Chat
The lobby and the table windows allow you to type messages.
Messages typed in the lobby can be seen by anyone logged in or anyone who logs in in the next twenty-four hours.
Lobby chat can sometimes be a bit confusing because there may be a big lag between when someone asks a question and someone else responds. As such, the original question will no longer appear once it times out, which could leave an answer stranded. For this reason, lobby chat messages have timestamps that can be seen by hovering over the chat line.
Messages typed in tables can be seen by anyone playing at or observing those tables. Observers can be logged in or anonymous.
All chat is preceded by the nickname of the author of the chat. Normal messages then have a colon before the message. Action messages do not have the colon.
Special Formatting
Action Messages
If you preface your message with "/me ", your message will be displayed in italics. E.g., if I type
/me applauds
the output will be
deadhead applauds
Links
You can create a link that other people can click on by surrounding the
label for the link in [] and then, with no space after the closing ],
putting the complete URL within (). E.g., if I type
Craft Poker Co. is [now online](https://craftpoker.com/).
the output will be
Craft Poker Co. is now online.
Only URLs that start with http://, https:// or mailto: can be
used inside the parentheses. If the text inside the parentheses doesn't
start with those schemes or is not a valid URL, then mb2 will simply
pass the text through, so if you type
[test](link)
the output will be
[test](link)
At some point mb2 will detect failed attempts at links, but that's not yet a high priority.
Emojis
You can either type (or paste) emojis in as utf-8 or you can use GitHub emoji shortcodes, but only for the GitHub emojis that have a Unicode representation1. E.g., if I type
Yup! I hit my two outer. :grinning:
the output will be
Yup! I hit my two outer. 😀
Unfortunately, I know of no nicely structured list of that GitHub emoji subset and the gist that shows all GitHub emoji shortcodes leads with :bowtie: which does not have a Unicode representation. Luckily, the vast majority of the emojis in that list are indeed represented by Unicode.
Additionally, if you want to use that list, you might be able to tell whether a particular emoji has a Unicode representation by hovering your mouse over the emoji. Try doing that with the bowtie emoji and almost any other emoji on that page and you may see that your cursor turns to an I-beam for emojis with a Unicode representation (e.g., :smile:) but remains an arrow for one of the ones that doesn't work (e.g., :bowtie:).