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Rooms and spaces are the fundamental building blocks of your Matrix experience. Rooms are where conversations happen, while spaces help you organize and group related rooms together.

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What are Rooms?

Rooms are chat channels where you can communicate with other users. They can be:
  • Public rooms: Discoverable and joinable by anyone
  • Private rooms: Invite-only spaces for specific users
  • Direct messages: Private conversations between users
  • Call rooms: Special rooms for Element Call integration

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What are Spaces?

Spaces are collections of rooms organized in a hierarchical structure. Think of them like folders or Discord servers - they help you group related rooms together for easier navigation.
Spaces can contain both rooms and other spaces, creating a nested hierarchy for complex community structures.

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Creating Rooms

To create a new room:
  1. Click the + button in the sidebar or navigation area
  2. Select Create Room
  3. Configure your room settings:
    • Room name: Give your room a descriptive name
    • Room topic: Optional description of the room’s purpose
    • Visibility: Choose between public or private
    • Encryption: Enable end-to-end encryption (recommended for private conversations)
  4. Click Create to finalize
Enable encryption when creating private rooms to ensure your conversations remain secure. Note that encryption cannot be disabled once enabled.

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Creating Spaces

To create a new space:
  1. Click the + button in the sidebar
  2. Select Create Space
  3. Enter your space details:
    • Space name: The name of your community or organization
    • Space topic: Description of what the space is for
    • Visibility: Public or private
  4. Click Create
After creating a space, you can add existing rooms or create new ones within it.

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Joining Rooms

There are several ways to join rooms:

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Join by Room Address

  1. Click the search or + button
  2. Enter the room address (e.g., #general:matrix.org)
  3. Click to join the room

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Browse Public Rooms

  1. Navigate to the explore or room directory section
  2. Browse available public rooms on your homeserver or other servers
  3. Click on a room to preview and join

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Accept Room Invites

When someone invites you to a room:
  1. You’ll receive a notification
  2. Navigate to your invites section
  3. Click Accept to join or Reject to decline
Some rooms may require you to join before you can view their messages, while others allow guests to preview content before joining.

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Room Navigation

Sable provides several ways to navigate between rooms:
  • Spaces: Listed on the left side, click to expand and view rooms within
  • Direct Messages: Quick access to your DM conversations
  • Favorites: Rooms you’ve marked as favorites appear at the top
  • Unread indicators: Badges show unread message counts

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Search and Jump

  • Use the search feature to quickly find rooms by name
  • Jump to specific messages using permalinks
  • Navigate room history using timestamps
You can navigate room history to specific dates and times using the jump to time feature. This is helpful for finding messages from past conversations.

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Space Hierarchy

Spaces support nested hierarchies, allowing complex organizational structures:

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Adding Rooms to Spaces

  1. Open your space
  2. Click Add existing room or Create new room
  3. Select rooms from your joined rooms list or create new ones
  4. The rooms will appear in your space’s room list

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Adding Subspaces

You can add spaces within spaces:
  1. Navigate to your parent space
  2. Click Add existing space
  3. Select a space to add as a subspace
  4. The subspace appears nested within the parent
Sable includes featured communities in the lobby view, making it easy to discover and join popular spaces:
  • Community spaces for various topics
  • Public rooms for discussion
  • Servers with active communities
Featured communities are configured in your client’s config and can include spaces like #sable:sable.moe and rooms like #announcements:sable.moe.

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Room Types

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Standard Rooms

Regular chat rooms for group conversations. They support:
  • Text messages and rich media
  • File attachments
  • Reactions and replies
  • Pinned messages
  • Member management

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Call Rooms

Special rooms configured for Element Call integration:
  • Persistent video/voice call spaces
  • Dedicated chat alongside calls
  • Call participant management
See the Calls page for more information.

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Announcement Rooms

Read-only rooms where only moderators can post:
Sable can hide member join/leave events in read-only rooms by default, making announcement channels easier to read.

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Room Management

Once you’ve joined or created a room:
  • Room settings: Access from the room header menu
  • Permissions: Manage who can post, invite, and moderate
  • Notifications: Configure notification preferences per room
  • Leave room: Exit rooms you no longer wish to be part of
For more details on room settings, see the Account Settings documentation.

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