The Joys of Slack

If you’re new to Slack and aren’t quite sure how to navigate all its functionalities, this guide might help! Included: tips on how to pep up your posts with different styles, a hands-holding guide to replying to a post in its thread as opposed to just in the general channel, and a note about emojis.

POSTS

• new line: shift + enter (without the shift, it’ll post)
• post: enter (no shift this time)
• keywords: surround text with backticks (e.g., keyword text)
• bold: surround text with asterisks (e.g., bolded text)
• italicize: surround text with underscores (e.g., italicized text)
• lists: begin message with the numeral one ( 1 ) for ordered lists or an asterisk ( * ) for unordered lists
• block quote: begin line with a bracket ( > ); get out of it by creating a new line
• inline code: begin with triple backticks ( `` ); get out of it by closing it with triple backticks * code snippet: click lightning bolt in new message, then select create a code or text snippet, then select what language to use in the type` dropdown menu, then paste in the editor

THREADS

• reply to a post by clicking the chat bubble icon to go to the thread
• post your comment as a reply in that specific thread, as opposed to in the general channel stream

REACTIONS

• use emojis to quickly reply to a message without using text
• have everyone click on a certain emoji to indicate they’ve completed a task

MENTIONS

• grab someone’s attention by using the “at” symbol ( @ ) before their username
• users get notifications of their mentions

MESSAGES

• send a private message to specific user by going to the All DMs link in the top left of the main sidebar
• type a user into the search bar to pull them up, then send them your message

CHANNELS

• organize discussions into different sections, based on their primary focus
• searchable
• join or leave as needed
• all your channels appear in your sidebar under channels
• stars: star channels to pull them out of the general channels section of the sidebar and into a new starred section of the sidebar
• pins: pin important messages in threads, so they’ll always be accessible via the pin icon in the top left corner of a channel’s stream

INTEGRATIONS

• you can link up third-party platforms like Dropbox or Google Calendar

MORE INFO:

https://slack.com/resources/using-slack/how-to-use-slack

https://slack.com/help/articles/202288908-Format-your-messages

https://slack.com/help/articles/204145658-Create-a-snippet