This post may also apply to the Development section. Move if necessary.
Given that the chat feature is essentially in alpha stage production, I don’t expect this feature to be implemented any time soon, but I wanted to pass this forward regardless. I’d like to request that all chat conversations be loaded also as DM conversations, which I can look back at once a conversation is over in my DM messages, or during (etc.). Essentially making the Chat and DM features interchangeable. This would also assist me while testing out my Chat feature to make sure that messages are indeed coming through, even if they don’t reach my chat box.
Personally I find that those two features have their own reason to be separate and merging them will only bring confusion. DM are essentially emails, while chat is more interactive and needs the other user to be online in order to use it.
Otherwise concerning the chat feature in itself, I decided to use another one in my own pod that works quite well called converse.js I invite you to check it out.
One problem I see is that most people, I think, expect chat to be live, ephemeral and not archived. I think many people would be unhappy with the prospect of their chats being archived by others. I speak as someone who doesn’t use chat and is unlikely to, so you’d need feedback from people who do use it a lot.
A kind of ‘test mode’ in which messages are duplicated to an admin panel might be a better way of solving your problem.