How to use the chat rooms

Warning: Netscape users must define their language as the default encoding or else each character in messages will be replace by a '?'.
This can be done as follows: View/CharacterSet/your language Auto-Detect, then View/CharacterSet/SetDefault.

Choosing a language: You may choose a language among those in which the chat program offer as shown by the flags below known to transilate. Clicking on one of the flags at the start page.

Amharic  Engish  Arabic  French

Login:

If you have already registered, simply log in by entering your username and password. Then select from the chat room you would like to enter and press the Chat button at the bottom.

Else you can register first or simply enter a room but your nick won't be reserved (another user may use the same nick once you have logged out).

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To Register:

Click on the register button, small popup box will appear. If the box unable to appear, you may have popup blocker and you may need to disable that temporarly. On this box the boxes with astrisk (*) must be filled.

Understanding connection state:

A sign representing your connection state is dipslayed at the top-right corner of the screen. It may take three forms :

In the third case, clicking on the red "button" will launch a new connection attempt.

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Sending messages:

To post a message to the chat room, type your text into the text box in the lower left corner and then press the Enter/Return key to send it. Messages from all users scroll in the chat box.

You may change the color of the text of your messages by choosing a new color from the list of choices to the right of the text box.

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Understanding the users list (not for users popup window):

    Two basic rules have been defined for the users list:
  1. a little icon that shows gender is displayed before the nick of a registered user (clicking on it will launch the whois popup for this user), while unregistered users have nothing but blank spaces displayed before their nick;
  2. the nick of the administrator or of a moderator is italicized.

For example, from the snapshot bellow you can conclude that:
users list
  • Nicolas is the admin or one of the moderators of the phpMyChat room;

  • alien (whose gender is unknown), Jezek2 and Caridad are registered users with no extra "power" for the phpMyChat room;

  • lolo is a simple unregistered user.

Leaving the chat room:

To exit the chat, simply click once on "Exit". Alternatively, you may also enter the one of the following commands into your text box:
/exit
/bye
/quit These commands may be completed with a message to be sent before you leave the chat room. For example : /quit CU soon!

will sent the message "CU soon!" in the main frame then log you out.

Knowing who is chatting without being logged in:

You may click on the link that shows the number of connected users at the start page, or, if you are chatting, click on the image

Users popup at the top-right of the screen to open a independent window that will display the list of connected users, and the rooms they are in, in near real time.
The title of this window contains the usernames, if they are less than three, the numbers of users and opened rooms else.

Clicking on the Beeps icon at the top of this popup will enable/disable beeping sounds at user entrance.

Customizing the Chat View:

There are many different ways to customize the look of the Chat. To change settings, simply type the appropriate command into your text box and press the Enter/Return key.


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Features and Commands

Help command:

Once inside a chat room, you can lauch a help popup by clicking on the ? image that sits just before the message box. You can also type the "/help" or "/?" commands in the message box.

Smilies:

You may have graphical smilies inside your messages. See bellow the code you have to type into a message to obtain each one of these similes.

:) :D :o :( ;) :p 8) :[ :kill:
:) :D :o :( ;) :p 8) :[ :kill:

For example, sending the text "Hi Jack :)" without quote will display the message Hi Jack :) in the main frame.

Text Formatting:

Text can be bolded, italicized or underlined by encasing the applicable sections of your text with either the <B> </B>, <I> </I> or <U> </U> HTML tags.

For example, <B>this text</B> will produce this text.

To create a hyperlink for an e-mail address or URL, type the address (without any HTML tags). The hyperlink will be created automatically.

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Invite someone to join your current chat room:

You can use the invite command to invite an user to join the room you are chatting in.

For example: /invite Jack

will send a private message to Jack suggesting him to join you in your current chat room. This message contains the name of the target room and this name appears as a link.

Note that you can put more than one username in the invite command (eg "/invite Jack,Helen,Alf"). They must be splitted by comma (,) without spaces.

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Changing rooms:

The list to the right of the screen provides a list of chat rooms and the users who are currently in that room. To leave the room you are in and move into one of those rooms, simply click once on the name of that room. Empty rooms do not appear on this list. You may move into an empty room by typing the command "/join #roomname" without quotes.

For example: /join #RoomName

will move you into the RoomName chat room.

If you're a registered user, you may also create a new room with this same command. But then you have to specify its type: 0 stands for private, 1 for public (default value).

For example: /join 0 #MyRoom

will create a new private room (assuming a public one has not already been created with that name) called MyRoom and move you into it.

Room's name cannot contain comma or backslash (\).

Modifying his your own profile inside the chat:

The Profile command creates a separate pop-up window in which you can edit your user profile and modify it except your nick and password (you have to use the link at the start page to do this).
Type /profile

Recalling the last message or command you have submitted:

The ! command recalls the last message or command you have submitted.
Type /!

Responding to specific user:

Clicking once on the name of another user from the list (to the right of the screen) will cause their "username>" to appear in your text box. This feature allows you to easily direct a public message to a user, perhaps in response to something he or she has posted above.

Private messages:

To send a private message to another user currently in your chat room, type the command "/msg username messagetext" or "/to username messagetext" without quotes.

For example, where Jack is the username: /msg Jack Hi there, how are you?

The message will appear to Jack and yourself, but no other users will see the message.

Note that clicking on the nick of a message sender in the main frame will automatically add this command to the input field for messages.

Actions:

To describe what you're doing you can use the command "/me action" without quotes.

For example: If Jack sends the message "/me is smoking a cigarette" the message frame will shown "* Jack is smoking a cigarette".

Ignoring other users:

To ignore all of the posts by another user, type the command "/ignore username" without quotes.

For example: /ignore Jack

From that time onward, no messages by the user Jack will display on your screen.

To have a list of the users whose messages are ignored, just type the command "/ignore" without quotes.

To resume display of message by an ignored user, type the command "/ignore - username" without quotes where "-" is a hyphen.

For example: /ignore - Jack

Now all the messages by Jack posted during the current chat session will be displayed on your screen, including those messages posted by Jack before you typed this command. If you don't specify an username after the hyphen, your "ignored list" will be cleaned.

Note that you can put more than one username in the ignore command (eg "/ignore Jack,Helen,Alf" or "/ignore - Jack,Alf"). They must be splitted by comma (,) without spaces.

Getting information about other Users:

To see public information about another user, type the command "/whois username" without quotes.

For Example: /whois Jack

where 'Jack' is the username. This command will create a separate pop-up window that will display the publically available information about that user.

Save messages:

To export messages (notification ones excluded) to a local HTML file, type the command "/save n" without quotes.

For Example: /save 5

where '5' is the number of messages to save. If n is not specified, all available messages sent to the current room will be taken into account.

Commands for the adminstrator and/or moderators only

Send an announcement:

The administrator may send an announcement to all users whatever the the room they are chatting into with the announce command.

For example: /announce The chat system is going down for maintenance tonight at 8pm.

Kicking an user:

Moderators can kick an user and the administrator can kick an user or a moderator with the kick command. Except for the administrator, the user to be kicked must be in the current room.

For example, if Jack is the name of the user to kick away: /kick Jack

Promote an user to moderator:

Moderators and the administrator can promote an other user to moderator with the promote command.

For example, if Jack is the name of the user to promote: /promote Jack

Only the administrator can access the opposite feature (reduce a moderator to simple user) at a dedicated page. There is no command to do it.