Initial Setup

Default Configuration

By default, CrewChat has a single chat channel called global. This name is not special in any way and can be used for anything you like.

The default configuration file looks like this for channels:

# Channel Configuration
# Define each channel here. Text colors can be either a named color or a hex code surrounded by quotes ("#ff2acb").
channels {
    Global {
        auto-subscribe=true
        description="Global chat channel"
        exclude-from-discord=false
        show-channel-name-discord=false
        show-channel-name-in-game=false
        text-color="white"
    }
}

Each channel is named by its configuration section. In this case, the name is Global and will show in game as "Global". Channel names are not case sensitive which means global, Global, GLOBAL and GlObAl will all work for in game commands. The channel name will always be displayed with the formatting given in the configuration.

Chat color refers to the color messages will appear in chat for that channel. Your choices are the 16 legacy chat colors (referenced by name) or a hexadecimal color (ex. #FA24B9). Hex colors must have the # prepended to be valid.

auto-subscribe specifies that new players will automatically be subscribed to this channel when their player data is created. You'll want to have at least one channel with this set to true so when new players join, they have a chat channel to see.

exclude-from-discord specifies whether this channel will have its chat messages sent to a Discord channel.

show-channel-name-discord specifies whether messages sent in game will have the channel name prepended on Discord.

show-channel-name-in-game specifies whether messages sent in game will have the channel name prepended in game.

Examples

You can specify as many channels as you like, there is no limit.

For the example above, the only permission needed for players to be able to use the global channel like a normal chat is:

crewchat.crewchat.speak.global

This means it is possible to allow players to view a channel without being able to talk themselves. From there, you can choose permissions to allow players to subscribe (crewchat.chat.subscribe.global)/unsubscribe (crewchat.hat.unsubscribe.global) to the channel, meaning they would be able to see or not see the messages sent in that channel. There is also a separate permission to allow a player to set a channel as their active channel (crewchat.chat.active.global), in other words, the channel their messages are sent to.

If you want a player to be able to view a channel but not speak in it, just give subscribe/unsubscribe permissions.

If you want a player to be able to speak in a channel, but not be able to subscribe/unsubscribe, just give speak permission (and active permission if more than one channel exists).

For information on linking channels with Discord, please see DiscordSRV Integration.