# Slack Guide ## good practices - @ whoever you want to see your message. Jordan will be notified if she is tagged like this, but may not see an urgent message and know that she needs to help you if you don't @ her! - You're going to make lots of things, usually logged in as Learning Lab Studio - make sure to slack them to yourself and then put them in your personal channel so you can access them on a different device. Dms routinely get deleted, but files will stay in your lluf channel so keep them there. - Emmy! ADD SOME MORE HERE THAT YOU HAVE PICKED UP! ## the channels - To communicate with the LL staff for independent, personal, or private communications, each LLUF has an individual channel (#ll-uf-name-i). Think of this channel as a DM to the Staff, where you will often get a faster respone to a message than a typical DM. - To communicate with the current LLUF cohort, we’ll be using the slack channel #llufs? (NEED TO MAKE THIS) The core labs each have a lab channel and are a place to share resources, ideas, inspirations, and anything else related to the interests and projects of that lab group. The core lab channels are for 2023/2024 are: - #ll-av-lab - #ll-event-lab - #ll-graphics-lab - #ll-reality-lab - #ll-code-lab You’ll need to join, at minimum, the channel for the lab you choose to join. You’re welcome to join the other core lab channels, as well as our other lab channels, including #ll-music-lab, #ll-cine-lab, #ll-game-lab, #ll-ai-lab. You’re always welcome and encouraged to share ideas and resources in these channels, too. We want to programmatically save the things you’re making and publish the news of you making them. We’ll use these additional slack channels below for this purpose: - #util-img-2-md - post your images here if you want to get markdown for them (for instance, to get images into hackMD quickly and easily!) images saved here are fair game for any of us to use so make sure you’re OK with them being published on, say, the web - #show-your-work - post your works-in-progress, i.e., a photo with short caption describing what you’re working on/learning post your final projects, including media and final project report text post links to hackMDs that detail workshops you’ve designed and delivered post anything here that you’d be totally comfortable with us sharing with your department and others outside of our Bok Center community, including in our reports Beyond these channels which are vital to our work, we have a whole universe of channels devoted to building community and connecting to each other's interests! Check out #ll-personality-quiz, #bok-plants, #bok-pets, #bok-makes, and many many more! ### customize your workspace - you can create folders on your lefthand sidebar to organize your channels how you would like them to show up on your device(s). For example, you could make a folder for your LLUF year/semester with Customizing Your Virtual Workspace Why Customize? As we enter a world of virtual learning, our desktops have gone from a useful accessory to the center of our school life. The same way we decorate our dorm room or pick out folder colors, what we see on our screen affects our productivity and happiness in this virtual world. It’s not just about making it prettier to look at (that's a great plus too though!) but also customizing these apps to fit our needs and work a little better for us as users. There are so many options and most of them just take a few seconds to improve your whole semester! Slack Change Your Notification Sound If you use Slack on a mobile device or your computer, you can change what sound Slack notifies you with. Under “preferences” which you can find on the upper left-hand side of the app or by clicking the command key on your computer, navigate to the “notifications” tab. Scroll down until you see this menu and select different sounds to hear them. Once you decide on one you like, just leave the bubble next to it selected and exit out of settings Make Custom Emojis Reacting to people’s messages with emojis is the easiest way to interact with content in your channel. Slack comes with its own standard emojis to use, but you can make your own emojis to react with. You’ll need to have a picture or a graphic you want as an emoji saved on your computer. The ideal size is 128 x 128 pixels. If your image is too large, it will get compressed to 128 x 128. If you dont have your own picture or design you want to use, but still want to add some custom ones, Slackmoji has a fun collection you can choose from! When you click the arrow by your name in the sidebar, you can choose “Customize Slack” under the “Administration” menu. This will open up a page where you can choose the “Add Custom Emoji” button and upload the picture or gif you want to use from your files Once you upload an image and give it a name, press “Save” and your emoji should appear under “custom” when you want to react to a message! Set Up Your Activity Feed One of the best ways to easily interact with messages on Slack is through the emoji reactions, but by default, you have to scroll through chats and check individual messages to see these reactions. If you would like Slack to show you people’s reactions to your messages and any mentions, you can set up an activity feed. Under “mentions and reactions” in the left-hand side bar, select the “filter” button in the top right that looks like this When the menu filter menu pops up, select what you would like this feed to show Create Sidebar Sections Grouping your Slack channels in the sidebar is an easy way to stay organized. Similar to folders in real life or on your desktop, you can make sections like “priority” or “announcements”, to give a few examples, that make it easier to navigate your workspace channels. Under “preferences” select the “sidebar” menu Click “Create Section” in the upper right corner which should open a popup window. In this window, you can give your section and name and emoji and click “Create” when you’re done. The section should then appear in your sidebar where you can click and drag any of your channels into it. These sections can be collapsed or opened so you can focus on the channels in certain sections while working. Change Modes, Themes and Colors An easy and fun way to change your whole Slack interface is to change the color scheme. In general, the app has a light and a dark mode you can toggle between and preset color themes for the layout. If you want to really personalize it you can even set up your own theme by picking hex code colors. Navigate to “preferences” which you can find on the upper left-hand side of the app or by clicking the command key on your computer Click “themes” on the side bar and you’ll see the light and dark mode options If you continue scrolling through, you’ll see present theme color schemes you can select and try out until you find the one you like best If you would like to create a color theme from scratch you can click the “create a custom theme” hyperlink and fill in the following screen with hex code colors of your choice.