U.S.C.S. Chat Help page
The Login Page
Once you click on U.S.C.S. WEBCHAT BEGINS HERE,
you first go to the chat page where you will encounter a page. From here, simply
enter your name and a password. The password insures that two different people cannot
enter with the same name. If you accidentally leave the chat (if you get disconnected
or your browser crashes) use the same password or else you won't be able to use the
same name for 15 minutes.
Also, if you enter your e-mail address other people will be able to send you e-mail.
Once you enter your name and password, press the button that says "LAUNCH USCS CHAT"
and you will be taken to the general chat area.
The Control Panel
This is where you control what you want to do.
There is a link to this help-file. There is also a link called "Messages:" this links you to the
part of the page where all the messages are. With most browsers you will be able to
see the top of the messages from this point anyway, but people using Lynx won't be
able to see them without selecting this link or scrolling down a couple screens.
Next is a big text entry field. This is where you type your message. The text will
automatically wrap from one line to the next. If you want a line break when your
message is displayed to everyone else press enter or return, otherwise just let the text wrap
by itself. HTML tags are not allowed because it would be too easy to mess the page up
if they were. If someone started a table but posted before completing it the whole
page would be messed up. If someone had an image tag to a large image everyone would
have to wait for the image to load -- these are a few reasons for this.
Next are a series of four buttons:
POST: press this button to send the message in the text area above. Your message
will be added to the conversation and the page will reload showing you the latest conversation.
If you press this button with an empty text area above the page will reload to
show you the latest conversation, but it won't post anything.
RELOAD: press this button to see the conversation since the last time the page was
loaded. New conversation will not be displayed automatically, so you need to press this to
follow what is going on. If you press this button with text in the message field the page
will reload and the text will remain in the unsent message area and will not be posted.
CLEAR: Press this button if you want to erase all the text in the message area
without posting it. The page will not reload when you clear the text.
LEAVE: Press this button when you are done chatting and want to get back to the
outside world. When you press LEAVE, your name will be removed from the visitors list,
and you will be taken to the front page of our site.
On the other side of these four buttons are a series of radio buttons where you
decide how many messages you want displayed. The default is 40 messages, but you can change this to 10, 20, or 30 for
somewhat faster reloading times. The number of messages you request will show
up next time you reload the page and it will remember how many messages you
want displayed. Sometimes the room may not be able to display as many messages as
you request. This may be the case if the room hasn't been used a lot recently
The Visitors List
Next to the control panel box (or below it if your browser doesn't support tables) is
a list of people who are in the same room. The top line in this box is the name of the
room you are currently in. The next line just clarifies what is below. You will see a person's
name in bold with a time displayed next to it. The time displayed is when that person
last reloaded, by this you can have an idea of whether or not that person has seen your
message yet. Some names may appear as links, these are the people who included their
e-mail address when they entered the chat. If you click on their name you can send that
person e-mail.
A person's name is added to the visitors list when they enter the room, and a message is
displayed in the message area saying that person entered. Their name is removed when they click
"Leave" on the control panel and a message is displayed saying they left. If a person
does not reload for 15 minutes, their name will also be removed from the visitors list.
The Messages
Below the control panel and the visitors list are all the messages. If your browser supports
table they will look like the image above. On the left is a small column which displays your
five most recent "one on one" messages. On the right the public messages for the room you are
currently in are displayed. The name of the person sending the message will be in bold
followed by the time (local time for the server) they sent the message, and on the next line
is their message.
go back to the login page