in conversations with full tool access

Room Management

Any user can create a room
Room creators and admins can delete rooms
Deleting a room removes all messages, shared files, and membership data

Messaging

Messages support full Markdown rendering via marked.js:

Bold, italic, code
Code blocks with syntax highlighting
Lists, links, blockquotes
Sanitized output (no XSS)

@Mentions

Type @ followed by a username to mention someone. Special mention:

@Aurora — Triggers AI response in the room context

Reactions

Click the reaction button on any message to add an emoji reaction.

Shared Files

Each room has a shared filesystem accessible via:

Team Chat "Dateien" button — Opens the Files app at the room's shared folder
Files App — Navigate to /Teamchat/{Room Name}/
Aurora — Use shared file tools to read/write

Storage quota is configurable per-room (default: 200 MB).

Aurora in Team Chat

When @Aurora is mentioned, the AI receives:

Room context (name, type, participants, date/time)
Last 50 messages for context
Access to 9 tools: shared file tools + user's private files (read-only) + web search
A "denkt nach..." indicator while processing
Up to 8 tool iterations for complex multi-step tasks

Aurora uses the unified Qwen 3.5 model with adaptive parameters and visible thinking. The thinking process is saved in message metadata and can be viewed by expanding the thinking block. Responses include tool call summaries showing which tools were used.

Architecture

team-chat/index.php    → Chat UI (3-column layout)
api/team-chat.php      → 15 API endpoints
lib/tools.php          → Team chat Aurora tools
lib/shared-filesystem.php → Shared file operations

Database tables:
  niuton_chat_rooms      → Room definitions
  niuton_chat_members    → Room membership
  niuton_chat_messages   → Messages
  niuton_chat_reactions  → Reactions
  niuton_chat_mentions   → @mentions
  niuton_chat_presence   → Online status

Communication uses HTTP polling (3-second interval) for real-time updates.

v3.9 Updates v3.9

Real-Time with SSE

Team Chat now uses Server-Sent Events (SSE) instead of polling:

Messages appear instantly (< 1 second) instead of 3-second delay
Typing indicators update in real-time
Unread counts refresh automatically
Graceful fallback: If SSE fails 3 times, falls back to polling
Live status indicator: Green dot next to room name shows SSE is active

Member Management

Room creators and admins can now manage members:

Add members: Invite users via the room members panel
Remove members: Remove users (cannot remove yourself)
API endpoints: room_members, add_member, remove_member

Room Creation with User Selector

Creating a new room now includes a Discord-style user selector:

Searchable list of all registered users
Pill tags showing selected users
Bulk actions: "Alle" / "Keine" buttons
Creator is automatically added as admin

Click the chat icon in the TopBar for a floating chat panel:

420x520px glassmorphism popup
Room list with unread badges and last message preview
Chat view with message stream and input field
Fullscreen button opens the full Team Chat app
SSE integration for real-time updates within the panel

Toast Notifications

New messages trigger desktop toast notifications:

Bottom-right stacked toasts with slide-in animation
Auto-dismiss after 5 seconds
Click to open Team Chat
Browser Notifications when tab is not focused (requires permission)

SSE Architecture

Browser (EventSource)
    │
    GET /api/chat-sse.php?room_id=X
    │
    ▼
chat-sse.php (PHP long-poll SSE)
    │ session_write_close() first
    │ DB poll every 2s
    │ 30s max connection
    ▼
Events streamed:
    ├── new_message    (every 2s check)
    ├── typing         (every 2s, deduplicated)
    ├── unread_count   (every 5s)
    └── reconnect      (at 30s timeout)

The nginx proxy is configured with proxy_buffering off for the SSE endpoint.

v3.10 Updates v3.10

Direct Messaging (DMs)

Team Chat now supports 1-zu-1 Direktnachrichten — private conversations between two users, similar to Discord, Teams, or Telegram.

Starting a DM

There are three ways to start a DM:

TopBar Chat Panel — Click the pencil icon (compose), select a user from the picker
Team Chat App — Click the + button next to "DIREKTNACHRICHTEN" in the sidebar
API — POST /api/team-chat.php?action=start_dm with {user_id: X}

If a DM already exists between two users, the existing conversation is returned (no duplicates).

