Chat Blazer is a better than usual Java chat program, with various customizability options available to the user (chatter or host).
Chat Blazer will not have the security problems some of us have been encountering in IRC. And “private messages” will be possible in Chat Blazer for all our chatters – registered or not. Chat Blazer also does not require a host to be in a chat room before a member can enter it. Chat Blazer allows “double dipping” and has excellent administrative and moderation capabilities.
A member or guest can use the chat room window on the web page where access to chat was obtained. Alternatively, a user can “float” the chat window. When you “float” a window, you have control on the size of the chat window. You can also control the size of the font of the chat messages displayed in the chat window, but not of the font on menus. Other options include the color of a user’s chat vs. the color of chat from other users vs. the color of system messages.
Login Window – the initial Chat Blazer client login screen.
(user login currently available at http:// chat.pethobbyist.com/)
There are two types of login for the chat user client – guest or member login.
Guest users need only enter a Login name to enter the chat room they’ve selected from the displayed list of available chat rooms.
The Login name of a guest is not allowed to be the same as the Login name of any registered Pethobbyist user, nor can it be a type of name reserved for special users such as hosts. Guests will have a suffix (e.g., “_nr”) appended to their Login Name in the Users panel and in the chat window, identifying them as unregistered users.
A member login requires entry of a registered Login name and the associated member password. (Check the “Member” box on the Login Window to open up a password entry box.)
If the selected room is protected by a room password, the member or guest will need to enter the specific password for that room before being allowed entry.
Once a user is logged in, the Main Chat Window is displayed with a number of separate areas:
Title bar (at the very top of the main chat window) indicating Pethobbyist.com Chat
Chat (Text Area) Window – a scrollable rich text area where chat from members in a chat room is displayed; you can control the background color of this area and of the size of the font displayed in this area; the title bar for this panel contains the room name, followed by a count of the members in the room in parentheses
Expression Bar – contains icons allowing you to control the appearance of text you send to a chat room plus capabilities to use emoticons, send audio to the screen, copy text from the chat area panel to a file (Session Transcript), insert a URL tag, or clear the chat area
(Text) Input Window (plus Send button) – this is where you enter your chat message; there is no way to control the size of text in this window without affecting the size of everything on the Main Chat Window
Toolbar – 3 buttons at lower left of main chat window – Connect, Float, and Help
Function Panels – this is a tabbed interface which provides access to the Users panel, the Rooms panel, the Options panel, and (for registered users only) the Buddies panel
When writing a message to send to a chat window, you can
· Use Bold, Italics, or both for part or all of a message
· Select an emoticon (from a pop-up list of emoticons) to include in a message
· View a list of sound effects from the “Send Audio” drop-down box and send one to the chat window simply by selecting one of the sound effects
· Enter a multi-line message by pressing Shift-Enter or Ctrl-Enter to go to the next line
· Scroll through previous messages that YOU have keyed in by pressing Ctrl-Up or Ctrl-Down
· Use another drop-down box to indicate you’re currently “online” or “away” (an avatar with a clock appears next to your name in the Users list when you’re “away”)
A URL in a chat message is detected and automatically hyperlinked, allowing others to open the page referenced by the URL with a single mouse click. Text-based smilies, e.g., a colon followed by a right parenthesis, in a message are replaced by the appropriate emoticon. (However, both of these things occur only if you’ve checked the “Smart replace” checkbox in the Options panel and clicked the “Apply” button afterwards.)
An avatar (icon) and the user’s name are displayed with each message sent to the chat window, unless you’ve checked (and “applied”) the “Hide avatars” checkbox on the Options panel.
Additional features:
· Buddy List – user can create their own buddy lists within the chat client and be informed when any of their buddies log into the chat (for registered users only)
· Personalization options / settings
When you click on your avatar next to the multi-line input window, your user profile window is opened.
You can then create or update your own profile – information about you that can be viewed by other users.
This is also where you can select from a list of possible avatars to use in place of the default avatar to be displayed with your future messages in the chat window and with your Login Name in the user list. (This doesn’t affect messages already in the window.)
If you see an ellipsis (“…”) button at the end of the avatar image list in the User Profile window, clicking on it will bring up a dialog window. If you have a unique avatar ID assigned to you by Pethobbyist, type it in this window. This allows you to use an avatar image that is unique only to yourself and not usable by others (unless they know that ID). If you type in a non-existent avatar ID, you will not have an avatar image.
This is a “peel-off” tabbed interface; any of the functional panels can be floated around and later docked back. Click on the small triangle at the left of the panel title bar to view that panel in place. Click on the diagonal arrow on the right of the panel title bar to float that panel. (When you close the floated panel, it returns to the tabbed interface panel.)
The Users panel displays the Login Names of the users who are currently in the chat room. It also has several action icons above the users list, in what is referred to as the Userbar. Selecting a name in the users list and then clicking one of those action icons in the Userbar applies the action to that name.
