Applicable for: Admin users (members without an admin role can see these settings but cannot change them)
Two settings on the Display settings page control when your chat widget speaks first and where it shows up. The “Greeting popup” setting controls the small message bubble that appears next to the chat bubble, including how long it waits before appearing. The “Show widget on mobile” setting controls whether visitors on phones see the widget at all.
Where to find these settings
Open your bot in the NoForm AI dashboard, expand the “Chat Widget” section in the left sidebar, and click “Display settings”.
Both settings sit below the “Chat bubble position” block, after the position dropdown and the margin fields described in “Chat Bubble Position and Behaviour”.
Changes to either setting take effect only after you click “Publish changes” at the bottom of the page. “Discard” returns both settings to the values they had when you opened the page. If you do not have an admin role, both toggles and the delay field appear grayed out and you can read them without changing them.
Turning the greeting popup on or off
The “Greeting popup” toggle controls the preview bubble that appears beside the chat bubble before a visitor opens the chat. The description under the setting reads “Show a preview of the welcome message near the chat bubble.” The toggle is on by default, including for bots created before this setting existed.
When the toggle is on, a visitor who has not started a conversation sees a popup containing your assistant name, your logo, your welcome message, and your conversation starters if you have those enabled. The visitor can click the popup to open the chat, or click the X to dismiss it. A few seconds after dismissing it, a small unread badge appears on the chat bubble.
When the toggle is off, no popup appears next to the chat bubble, and the unread badge that follows a dismissed popup does not appear either. The chat bubble stays on the page, and clicking it opens the chat with your welcome message inside as usual.
Setting how long the greeting popup waits
When the “Greeting popup” toggle is on, a field named “Show after (in seconds)” appears below it. This value is the number of seconds between the page finishing its load of the widget and the popup appearing. The default is 5 seconds.
The rules for this field are:
The value must be a whole number between 1 and 120 seconds.
Hovering over the field reveals + and - buttons on the right that change the value by 1 second per click.
A value outside the allowed range shows the red message “Enter a value between 1 and 120 sec” and disables the “Publish changes” button until you correct it.
Turning the “Greeting popup” toggle off while the field holds an invalid or empty value clears the error and restores the value to 5, so you can publish again.
If a visitor has already sent a message in the conversation, the popup does not appear on later page loads no matter what delay you set.
Showing or hiding the widget on mobile
The “Show widget on mobile” toggle controls whether phone visitors see the chat widget. The description under the setting reads “When off, the chat bubble is hidden for visitors on mobile devices.” The toggle is on by default, including for bots created before this setting existed.
When you switch it off, visitors on phones see no chat bubble, no greeting popup, and no chat window. The widget does not appear and then disappear, because it never draws itself on the page. Those phone visits also create no rows in your Visitors or Traffic sources reports, because the widget stops before it registers the visit. Visitors on computers keep the widget exactly as before.
Switching the toggle back on restores the widget on phones, and any conversation a visitor had before you hid it is still there when they open the chat again.
How the widget decides that a visitor is on mobile
The widget reads the device identification that the browser reports, not the width of the browser window. Narrowing a desktop browser window does not hide the widget when “Show widget on mobile” is off.
Devices counted as mobile are Android phones, iPhone and iPod, BlackBerry, webOS devices, and browsers identifying themselves as IEMobile or Opera Mini. Tablets, including iPad and Android tablets, are not counted as mobile, so they keep showing the widget when the setting is off.
How these settings work with your other settings
The text inside the greeting popup is the welcome message you set in the “Engagement” tab of the “AI Assistants” menu, and the buttons under it are your conversation starters. Both are covered in “Configuring Messages and Conversation Flow”. Turning the “Greeting popup” toggle off hides that popup along with the conversation starter buttons that ride inside it, so visitors see conversation starters only after they open the chat.
The side of the screen the popup appears on follows the “Chat bubble position” setting, and the distance from the screen edges follows the margin fields, both described in “Chat Bubble Position and Behaviour”. Hiding the widget on mobile does not change any of those values, so the widget returns to the same position when you switch it back on.
When to use these settings
Turn “Show widget on mobile” off when the chat bubble collides with something on your phone layout, such as a sticky “Call now” bar, a cookie notice, a floating cart button, or a bottom navigation bar. Hiding the widget on phones keeps those controls tappable while your desktop visitors keep the chat.
Raise the “Show after (in seconds)” value on landing pages, where a popup at 5 seconds can cover your offer while the visitor is still reading it. A delay of 20 to 45 seconds lets people get through the page first, and the chat bubble stays clickable the whole time for anyone who wants to ask sooner.
Lower the value toward 1 or 2 seconds on support and pricing pages, where visitors arrive with a question and a fast prompt helps them ask it.
Turn the greeting popup off on pages where any popup is unwelcome, such as checkout flows or documentation, while keeping the chat bubble available for visitors who look for help.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does turning off the greeting popup remove the chat bubble too?
Turning off the greeting popup removes only the preview message beside the bubble. The chat bubble stays on the page, and visitors who click it get your welcome message as the first message in the chat.
Do phone visits still count in my reports when the widget is hidden on mobile?
Phone visits create no new rows in your Visitors or Traffic sources reports while “Show widget on mobile” is off, because the widget stops loading before it registers the visit.
Does hiding the widget on mobile also hide it on tablets?
The setting applies to phones only. An iPad or an Android tablet keeps showing the chat bubble when “Show widget on mobile” is off.
Why does the greeting popup not appear even though the toggle is on?
The popup stays hidden for visitors who have already sent a message in the conversation, and it also stays hidden if the delay has not passed yet on that page load. To test it, open your site in a private browser window so the widget treats you as a new visitor.
Can I set a different popup delay for different pages?
Both settings apply to the whole bot, so the delay and the mobile visibility are the same on every page where you install the widget. The text inside the popup can still differ per page, because it comes from the welcome message of the assistant that matches that page.
Benefits
Control when your assistant speaks first, from 1 second to 2 minutes after the page loads.
Keep phone layouts clear by hiding the widget where a floating bubble would cover buttons your visitors need.
Keep the chat available without any popup, for pages where an interruption costs you a conversion.
Change either setting back at any time without losing visitor conversations or your position and styling settings.