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To Register:
If you have not yet registered and would like to, please
choose the registration option. A small pop-up window will appear.
- First, create a username for yourself by typing it into
the appropriate boxes. The username you choose is the name that will be
automatically displayed in the chat room. It cannot contain spaces, commas
or backslashes (\).
- Second, please enter your first name, last name, and your
email address. In order to register to chat, all of this information must be
provided. The gender information is optional.
- If you have a homepage, you may enter the URL into the
box.
- The language field may help other users in future
discussions. They will know which language(s) you understand.
- Lastly, if you wish to allow your email address to be
viewed by other participants, please check the box next to "show e-mail in
public information". If you do not want your e-mail address to be viewable,
leave the box unchecked.
- Then, press the Register button and your account will be
created. If you wish to stop at any time without registering, press the
Close button.
Of course, registered users would be able to modify/delete
their own profile by clicking on the appropriate links.
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To create a room:
Registered users can create rooms. Private ones can only be
accessed by users who know their name and will never been displayed except for
users that are in.
Room’s name cannot contain comma or backslash (\).
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Understanding connection state:
A sign representing your connection state is displayed at
the top-right corner of the screen. It may take three forms :
-
when no connection is required ;
-
when there is a connection in progress ;
-
when a connection failed.
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:
- 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;
- the nick of the administrator or of a moderator is
italicized.
For example, from the snapshot
bellow you can conclude that:
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- 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.
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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 See you soon!
will send the message "CU soon!" in the main
frame then log you out.
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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
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
icon at the top of this popup will enable/disable beeping sounds at user
entrance.
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| Avatars:
Avatars are graphic image icons that represent
chatters. Only registered users may change their avatar. Registered
users may open their Profile (see /profile command) and click on the
avatar image to select it from a menu of images, or to input a URL
to a graphic image available anywhere on the internet (only images
publicly accessible, not password protected sites). Images should be
browser-viewable (.gif, .jpg, etc. ) 32 x 32 pixel graphic files for
best display.
Clicking on a person’s avatar in the message frame
will popup up that person’s profile (see
/whois command). Clicking on your own avatar on the user’s list
will invoke the /profile command, if you are registered. If you are
not registered, clicking on your own (system’s default) avatar will
bring up an alert to encourage you to register.
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Help command:
Once inside a chat room, you can launch 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.
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| 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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Using colored text in chat
Usage:
You can select your own default color by editing your profile (the
same color as your username color). You’ll still be able to use any
other color. To change back to your default color from a random used
one, you have to choose once the default color (Null) - it is the
first one in the select list.
Hints:
Color Range
Depending on your browser/OS capabilities, it is possible that some
of the colors won’t be rendered. Only 16 color names are supported
by the W3C HTML 4.0 standard:
[
aqua -
black - blue -
fuchsia -
gray -
green - lime -
maroon ]
[ navy -
olive -
purple -
red -
silver - teal -
white -
yellow
If a user claims he cannot see your selected color it means he is
probably using an older browser.
Settings defined on this chat:
Current Settings on this server:
a) COLOR_FILTERS = Enabled;
b) COLOR_ALLOW_GUESTS = Enabled.
Default colors: Administrator =
red, Moderators = blue,
Other users = black.
Your status = Administrator
Power levels of color usage:
1. Administrator can use any color.
The default color for the administrator is
red.
2. Moderators can use any color but red
and crimson.
The default color for moderators is blue.
3. The other users can use any color but
red, crimson,
blue and
mediumblue.
The default color is black.
Technical stuff: These colors have been defined by the
administrator in admin panel.
If anything goes wrong or if there is something you don’t like about
the default colors, you should contact the administrator
first, not the other users in your room. :-)
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Invite someone to join your
current chat room:
You can use the invite command to invite a
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 #RedRoom
will move you into the RedRoom.
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 (\).
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Modifying 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
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Recalling the last message or
command you have submitted:
The ! command recalls the
last message or command you have submitted.
Type /!
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Responding to a 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.
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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.
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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 drinking a coffee" the message frame will shown "* Jack
is drinking a coffee".
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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 a 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.
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Getting information about Users:
To see public information about a 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 publicly available information
about that user. Use your own name to check out how your profile info is
displayed to other users using the same command.
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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.
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Commands for the adminstrator and/or moderators only
/buzz [~soundname] [message] - Sends
a buzzer sound and optionally displays a message in the current room.
- Usage:
- old usage: "/buzz" or "/buzz message to be shown" - this plays the default
sound for buzz defined in Admin panel;
- extended usage: "/buzz ~soundname" or "/buzz ~soundname message to be shown" -
this plays the soundname.wav file from the plus/sounds folder; please note the
sign "~" to be used at the beggining of the second word, which is the name of
the sound file, without the extension .wav (only .wav extensions allowed).
By default, this is a moderator/admin command.
/announce {message} - Allow the administrator to send
an announcement to all users in all chat rooms.
/ban [*] {user}
[the reason] - Allow the moderator's of a room or the administrator to "banish"
a user from the room for a time defined by the administrator. The later can
banish a user chatting in an other room than the one he is into and use the *
setting to banish "forever" a user from the chat as the whole. Optionally, [the
reason] displays the reason of banishment (any desired text).
/kick {user} [the reason] - Kick
away user from the chat. This command can only be used by a moderator of that
room or an admin.Optionally, [the reason] displays the reason of kicking (any
desired text).
/promote {user} - /demote [*] {user} -
Allow the administrator or moderator(s) of the
curent room to promote another registered user to moderator for the same
room.The second command will allow the administrator or moderator(s) of the
curent room to demote another registered user previously promoted to moderator
for the same room. The * option will demote the user from all the rooms.
/topic [*] {at least two words as topic} - /topic [*] top
reset - Usage: the topic has to contain at least 2
words.
This command changes the topic of the current room. Try not to override other
users topics. Use important topics.
By default, this is a moderator/admin command.Using "/topic top reset" command
the current topic will be deleted and reset to default one of the room.
Optional, "/topic * {}" does exactly the same but in all the rooms (global topic
and global topic reset). |
| Send an announcement:
The administrator may make a system wide
announcement to all the rooms and reach all the users currently
login with the announce command.
For example: /announce The chat system is going
down for maintenance tonight at 8pm.
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There is another useful announcement like command
for roleplaying chats; the administrator or moderators in a room may
also send an announcement to all users in current room or all the
rooms with the room command.
For example: /room The meeting starts at 15 pm.
or /room * The meeting starts at 15 pm in the Staff room.
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Kicking a user:
Moderators can kick a user and the
administrator can kick a 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 or
/kick Jack reason of kicking. The "reason of kicking" can be
any text e.g. "for spamming!"
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Banish a user:
Moderators can banish a user and the administrator
can banish a user or a moderator with the ban command.
The administrator can banish a user from another room than the one
he is chatting into. He can also banish a user forever and from the
chat as a whole with the ’*’ setting that must be inserted
before the nick of the user to be banished.
For example, if Jack
is the name of the user to banish: /ban Jack, /ban * Jack,
/ban Jack reason of banning or /ban * Jack reason of
banning. The "reason of banning" can be any text e.g. "for
spamming!"
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Promote/Demote a user
to/from 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) using the demote
command.
For example, if Jack
is the name of the moderator to demote: /demote Jack or
/demote * Jack (will demote him from current or all the rooms).
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square on the right of the username (in the rooms/users list)
in the main frame. 