Userbar actions icons:
· Start private chat (2 avatars with a chat bubble connecting them)
· View user profile (avatar with sheet of paper)
· Ignore user (avatar in a circle) – this works as a toggle to ignore/un-ignore the user
· Add buddy to buddy list (avatar with a “+” sign) - only available to registered users
If a name in the users list is highlighted when you send a message to the chat room, that message will be “whispered” to only that user; no one else will see it. After the whisper message goes to the chat window, that user’s name is unhighlighted in the users list. As a result, you need to highlight a user name in the users list each time you want to whisper a message to the chat window. If you want to chat just to that person for a while, use the “Start private chat” feature to open up a separate window for chatting between you and the other person.
If you’ve highlighted a user’s name and then decide you didn’t want to “whisper” to that person, highlight your own name in the Users list and type your message – it will go to the chat window as a public message.
When you are “ignoring” a user, a special symbol appears by his name on your Users list, and none of that user’s future messages will appear in your chat window (until / unless you “un-ignore” that user).
The Rooms panel contains a list of rooms or channels. You can view the list of public rooms and the number of people currently occupying each room. To enter one of those public rooms, highlight the room’s name in the list and click on the “Go To Room” button. You will remain in the current room, but the chat window display will change to display the new room’s chat, and the room you were in earlier is reduced to a title bar (still showing the room name and count of occupants). See the “Multi-Room Capability” section below.
You will not see private rooms in the Room list. If you want to enter a private room, you need to know the name of the room. Click the “Private Room” button to bring up a dialog window where you type in the room name. If the room is protected with a password, you’ll need to enter that also. Once you enter the private room, that room’s name will appear in your Rooms list with an occupancy count as soon as the Rooms list is updated (you can click on the “Refresh” button to update the list and occupancy counts).
You can also create your own rooms, public or private, if you have a “Your Rooms” section at the bottom of the Rooms Panel. Click on the “Create” button to bring up a dialog window where you enter the name for the room, an optional password, and a checkbox to indicate whether the room should be private. Once you create the room, its name will appear in the “Your Rooms” list (because you’re its creator) as well as in the regular Rooms list on the Rooms panel. If you created a private room, it will appear on no one else’s Rooms list until they enter the room, but they had to specify the room’s name (and password, if you defined one) by clicking the “Private Room” button. Another person will see this private room’s name in their Rooms list only while in the room; it will disappear when they leave the room and their Rooms list is updated.
A private room created in this way by a regular member or host remains in existence if the creator leaves it but stays in Chat Blazer. However, if the creator exits Chat Blazer, that private room closes automatically, pushing everyone out of the room.
You can also view a list of the users who are in another room from the Rooms panel. Select that other room in the Rooms list, and a list of the users in that room will be displayed in the gray area to the right of the Rooms list.
A padlock symbol in place of the occupancy count for a Room in the Rooms list indicates that a host or administrator has closed that room. It cannot be entered by anyone until it’s opened again by a host or (possibly only by) an administrator.
The Buddies panel (available to registered users only) contains your buddy list, with the Login Name, Status (online or offline), and Room(s) for each buddy. Checkboxes allow you to decide whether to alert your buddies when you login and whether to alert you when your buddies login. Your buddy must have checked “Alert my buddies when I login” in order for you to receive an alert sound when that buddy logs in, even though you’ve checked “Alert me when my buddies login.”
You can only add buddies to your buddy list from the Users panel. You can remove someone from your buddy list by selecting that buddy’s name in the buddy list and clicking the “Delete” button on the Buddies panel; if the user you’re removing had also listed you in his or her buddy list, you will also be removed from his or her list.
You can initiate a private chat session with one of your buddies from the Buddies panel by selecting that buddy’s name and clicking the “Private” button. You can also view the buddy’s profile by selecting the buddy’s name and clicking on the “Profile” button.
The Options panel allows you to make various settings for personalization. These settings, once “applied”, become effective from that point on. For registered members, these applied settings are stored for use in future logins.
These personalization options include:
q Reject private chat
q Lock user selection
q Disable audio
q Smart replace
q Hide avatars (on the chat window only – helpful if avatars are large)
Selectable options for the chat window:
· Color for
- Background
- System
- Own
- Others
- Hyperlink
- Moderator
- Speaker
· Size of font of chat displayed in the chat window (doesn’t affect font elsewhere)
· Audio alert (choice of none or selection from list of sounds) for
- User enters room
- User leaves room
- New message
- Private message
Don’t forget to hit the “Apply” button after changing your settings in the Options panel!
Users can enter more than one room at a time. If the chat window is embedded in the web page from which you accessed the chat software, only one room’s chat is visible at any time; only the title bars of additional chat rooms are displayed, but the title bar of a secondary chat room is highlighted when a message is received in a non-visible room. You can easily switch to make that secondary chat room to be the one displayed by clicking on the title bar of the room you want to have displayed.
Whenever the active chat room is changed, the user list on the Users panel automatically refreshes with the user list for the active room.
