Understanding comments
Edited

Overview

Use comments to collaborate internally with your teammates. Only your team can see posted comments, so you can discuss the conversation amongst yourselves without having to forward the message around. You can also get a specific teammate's attention using @mentions.

The cherry on top is that you can use emojis to react to comments!


How it works

Shared inboxes

Comments on a shared inbox conversation are visible to anyone with access to the inbox. If you want to pull someone specific into the conversation, you can @mention anyone on your team to have them chime in on the conversation.

Individual inboxes

In your individual inbox, you can use comments to write notes for yourself about the conversation, which are only visible to you and anyone you may have delegated your inbox to. 

You can also use comments to collaborate on specific private conversations. Just @mention your teammate on it, and they’ll only get access to that one conversation. They can chat with you about it in comments, or even reply to it for you. Don’t worry about sharing something by mistake — Front will always prompt you to confirm you want to share a private conversation.


Instructions

Step 1

Click into the Add a comment box at the bottom of any Front conversation.

Step 2

Type your comment, including any rich content you'd like as explained in the comment features below.

Step 3

Press Enter on your keyboard to post your comment. Now anyone who has access to the inbox or was @mentioned in the comment will be able to see it.


Comment features

Add files

Click on the icon in the comment bar to Add files to the comment. You'll see a pop-up to choose the files from your computer; or you can drag-and-drop the files directly into the comment bar to attach. Attachments have a 100 MB size limit.

Add a Zoom meeting

Insert a unique Zoom link directly into a comment by clicking the icon in the comment bar and choosing Add a Zoom meeting. This enables instant video or audio collaboration as you are working on a conversation together in Front.

Mention teammates

When you need some help from a teammate, you can simply @mention them in a comment by typing the @ symbol or clicking the @ button on the comment bar. Learn more about all the different ways to use @mentions here.

Comment emojis

Insert emojis to liven up your comments by clicking the happy face icon, or simply type out the emoji keystrokes and press the space bar. 

Comment GIFs

Express yourself fully with the Giphy integration built into the comment bar — simply click the GIF icon and search for the perfect gif to capture your thoughts.

Expand comment bar

If you'd like to expand the comment bar to have more space for typing, click the Expand icon at the top right of the comment editor, or use the Cmd/Ctrl + period (.) keyboard shortcut. Once expanded, click the button again to Collapse the box or use Cmd/Ctrl + period (.) again.

Edit and delete comments

Hover to the right of the comment to see the Edit and Delete options. You can also press the up arrow on your keyboard while active in the comment composer box to edit your comment. If you click Delete, you will be prompted to confirm whether you want to delete the comment.

Format comments

You can easily add formatting like bold, italics, quotes, and more to comments. Simply highlight the text in the comment to reveal the editor.

Tip: Use Front's Markdown styling to format comments as well!

Pin comments

Pin comments to highlight important comments for all teammates viewing the conversation. To pin a comment, hover over the comment and click the pin icon. To unpin a pinned comment, hover over the comment and click the unpin icon.

You will see a pin icon appear at the top of the conversation when there are pinned comments in the conversation. Clicking the pin will open the About this conversation details box and show all of the pinned comments in the conversation.

Reply to comments

To reply to a specific comment, hover on the comment and click the reply icon. The original comment will show in the comment box, and you can type your own comment to reply to it.

Quote comments

You can highlight text within any comment and write internal replies about the highlighted text. This works like the contextual comments feature.

Conversation or message ID previews

When you post comments containing a conversation or message ID/permalink, Front will automatically show a preview of that conversation or message to give you and your team helpful context at a glance. These conversation previews can be clicked to open the conversation in a popout window. Conversation previews will only be shown if the teammate viewing the comment has access to the conversation.


Contextual comments

You can highlight text within the body of any message and write internal comments about the highlighted text.

Instructions

Step 1

Highlight text in any message body, and the Comment option will appear.

Step 2

Click Comment, then write your internal comment. If you would like to highlight a message snippet, but don't need to add any additional comment of your own, you can post the comment without entering additional text.

Step 3

Hit Enter to post the comment.

How it works

  • After the contextual comment is posted, click the highlighted message body text to view the comment, and hover on the comment to see the option to jump down to the comment.

  • From the comment itself, hover over the quoted text and click Jump to message to view the highlight within the message body.

  • Multiple teammates can highlight and comment on text within the same snippet of a message. The message body will indicate when there are overlapping comments. Click any highlighted segment to preview the associated comment.

Mobile app

We do not yet support the ability to add a new contextual comment in the mobile app, or view highlighted text in a message body. However, in the mobile app you can view existing contextual comments, and long-press on the comment to jump to the relevant message.


FAQ

How do I view my mentions?

You can become a subscriber of a conversation in several ways, one of which is if you are mentioned in a comment. When there is new activity on the conversation, such as new comments, you will see the conversation appear in the Shared with me section of your sidebar. You can click there to view your @mentions and other conversations you follow.