Lobby Chat: Basic Notifications

Lobby (chat) currently requires users to monitor windows manually.
Without notifications, users can miss replies, mentions, and announcements.
It is impractical for asynchronous communications once a community grows and is hard to get traction for the lobby without notifications.

Requested Features

1. System Notifications (Desktop Browser)
This would be nice to have

• Browser push banners when chat is not in focus.

• Trigger conditions:

  • New message that @mentions the user.

  • Reply in a thread the user started or participated in.

  • Channel with “all messages” notifications enabled.

• Content: sender name, channel name, first 50–80 characters.

• Click action: opens chat at the exact message.

• Timeout: auto-dismiss after 5–7 seconds unless clicked.

2. Logged in Notifications (Navigation Bar)
I think this would be the MVP to make Lobby more usable

• Bell icon placed next to avatar in top-right nav.

• Badge bubble shows unread count.

• Dropdown list on click:

  • Last 6 notifications with sender avatar, name, channel, snippet, timestamp.

  • “View all” link for full history.

  • “Mark all as read” option.

• Unread state: bold or highlighted until opened.

3. User Controls

• Per channel settings:

  • All messages

  • Mentions/replies only (default)

  • Mute

• Global toggle for browser push notifications (on/off).

Benefits

• Real-time awareness without keeping chat tab in focus.

• Enables replies and improves networking.

• Better matches expectations from Slack/Teams/Discord.