Conference System: How to Use the Chat Interface
On the bottom of your chat screen, you'll see the following task bar:
It offers you the following links:
Please note that in order for Help!, Options, Who's On, and Profile to
work, you must enable pop-ups -- each of them will appear in a separate
window.
Help!, shown above, opens a new window that gives you
basic chat commands and links back to this tutorial.
Options
Options, shown above, opens the following window:
You can choose a temporary look for your text by clicking
the options on the Color line. These changes go away
when you leave the chat room, or when you change them again.
If you click [Change], the following window will
open:
This color box lets you choose the color of your posts,
including your start color for the ever-unpopular rainbow text. You can
also boldface your text or return it to regular from here. Click the Return
link to go back to the main Options window.
Ignore permits you to type in the username
name of a person whose comments you do not wish to see. That user and
his comments will then disappear from your screen until you choose to
remove him or her from your Ignore list. (Note: the name
has to be spelled correctly and with correct spacing. Should ignoring
someone become an issue, It's easiest just to copy and paste the chatter's
name from the list of chatters to the right.) Ignore multiple users by
typing a comma after each name, as demonstrated below:
nuisance345,bothersome,AnnoyingBoy
Finally, from the Options window, you can
add an image of yourself into the chat room. It will be resized to fit,
and if you upload a larger image (all images are restricted to a moderate
file size -- large images will be refused), people can click on the thumbnail
in the chat room and see the big picture.
Who's On
Who's On, shown above, opens a small window
with live links to each of the chat rooms. You can click through these
to have a look at the names of people occupying each of the public rooms.
Private rooms are, of course, private. The Who's On window
refreshes automatically, so the names in it will always be up to date.
Log Out
If you forget to log out, you'll look like you're still
in chat for a couple minutes. Remembering to click the log-out link will
prevent people from trying to talk to you when you're actually gone. Just
a politeness, but much appreciated.
Refresh
This gives you a clean screen -- if you don't want to lose
the text of the conversation you were reading, don't refresh. However,
when you make changes in your Profile or Options and want to see how they
turned out, you'll have to refresh to see them.
Profile
Clicking the Profile link opens the following
new window:
[insert Profile page image here]
Text box
Above you can see the Text box, where you
type in your conversations. It's set up to accept fairly long comments
-- currently you can put in about 500 characters, including spaces, before
you'll get cut off. The following test post contains exactly 500 characters
and spaces.
This is test text. It exists only to fill space
and demonstrate a function or feature. This is test text. It exists
only to fill space and demonstrate a function or feature. This is test
text. It exists only to fill space and demonstrate a function or feature.
This is test text. It exists only to fill space and demonstrate a function
or feature. This is test text. It exists only to fill space and demonstrate
a function or feature. This is test text. It exists only to fill space
and demonstrate a
Type into the text box. When you've completed your post,
hit either your enter key, or the Send
button.
Please know the chatroom rules before hitting Send.
Chats are logged and you are
responsible for the contents of your posts.
Send
You use the Send button for two things.
- Sending text
- Jumping from room to room
You can also send text by hitting your Enter key. For
jumping from room to room, click the room you want to travel to, and click
the Send button. You're limited to one jump every 20
seconds to prevent abuse.
Noise Reduction
If you and friends enter nicknames in your profile and then
use them when addressing each other, you can click this button and your
conversations will stay large and formatted, while other conversations
will shrink and go to the default color. While this can help you follow
a single conversation, however, an easier method is simply to move to
a different room.
Private to ...
From the pull-down menu ...
click the name of the person to whom you want to send a
private message, write your message, and either click Enter
or Send. The rooms are set up so that once you've moved
into private mode, you will continue to address only the one person you
have chosen until you click the Private to ... link at
the top of the dropdown menu, or another name.
Jump to ...
Click the Jump menu.
Click the name of the room you want, then click the Send
button.
Command Line
Type in the following commands, and either hit Enter
or click Send.
/me Allows you to post a message as an action. For
example:
/me says hello
Would result in the following output if your handle was 'Bob':
* Bob says hello
/whois Will display a user's profile; for example:
/whois bob
Would display the profile Bob created for himself.
/laston Will display the last time a user has chatted. For example:
/laston bob
/memo Allows you to send a memo to a user who is not presently
online. When the user comes online, they will be notified of their waiting
memo, and given instructions on how to view it. To send a memo, type /memo
recipient; message for example:
/memo bob; hi bob sorry I missed you! Call
me later.
Make sure you put a semicolon after the chatter's username.
** and && at
the beginning of a line will invoke rainbow text
/msg can be used to send private messages; since we
allow spaces,
usernames containing spaces must be typed out like this:
/msg some user; hi there
Chat tutorial by BJ Steeves & Holly Lisle
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