If you float the chat room area, each chat room will now appear in its own window with its own user list, so that you can view more than one chat area at the same time. (If you “lose” a panel you’ve floated, look for it in your task bar – usually at the bottom of your monitor screen.)
In order to use different names in different rooms, you’ll need to login via the Login window once per Login name.
The Session Transcript button (looks like a scroll) on the expression bar can be used to copy all the text for the chat session from the chat window to a plain text window. Highlight all the text in that window (click in the window and hit ctrl-a); hit ctrl-c to copy, open up Notepad (or any editor you prefer), and paste into the editor window. This is the only “logging” mechanism available to users.
However, logs will be saved automatically to the server. Pethobbyist may ultimately create a link where a user can request a transcript, but that has not yet been decided.
You can “float” the entire main chat window by hitting the middle of the 3 large buttons at the lower left of the main chat window. Minimize the Pethobbyist web page from which the chat window has been floated by clicking the “-“ button at the upper right of that web page; don’t close that web page, or your chat window will close.
When the main chat window is “floated,” you have control over the size of the entire window. You can redistribute the space between the chat window on the left and the function panel part on the right – hover your cursor over the area separating the left and right parts of the main chat window until a double arrow appears; then hold down your left mouse key and move it either left or right to move the separator area left or right.
You can also “float” the chat window for a single room to make it be a separate window. That way you can view the chat in more than one room at a time. To float an individual chat room window, click the diagonal arrow on the right-hand side of that room’s title bar. In order to “redock” that separate chat room window back into the main chat window (without leaving the room), just click the X button at the upper right of the individual floated chat room window.
Likewise, you can “float” a functional panel (e.g., the Buddies panel) out of the main chat window – just click the diagonal arrow on the right-hand side of that panel’s title bar. That panel will then disappear from the main chat window and appear as a separate window. You can then view that panel while viewing another panel in the main chat window. You “redock” that floated panel by clicking on the X button on the upper right corner of the floated panel window.
What if you lose a floated window? Don’t panic. Look at your task bar – usually at the bottom of your monitor screen. You should find it down there; just click on its “icon” there, and the floated window will be re-displayed.
Regular Pethobbyist chat hosts have Login names with a “PH” prefix. However, there may occasionally be a Pethobbyist employee with host capabilities but with a Login name that does not have this prefix. A host may be a Monitor or a Moderator.
Normally, they are simply acting as hosts – they’ll welcome you, encourage chatters to participate, and try to answer questions or find places where your questions can be answered.
If difficulties arise in the room, hosts are able to use their additional capabilities to silence (gag) a chatter or to kick a chatter from the room. If a user repeatedly causes difficulties or his or her infractions of Pethobbyist’s Terms of Service are very serious, an administrator can ban that user from the site.
If you are gagged, the message “You are not allowed to talk” will be displayed on your chat window screen only, your “Send” button will be disabled, and you won’t be able to type anything into your input text window. But you will be able to leave the room, enter another room (and talk there), start a private message window, and check on Buddies.
A Monitor is signified on the Users list by a cog or gear symbol. A Moderator is signified on the Users list by a gavel icon by his or her name. A Moderator has some additional capabilities – in addition to those that a Monitor has – in order to be able to moderate larger, more formal chats. Hosts for regular chats will ordinarily be Monitors.
Some of the rooms can be designated as moderated rooms.
In a moderated chat room, visual role icons are displayed beside some user names in the Users panel to denote the user’s status, i.e., moderator (a gavel) or speaker (a microphone). Other (“normal”) users have no role icon displayed by their names.
In a moderated room, users who just entered the room may or may not be allowed to talk (this depends on the room’s setting). If users cannot talk, there will be an icon by their name in the user list signifying this; moreover, a message will appear in the user’s chat window indicating whether they are allowed to talk. When a user is not allowed to talk, the text input window will be disabled.
A moderator can appoint speakers from the floor. Just as in a non-moderated chat, a moderator can silence normal users or kick users from the room.
Moderators also have the capability to “push a web page” to all the chatters in the room (a new browser window would open to that web page on their screens).
All messages sent by normal users are sent to the moderator instead of the chat room. The message is displayed on the Moderator window. The moderator receives these messages and decides if it should be passed to the speaker, saved for a while, or deleted.
The moderator can communicate to users only, to a specific speaker only, to all speakers only, or to all.
The speaker of a moderated room receives messages passed to him or her from the moderator on the Speaker window (the originator of the message is also identified). The speaker can then formulate a response to the question raised.
When the speaker replies to the participant’s question, the original message together with the reply is sent back to the chat room.
A normal user does not have access to the Moderator or Speaker windows.
There is a Help File available from the Help button on the toolbar at the lower left of the main chat window. You can also access this Help File by going to
http://chat.pethobbyist.com/help/clienthelp.htm
This Help File has helpful pictures and additional explanations of capabilities available to all users. Print it out and keep it with you.