DM Features

Full messaging — Everything that works in rooms also works in DMs: Markdown, @mentions, reactions, @Aurora
Real-time — SSE delivers messages instantly, typing indicators work, unread badges update
Presence — Green/grey dots show if the other user is online or offline
Search — Filter DMs and rooms by name in the chat panel search bar
Notifications — Toast notifications for incoming DM messages

Chat Panel Redesign

The TopBar chat panel now shows a unified view:

Section	Description
Direktnachrichten	DMs sorted by most recent message, with avatar, presence dot, and unread badge
Räume	Regular chat rooms with `#` icon, last message preview, and unread badge

The compose button (pencil icon) opens a User Picker with:

Users grouped by Online (green) and Offline (dimmed)
Live search filtering
Click to instantly start or open a DM

The sidebar in the full Team Chat app now has two sections:

┌────────────────────┐
│  Räume             │
│  # general         │
│  # projekt-x       │
├────────────────────┤
│  Direktnachrichten [+] │
│  ● Kevin           │
│  ○ Testnutzer      │
└────────────────────┘

DMs show a circular avatar with presence indicator
Unread badges appear next to names
Members panel is hidden when viewing a DM (it's always just 2 people)

Architecture

DMs are implemented as 2-person rooms with type='dm'. This reuses the entire existing infrastructure:

Canonical room name:  dm_{minUserId}_{maxUserId}
Unique index:         Prevents duplicate DMs between same users
Room filtering:       handleRooms() excludes type='dm'

New API endpoints:

Endpoint	Method	Description
`start_dm`	POST	Find or create DM room. Body: `{user_id}`
`dm_list`	GET	All DMs with presence, unread count, last message
`all_users`	GET	All users with online status for picker

Database changes:

sql

-- Type constraint extended
CHECK (type IN ('global', 'group', 'private', 'dm'))

-- Unique index for deduplication
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX idx_chat_rooms_dm_name
  ON niuton_chat_rooms (name) WHERE type = 'dm' AND is_active = true;

v3.11 Updates v3.11

ChatPanel Markdown Rendering

All messages in the ChatPanel (Aurora conversations, DMs, and rooms) now render Markdown via marked.js:

Headers, bold, italic, code — Full CommonMark support
Tables — Styled with dark-theme borders and header backgrounds
Code blocks — Monospace with background highlight
Blockquotes — Left-border accent
XSS sanitization — Script/style/iframe tags stripped, on* event handlers blocked, javascript: URIs removed

Aurora Thinking Collapsible

When thinking is enabled (options.thinking = -1), Aurora's analysis is shown in a collapsible <details> block:

"Denkprozess anzeigen" summary (collapsed by default)
Only the final answer is visible by default
Client-side parser (cpSplitThinking()) handles models that embed thinking in the response text (e.g., ## Analyse / ## Antwort patterns)

Message Grouping

Consecutive messages from the same sender within a 5-minute window are grouped:

Name label shown only on the first message in a group
Subsequent messages have tighter padding
Aurora messages in groups show a spacer instead of repeating the avatar
Grouping works in both Team Chat rooms and Aurora conversations

Unread Notification Badges

Red badge on the Team Chat top bar button with total unread count
Per-conversation unread badges in the ChatPanel overview (DMs and rooms)
Badge updates every 30 seconds via dm_list + rooms API calls
Badge updates immediately when the panel is opened

v3.12 Updates v3.12

Shared Rendering Module

Team Chat and ChatPanel now share a unified rendering module (/assets/js/chat-shared.js):

NiutonChat.renderMd() — Markdown rendering with XSS sanitizer
NiutonChat.formatTime() — Relative German timestamps (heute, Gestern, Mo, 17.02.)
NiutonChat.stripMd() — Strip markdown for previews
NiutonChat.splitThinking() — Extract thinking blocks from AI responses
NiutonChat.escHtml() — HTML escaping
NiutonChat.parseMentions() — @mention highlighting
NiutonChat.shouldGroup() — 5-minute grouping check

Both Team Chat and ChatPanel delegate to the same module, ensuring consistent rendering across both UIs.

Message Grouping in Team Chat

Team Chat now groups consecutive messages from the same sender within 5 minutes:

Avatar replaced with spacer in grouped messages
Header (name + timestamp) hidden for grouped messages
Tighter spacing (2px margin instead of default)

Message Animations

New messages appear with a subtle fade-in + slide-up animation (0.15s ease-out).

