User Profiles
A profile is the username and the picture that appear beside someone's messages and in the online users list. It belongs to the person, not to the room: a profile set in one of your chat rooms is the profile they carry into every other room in your account.
This page covers what someone can change about their own profile from inside a chat room, who gets the chance to, and how that sits with a picture and a name you have supplied yourself.
What is in the sidebar
The top of the sidebar shows the person's picture — or their initial, if they have no picture — with their username beside it, and up to two buttons underneath.
| Button | Who sees it | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Edit Profile | Moderators, and anyone signed in as one of your users | Opens a window for changing the picture, the username and the password. |
| Verify Profile | Someone who has an account but has not entered the code emailed to them | Opens a box for that code. |
Someone who joined by typing a username into the join screen has no profile to own, and gets neither button. Their username lasts as long as their visit, and the way to change it is to rejoin under another one.
So in practice Edit Profile appears for:
- moderators of the room, always; and
- people who arrive as one of your users — joining with an access token or a unique user identifier, or signing in with email and password on the join screen.
If you want the people in your rooms to have lasting, editable profiles, give them user records rather than letting them type a name. Creating and Managing Users and Chat Room Permissions covers the join screen and the identifiers behind it, and Create User creates them from your own system.
The Edit Profile window
Edit Profile opens an Account panel with the current picture on the left and the fields on the right.
The picture. Select Images opens a file chooser. The window suggests 128 × 128, which is the
size it is displayed at; anything square works. Use a .jpg, .jpeg, .png or .gif file and keep it
under 1 MB — a larger file is refused, and a file of another type is passed over while the rest of the
changes still save. The new picture is previewed before saving.
The username. Type over it. Save stays unavailable while the box is empty, so a username cannot be removed, only replaced.
The password. Fill in both Current Password and New Password — Save stays unavailable until you have filled in both or neither. The new password needs to be at least 6 characters, and the current one has to be right; if it is not, the password is left as it was while the other changes are saved.
Save applies everything at once and closes the window.
What everyone else sees, and when
In a room with fewer than 50 people online, a saved change reaches everyone straight away: the new username and picture appear in the online users list and on that person's earlier messages, without anyone reloading. In a busier room, the people already there see the change the next time their chat loads.
The profile itself is stored against the person, so the change also carries into your other chat rooms.
Hiding the profile buttons
The Customize tab's Hide Elements panel has a toggle called Claim Profile/Edit Profile Button, which takes both buttons out of the sidebar. Switch it on when identity comes from your own system and the chat should not be able to change it — a name you have set stays the name you have set.
The same toggle is available per embed, without changing the room, as
hideClaimAndEditProfileButtons on
loadCustomization:
frame1.loadCustomization({
hideClaimAndEditProfileButtons: true
});
Two things to know before you rely on it:
- It hides Verify Profile as well, since it covers the pair. Someone who needs to enter their emailed code cannot do it from a room where these buttons are hidden.
- It hides the control, not the capability. Profile changes made through the API are unaffected, so it is a way to keep your interface consistent, not an access control.
A separate toggle, Profile Pics, hides avatars beside messages altogether. Both are described in the Hide Elements Reference.
Pictures you supply yourself
You can set someone's picture from your own system instead of asking them to upload one. Give an HTTPS URL when you create or update the user:
| Endpoint | Field |
|---|---|
| Create User | externalProfilePicURL |
| Create User (v1) | profilePic |
| Update User | profilePic |
The picture is fetched from the URL you give, so keep it reachable — if the URL stops resolving, the avatar stops appearing.
The last change wins, in both directions. Setting profilePic through the API replaces whatever
picture that person has, including one they uploaded themselves. And if they have Edit Profile, an
upload of theirs replaces yours — in every room of yours, not just the one they are in. If the picture
has to be the one you supplied, hide the profile buttons as described above, and keep setting it through
the API.
If you drop people into rooms by URL rather than creating users through the API, and you want to pass a picture that way as well, contact support — that route is enabled per account.
Related
- Hide Elements Reference — Claim Profile/Edit Profile Button, Profile Pics, and everything else that can be taken out of the interface.
- Creating and Managing Users and Chat Room Permissions — how people arrive with a user record instead of a typed name.
- Creating Moderators — moderators always have an editable profile.
- Chat Room Permission Levels — whether a room admits typed usernames at all.
- Create User and Update User — setting usernames and pictures from your own system.