How to use chat shortcuts?

Fuse IM supports chat shortcuts, also know as canned responses.

A shortcut is a reply that you create with a simple label that's easy to remember that will expand to a full reply when you select a shortcut.

How to create shortcuts

You can create new shortcuts from your website settings. When logged in and viewing your inbox, click on the user menu in the top-right, find "Shortcuts" on the left hand menu. You will see a list of shortcuts and a button to add a new shortcut.

Enter a simple name for your new shortcut, for example "hello". Lower-case single words work best but underscores are recommended for more that one word. The exclamation mark prefix can be ignored for now, I'll show you what that means below.

Next, enter any reply text you wish. This is the text the user or visitor will see so make sure to write it with the tone your most comfortable with.

How to use your shortcuts

There are two ways to use your newly created shortcuts.

The first way is using the "Shortcuts" tab above the message composer. When you're viewing a conversation look toward the bottom of the chat. Click on the tab and your shortcuts will appear in a popup above.

The preferable way is using the keyboard. This is where the exclamation I mentioned comes in. When viewing a conversation and with an empty message composer, simply type an exclamation ("!") as the first character to trigger the shortcuts menu. You can now filter the shortcuts by the name you set above to focus the list, then using your keyboard arrow keys, navigate up and down the list. Hit return to choose the shortcut and insert the text into the composer.

Choosing a shortcut won't send the text immediately. This allows you to tweak or edit the text before you send it.

Once you're ready to send, hit return again as you normally would to send your reply.