A green dot is not enough
Every messenger has a presence system. Almost all of them reduce it to the same thing: a green dot for online, grey for offline. Maybe a timestamp. That's the entire picture they give you.
But think about what "online" actually covers. Someone could be online while driving, while in a meeting, while dealing with something urgent, while doing something that requires focus. Online and unreachable. Online and completely in the wrong headspace to receive a message.
A single green dot can't express any of that.
Presence as a message
In TimeMessenger, your status is a message. Before anyone opens a chat, before anyone starts typing, they see where you are. Not technically — not whether your phone has signal — but contextually. Unterwegs. Fokussiert. Im Meeting. In der Schule.
These aren't just labels. They're communication. They tell the person looking at your name in their chat list exactly what they need to know to decide: should I message now, or wait?
Your availability status should answer a human question — not a technical one. Not "is this device connected?" but "is this person reachable?"
Four states, full control
TimeMessenger has four presence states. Each one means something distinct:
- Online — Active. Likely to respond quickly.
- Abwesend (Away) — Briefly unavailable. A custom status text explains where you are.
- Fokussiert (Focused) — Do not disturb. Deep work, meeting, or just needing quiet.
- Offline anzeigen — You're active, but appear offline. Full visibility on your side, nothing shown on theirs.
The "last seen" timestamp freezes automatically when you go to Away or Focused. No breadcrumbs left behind about when you were last active.
Visible where it matters
None of this requires opening a conversation. The entire presence picture is visible in the chat list itself — as a status line under each name, with a small coloured indicator. You see it at a glance. You know what you need to know. You decide whether to write or wait.
That's what presence should feel like. Visible, useful, human — and under your control.