OVERVIEW

This page is the central area of NUchat. The first section of each conference room page contains the conference room's name, an area reserved for a system message and a message specific to this room. Below these are the messages that people post (postings.)

The next section contains icons and /or links that will allow you to:

• Enable/Disable blocking,
• Enable/Disable/Pause automatic display refreshing,
• Modify your preferences,
• Access information about the conference room page,
• Compose a message to post in the conference room,
• Post your message or just refresh the display,
• Scroll Back through the messages in the conference room,
• Reset the page to its initial settings.

Below the Quick HTML buttons is the conference room information area.

Finally there is an area that may contain an icon and a link back to the top level of the conference center.

1. Conference Room Name
   The name of the conference room is displayed here for convenience. Below the name a system message may appear. Typically the system message is used to announce special events or outages that are scheduled. This message appears in all the rooms in the conference center.

   Below the system message is the area reserved for messages from the room's owner. Such messages might announce meetings that are scheduled to occur within this room.

2. Unread Messages
   This marker is used to separate messages that have been seen from messages that have been added since the last time the page was displayed. When the page is updated (by clicking the Chat icon) the page is displayed with this marker at the top.

• The Posting Header
• The Posting Action Buttons
• The Poster's Icon
• The Poster's message

3. Posting Header
   The Posting Header is made up of the poster's handle, the date/time the posting was submitted and the sequence number of the posting. The handle is a nickname chosen by the poster to be displayed in place of the poster's subscriber id when chatting. The poster's system name may also be displayed with the handle. The sequence number is useful when referencing back to a specific posting. Clicking on the handle in the Posting Header will take you to the Home Page URL which is defined on the poster's User Preferences page, if the poster has enabled the link.

4. Posting Action Buttons
   The Posting Action Buttons allow a viewer to take specific action in regards to this posting; Reply, Block or Whisper.

   The Reply button will indent a copy of this posting and append the copy to the end of the text typed into the Text Entry box. This allows a conversational thread to be followed more easily in a busy conference room. If the posting is a reply to a previous posting, both the current posting and the original posting it contains are added to the end of the text in the Text Entry box. There is a limit of 4 postings in one thread. This keeps the last reply from becoming illegible.

   The Block button will add the handle from this message to the viewer's blocking list. This is useful when the poster is discussing topics that the viewer does not care to read. The poster can be unblocked by removing the blocked handle from the viewer's User Preferences page.

   The Whisper button will post the text typed into the Text Entry box so that only the poster of this message and the viewer can see the message. When replying to a whispered message, the reply and the whispered message will be seen by everyone unless the reply is also whispered.

5. User Icon
   Posters may choose an icon to display to the left of their postings. This icon is specified in the Icon URL section of the poster's User Preferences. The poster may also define the link with their Home Page URL if the icon is to be clickable.

6. Message Text
   The text of the message follows and continues until the start of the next posting. The poster may enhance the text by inserting HTML tags, however some formatting tags are disallowed in Message Text. If the poster is replying to a previous message, that message will be shifted to the right and appended to the current text when it is posted.

   Replying helps maintain the flow of a conversation in a busy room where the response may be separated from the original posting by other people's messages. If it is not necessary to append the previous message for clarity, simply enter your text in the Message Text box and click the Chat button to post your message.

7. Blocking
   This button will enable or disable NUchat's blocking feature. NUchat tracks the Subscriber ID of each posting but displays only the handle chosen by the poster. If the poster chooses a new handle, NUchat will update the User Preference displays automatically. When blocking is enabled, NUchat will operate in one of two modes based upon the setting in the viewer's User Preferences page :

   Block listed users This setting will show the viewer all postings except for those that were posted by any of the users which the viewer has blocked. The current handle of each blocked user is listed on the viewer's User Preferences page.

   Show only listed users This setting will show only the messages posted by those users whose handles are listed in the viewer's User Preferences page and block all other postings. This feature is useful in a crowded room when you want to temporarily see only postings in a specific conversation.

   To add a user's handle to the blocking list, select the Block button contained in one of that user's postings then click the Chat button. To remove a handle from your blocking list go to your User Preferences page, click on the box next to the handle you want to remove from the list, then save your changes.

8. Auto Refresh
   The page can be set to automatically retrieve any messages posted since the current display was downloaded. To enable the Auto Refresh feature, select the ON button then click on the Chat button. The number of seconds between automatic refreshes can be set on your User Preferences page.

   If you choose to refresh the display much more often than the default, be aware that the speed of your link to the conference may not be fast enough to finish one display before it is time to auto refresh again. This condition will lock up your chat session in continual refresh mode. If you know your link is relatively slow, select a longer refresh delay before you enable Auto Refresh.

   To temporarily disable the refresh feature, click on the Pause Refresh link that appears next to the on/off buttons when Auto Refresh is enabled. This will cause the page to stop refreshing so that you may take time to read the messages or to add a posting of your own. Auto Refresh will start again when you click the Chat button. If you have entered text in the Text Entry box, your text will be submitted as a posting before the display is refreshed and Auto Refresh resumes.

9. Advertisers Page
   If this button is displayed, it will take you to a page listing all of the companies that have advertised in this conferencing service. From the advertisers' page you can link directly to their Web sites for more information on the advertiser.

10. User Preferences
    This link will take you to the User Preferences page where you can modify the settings for your display. These settings include you Handle, Icon URL, Home Page URL, blocked handles, refresh rate, ...etc.

11. List Conferences
    This button will take you to a page listing all of the public conferences, whether they are open to everyone, moderated conferences or private (password protected) conferences. Conferences that are designated as unlisted will not be displayed. Once you are on the page, you can enter any of the authorized conferences by selecting the button next to the room's name and then clicking on the Enter Selected Conference button.

12. Who's Where
    This link will display a page showing who is currently using the conferencing center and to which conference room they have last posted messages.

13. Help
    This link will take you to the main help page.

14. Text Entry Box
    This box is used to add a message (posting) to the current conference room. Text typed in here may contain HTML tags if the room allows HTML.

15. Chat Button
    This button is used to update the current screen so that other messages may be seen. If there is text in the Text Entry Box, The text will be added to the room before the screen is updated. If there is a number in the Scroll Back box, the updated screen will be moved backward the indicated number of postings.

16. Scroll Back Messages
    This box allows you to move backwards through the postings. A maximum of 40 messages can be scrolled back in each jump. Enter the number of postings to scroll back in the Scroll Back box then click on the Chat button. Click the Chat button again for each backward jump.

    If there are fewer than 40 messages between the top of the conference and the top of the last screen then the display will not contain a full 40 messages. If you try to scroll back when you are currently displaying the first posting in the conference, a notice will be displayed stating that the beginning of the conference has been reached.

17. Reset Button
    This button causes the current screen (form) to be reset to its initial state. That is, all buttons will be reset to the condition they were in when the screen was first displayed, and the text in the Text Entry Box will be cleared.

18. Quick HTML
    These buttons will allow users who are not familiar with HTML syntax to augment their posted text with a selection of predefined HTML tags. The top row of buttons allows a posting to have various text attributes applied, either individually or in combination. The bottom row of buttons allows the user to select one of the listed colors for the text.

19. Conference Room Information

    This area gives information regarding the current page being displayed, as well as the conference room itself. There are 3 different pieces of data displayed about the postings:

    • Old
      The number of Old or previously seen postings is shown here.
    • New
      The number of posting more recent than the last one perviously displayed is shown here.
    • Total
      The total number of posting in this conference room.

20. Home Page Link
    When present, this link will take the viewer to the page which the conference coordinator has designated as the Home Page for this conference center.

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