Chatbox Features Guide

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A quick guide to the functions in the chatbox

I know everyone knows how to just chat, but here's some information on things you may not know you can do.

Private messaging aka 'Whispering'
You can private message someone by clicking their name on the right hand side and then click 'private message', then just type away and hit enter. you have to click that every time you want to send a message to that person only. Their replies come up with a prefix saying they whispered and their message which looks something like this - "(12:38:26) ForumMember1: (whispers to ForumMember2) cool"

I know a lot of people may know that already, but some don't. Now if you want to just talk to that 1 person without having to click 'send private message' each time, you can click on 'open private channel' instead and then every message you send will go to that person. Remember to click 'close private channel' when you are wanting to write a message to the main room though.

Rolling the dice
I know it sounds silly, but people tend to have a bit of fun doing this, simply done by clicking 'Roll Dice' under your name and pressing enter. A variation on this is if you click 'roll dice', but before pressing enter type xdxx and hit enter (where x equals a number between 1 - 100, should look like this '/roll 8d99').

Describing actions
Basically you can use this if you want to show you doing something, click describe action and type what it is you want to do (you need only type what you are doing, not your name. i.e. "/action yawns") and hit enter and instead of coming up like a normal message it comes up like this - "(13:21:40) ForumMember1 yawns", this can also be done in private message too if you click on a persons name and click 'send private action'. It's nothing big, just a bit of fun in the conversation sometimes.

Private rooms/channels
Now if you want to have a conversation with someone totally away from prying eyes in the chatroom, where all you see is what you and the other person is saying, then if you click 'enter room', you go into your own private room. you then need to invite that person in. You do this by clicking on 'list online users' under your name, the chatbox brings up a list of who's online, which looks like this - "Chat Robot: Online Users: ForumMember1, ForumGuy, ForumRegular, Newbie". you click on the person's name that you want to invite in and click on 'invite'. then you and that person can talk away just the 2 of you. Now if you see this - "(13:19:14) Chat Robot: ForumGuy invites you to join [ForumGuy]." that's someone inviting you into their channel, click the last bit which looks like this "[ForumGuy]" (should look like a link) and you will join their channel. to leave, simple click on the channels drop down on the top of the screen, on the right of the logout button, and click 'Public' and you will return to the main room.

Ignoring people
Now this is a slightly serious part of the chatbox. basically you can ignore someone, if you don't like them and don't want to see anything they say, you click their name and click 'ignore/accept' and if you want to take them off ignore, just click it again. Now mods will ask you to use this function first if someone is trying to goad you or rile you up, this usually is the first port of call before warnings are issued. for more on that see the Chatbox Rules.

Font Color
If you want what you say to come up in a different colour than the default colour, you click 'Font Color' on the bottom of the screen then pick the colour you want to use. now you would have to do this each time you do a message. if you want to constantly use the same colour, then this is what you have to do, click the 'Settings' icon (the one in the bottom right with the spanner & screwdriver on it), where the online list was is the settings menu, where it says 'Persist Font Color', tick it then click on 'Font Color' at the bottom and click the colour and you should then always type in that colour. Please note that if you log into the chat on a different computer or browser, you will have to do that process again. to get the online list back up, click on the little icon of 2 people and it will go back to normal.

Images & Links
This is one of two very handy tools in the chatbox. This is used if you want to share an image in the chatbox where everyone actually see's it rather than just seeing a link. simply done you just click the 'Image' button and then paste the image's url in. so it looks something like this [img ]image url here[ /img] (without the spaces i put in of course). Now some image upload sites give you the code to use already, but not all work, off the top of my head, imagebam doesn't like it and classes it as hotlinking, photobucket is tempermental, most people tend to just use Picsaway as that seems to have no issues.

PLEASE NOTE - Try not to put large images in the chatbox as it can slow down or break the chatbox on some people's computers and can hugely disrupt the chat, try to use thumbnails instead. Moderators will remove large images, but usually will leave it up for a few seconds so people can see it and then politely suggest to the person to use a thumbnail instead Also Extremely graphic or violent images should not be done this way, if you must share them, please use the link format below and provide a warning so people can know what to expect! I say this as some people may be eating or just not expecting this, or may have people in the vicinity that can see what the user is up to, so please be considerate to other users.

Links
The 'URL' button is the other handy tool, if you want to share a link, but don't want it to look like a garish long url in the chatbox like this - "(13:04:55) ForumGuy: http://www.babeshows.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=4708" you can click the URL button, this brings up a popup window (people with popup blockers should allow the chatbox to do so), you put the url in that box and click ok and then it puts all the code in the typing box on the chat for you and you just type a message in and it makes that message a link to the place you want to share, like this - "(13:04:16) ForumGuy: this is an example". Additionally, you can whisper links to people as well, just click 'send private message' then do the same 'URL' button.

Logout
If you're leaving the chatroom, rather than just closing the window, click 'Logout', its not something you have to do, but it's just good netiquette really. If you close the window, you won't actually get logged out for about 10-15 minutes when the chatbox times you out, so people might be talking to you when you're not there.

Filter
As you will no doubt soon learn once you have frequented the chatroom, there is a filter in place (much like on the forum itself). This covers a few of the more explicit words, though not all. Please try and refrain from simply listing off every possible swear word you can think of to find out what they are (for fear of breaking the no flooding rule) and simply leave them as a sweet mystery to be uncovered.



Hopefully that covers most of it and is useful to people! More may be added to this as and when needed! Any questions or queries, do not hesitate to ask! One of the Chatbox Moderators will help!

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