Chat Room Tutorial
Jump to the Chat Room
Logging into the Chat
Registering
Modifying/deleting your profile
Sending a Message
Creating a room
Understanding the users list
Leaving the chat room
Knowing who is chatting without being logged in
Understanding connection state
Features and Commands:
Help command
Graphical smilies
Text Formatting
Invite an user to join your current chat room
Changing from one chat room to another
Private Messages
Actions
Ignoring other Users
Getting Public Information about other Users
Save messages
Dealing with Problems
If you are using an AOL Browser
Other problems
Special commands for moderators and/or the administrator:
Send an announcement
Kicking a user
Banish a user
Promote a user to moderator
If you have already registered, simply log in by entering your username and password. Then select which chat room you would like to enter and press the Chat button. (You don't need to register to use the chatroom, you can instead just choose a usernam.)
If you have not yet registered, please click the Register link. A small pop-up window appears for you to enter your details.
- Create a username and a password 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. If you have already registered at the PNI-UK Message Board, then it helps if you use the same username for the chat room. Your user name cannot contain spaces, commas, backslashes (\) or "swear words".
- Enter your first name, last name and your email address. The other information is optional.
- 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.
- Press the Register button and your account will be created. If you wish to stop at any time without registering, press the Close button.
You can modify or delete your information by clicking on the appropriate profile links.
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 or Return key to send it. Messages from all users scroll in the chat box.
Note that "swear words" are skipped from messages.
You may change the colour of the text of your messages by choosing a new colour from the list of choices to the right of the text box.
People who have registered at the Chat Room can create private rooms. Once a private room has been created, it can only be accessed by users who know its name. It is not displayed to anyone else. To tell someone about the private room you type "/invite Janice" (where Janice is the person you want to talk to privately).
You can also send a private message to another user currently in your public chat room, type /to username messagetext
For example, where Jill is the username: /to Jill Hi there, how are you?
The message will appear to Jill and yourself, but no other users will see the message.
Note that clicking on the name of a message sender in the main chat area will automatically add this command to the input field for messages.
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Two basic rules have been defined for the users list:
- a little icon that shows gender is displayed before the name of a registered user (clicking on it will launch the whois popup for this person), while unregistered users have nothing but blank spaces displayed before their name;
- the name of the administrator or of a moderator is italicised.
For example, from the snapshot bellow you can conclude that:
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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 
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.
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.
There are many different ways to customise the look of the Chat. To change settings, simply type the appropriate command into your text box and press the Enter/Return key.
- The Order command allows you to toggle between having new messages appear at the top of the screen or at the bottom.
Type "/order" without quotes. - The Notify command allows you to toggle on or off the option of seeing the notices when other users enter or exit the chat room. By default this option is on and the notices will be seen.
Type "/notify" without quotes. - The Timestamp command allows you to toggle on or off the option of seeing the time the message was posted before each message and the server time in the status bar. By default this option is on.
Type "/timestamp" without quotes. - The Refresh command allows you to adjust the rate at which the posted message are refreshed on your screen. The default rate is currently 10 seconds. To change the rate type "/refresh n" without quotes where n is the time in seconds of the new refresh rate.
For example: /refresh 15
will change the rate to 15 seconds. Beware, if n is set to less than 3 then the screen won't refresh at all (useful when you want to read lots of old messages without being disturbed)!
- The Show command allows you to adjust the number of messages viewable on your screen. To change the default number, type "/show n" without quotes where n is the number of viewable messages.
For example: /show 50
will cause the 50 newest messages to be viewable on your screen. If all of the messages cannot be displayed within the message box, a scroll bar will appear on the right side of the message box.
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.
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.
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| :) | :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 made bold, italicised 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.
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 separated by comma (,) without spaces.
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 (\). It can no more contains "swear words".
Modifying his 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 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.
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 name of a message sender in the main frame will automatically add this command to the input field for messages.
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".
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 separated 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 publicly available information about that user.
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.
If you are using an AOL Browser
People using an AOL browsers have reported problems getting onto the chat area. The solution is to use a different browser (sorry). If you have a Windows computer you should have a non-AOL copy of Internet Explorer on there. Try using this to chat.
If you don't want to use Internet Explorer (or haven't got a copy) then is a good alternative. (Click the link to go to a free download page.)
If you are not sure where Internet Explorer is on your computer, try the following.
- From the Start menu select Find (or Search).
- Choose to search for a file.
- Into the file name box type IEXPLORE.EXE
- Look in c:\
- Click the "Find Now" button (or similar) and see if it comes up with anything.
- Double-click the IEXPLORE.EXE file and the Internet Explorer browser should open.
- Into the Address box at the top of the browser type: http://www.pni-uk.com/chatroom/
Post a message at the MOM forum and we'll try to get you chatting.
Commands for the administrator and/or moderators only
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.
Moderators can kick out users with the kick command. Except for the administrator, the user to be kicked out must be in the current room.
For example, if Jack is the name of the user to kick out: /kick Jack
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 or /ban * Jack
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.