Aurora Conversations in Team Chat

The Team Chat sidebar now includes an Aurora section above the rooms list:

Private Aurora conversations stored in localStorage (shared with ChatPanel)
Create new conversations with the + button
Full chat interface — Send messages, receive AI responses with markdown rendering
Thinking toggle — Enable/disable thinking mode per conversation
Cross-sync — Aurora conversations created in ChatPanel appear in Team Chat and vice versa (via localStorage storage event)
Delete — Hover to reveal delete button with confirmation

Light Mode

Team Chat now supports Light Mode:

PostMessage bridge — Desktop broadcasts niuton-theme-change events to all app iframes
Initial detection — Team Chat reads window.parent.NIUTON.theme on load
50+ CSS rules — All UI components styled for light backgrounds (#f4f4f8 base)
Live switching — Theme changes apply instantly without reload

ChatPanel Typing Indicator

ChatPanel now sends typing events to the Team Chat server:

Throttled to max 1 event per 3 seconds
Team Chat users see typing indicators from ChatPanel users

"In Team Chat oeffnen" Button

When viewing a Team Chat room in the ChatPanel popup, a new button opens the full Team Chat app with the same room selected.

Unread Badge Sync

When messages are read in Team Chat, the ChatPanel badge updates instantly via niuton-unread-changed postMessage (instead of waiting for the 30s polling cycle).

Display Name Fix

Temporary (optimistic) messages now show the user's display name instead of the raw username. This applies to messages sent from both the Team Chat app and the ChatPanel.

Edited Message Marker

Edited messages now display a "(bearbeitet)" label next to the timestamp, so users can see when a message has been modified after sending.

SSE and Polling Deduplication

When SSE successfully connects, polling is now stopped immediately to prevent duplicate messages. Previously both transports could run simultaneously, causing messages to appear twice.

openSharedFiles Bugfix

The "Dateien" button in Team Chat now correctly opens the Files app at the room's shared folder path.

Aurora Date/Time Awareness

Aurora now always includes the current date and time in her system prompt:

Format: 01.03.2026 20:49 (Sonntag) Uhr (Zeitzone: Europe/Berlin)
Applied to all 3 system prompt builders (chat, pipeline, legacy)
PHP timezone set to Europe/Berlin

Team Chat ​

Features ​

Room Management ​

Messaging ​

@Mentions ​

Reactions ​

Shared Files ​

Aurora in Team Chat ​

Architecture ​

v3.9 Updates v3.9 ​

Real-Time with SSE ​

Member Management ​

Room Creation with User Selector ​

TopBar Quick-Chat Panel ​

Toast Notifications ​

SSE Architecture ​

v3.10 Updates v3.10 ​

Direct Messaging (DMs) ​

Starting a DM ​

DM Features ​

Chat Panel Redesign ​

Team Chat Sidebar ​

Architecture ​

v3.11 Updates v3.11 ​

ChatPanel Markdown Rendering ​

Aurora Thinking Collapsible ​

Message Grouping ​

Unread Notification Badges ​

v3.12 Updates v3.12 ​

Shared Rendering Module ​

Message Grouping in Team Chat ​

Message Animations ​

Aurora Conversations in Team Chat ​

Light Mode ​

ChatPanel Typing Indicator ​

"In Team Chat oeffnen" Button ​

Unread Badge Sync ​

Display Name Fix ​

Edited Message Marker ​

SSE and Polling Deduplication ​

openSharedFiles Bugfix ​

Aurora Date/Time Awareness ​

Team Chat

Features

Room Management

Messaging

@Mentions

Reactions

Shared Files

Aurora in Team Chat

Architecture

v3.9 Updates v3.9

Real-Time with SSE

Member Management

Room Creation with User Selector

TopBar Quick-Chat Panel

Toast Notifications

SSE Architecture

v3.10 Updates v3.10

Direct Messaging (DMs)

Starting a DM

DM Features

Chat Panel Redesign

Team Chat Sidebar

Architecture

v3.11 Updates v3.11

ChatPanel Markdown Rendering

Aurora Thinking Collapsible

Message Grouping

Unread Notification Badges

v3.12 Updates v3.12

Shared Rendering Module

Message Grouping in Team Chat

Message Animations

Aurora Conversations in Team Chat

Light Mode

ChatPanel Typing Indicator

"In Team Chat oeffnen" Button

Unread Badge Sync

Display Name Fix

Edited Message Marker

SSE and Polling Deduplication

openSharedFiles Bugfix

Aurora Date/Time Awareness