Status dots

Once you have a few Threads going, the question stops being "what is Rally doing?" and becomes "where am I needed?". Rally answers it with small coloured dots. Learn them once and you can read your whole workload in the time it takes to say "hang on, let me check".

The dots#

A status dot is a small coloured circle with a label beside it. It tells you one thing about a Thread or a Breakout. There are eight:

Blue is the only dot that moves. The exact shades shift a little between light and dark mode, but the colours stay the same family. Rest your pointer on a dot and Rally says what it means, so you never have to tell pink from violet by eye alone.

A run that is waiting its turn to start counts as Running.

Where you see them#

• The Threads list. Each Thread and Breakout in your Threads list carries one small dot at the start of its row. It shows the first dot that applies, in the order below, and leaves out Latest run completed and Latest run stopped, since a run that has ended needs nothing from you. Sort the list by Needs attention to bring the ones that want you to the top. See Arranging your Threads.
• The Threads button. The red number on the Threads button at the left edge of the window counts the Threads that are new to you, mention you or have unread messages, plus anyone waiting for you to approve a request to join. The dock icon and the Mac menu bar show the same number.
• A Thread's Breakouts. In a Thread's menu, Breakouts puts a dot beside each one with something new. See Breakouts.

When several things are true at once#

A Thread can be running, unread and have mentioned you all at the same time, but it only shows one dot. The first one that applies in this order wins:

1. New to you
2. You were mentioned
3. Running
4. Needs input
5. Unread
6. Latest run completed
7. Latest run stopped
8. Needs intervention

So a busy Thread where someone named you shows pink, not blue, because a message addressed to you is more pressing than a Rally that is busy anyway. But plain unread messages rank below a running Rally.

A closer look at two of them#

New to you lights up when someone adds you to a Thread: when they create it with you in it, add you later, or confirm an @-mention that adds you. It goes away the first time you open the Thread, and it never comes back for that Thread. Later messages make it Unread instead. The exception is being removed and then added again, which lights it afresh. You never see it on a Thread you made yourself.

You were mentioned goes away once you have read past the message that named you. A Thread's main conversation and each of its Breakouts keep track of mentions separately.

Bold names in the Threads list#

A row with a dot has its name in bold, as in most mail apps. Open it and read, and once nothing is left to tell you, the dot goes and the name goes back to normal.

Times in the sidebar#

Each Channel in the Channels list shows when it last had activity, and each item in Activity shows when it happened. These times read like a calendar rather than a stopwatch:

• A clock time for today, such as 3:42 PM.
• Yesterday.
• A weekday, such as Tuesday, for the last few days.
• A short date, such as Sep 3, for anything older.

They update themselves too, so 3:42 PM turns into Yesterday after midnight without you doing anything. The format follows your Mac's language and region.

The same self-updating times you met on messages (see People in the room) also turn up elsewhere: beside each Thread in a Channel's feed, in search results, and on a Sidekick's page for its next run and its recent runs.

Next: give a Thread a name and a face, in Names, icons and colours.