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See Also: Chat Rooms

Investor/RT IRC Chat Facility

GENERAL OVERVIEW

Investor/RT allows you quick and easy access to the Investor/RT Chat Room, or any other IRC compatible chat room on any IRC server. You can connect to as many chat rooms as you like, create your own chat rooms, and send private messages to other individuals in the chat rooms. You can connect to or create as many simultaneous chat rooms as you like and have as many simultaneous private sessions as you like.

If you are just getting started, begin by clicking on the "Open Chat Room" button in the main toolbar. This will bring up the Chat Preferences window. If your version of the software is not registered, you will first get two dialog boxes asking you for a nickname and real name. All the default connection setting for connecting to the Investor/RT Chat Room will be filled in for you (#linnsoft, irc.othernet.org, 6667, null, etc). You may want to change some of the preferences on the right, including font, colors etc. Once you have your preferences set, you are ready to connect. Make sure your Internet connection is active, and click on the "Connect" button.

Once you are successfully connected to the chat room, a chat window will open. To the right (provided you have the "Show Names List" checkbox checked), you should see the list of nicknames of the current participants in the chat room. The title of the window will display the name of the channel or chat room and how many participants are in the room. There are three "window panes" within the chat window: The Text Window, the Names List, and the Input Box.

Text Window - This is the large window that takes up the majority of the screen. All the chat room traffic is displayed in this window. You will see a variety of message types displayed in this window, including messages from other participants, notices that participants are coming or leaving, etc. You can double click or right-click inside this window to bring up and change the chat room preferences. Macintosh users may use ctrl-click to access preferences.

Names List - This is the list on the right hand side of the window that shows the nicknames of all the participants in the room. If you do not see the names list, access the Preferences and click "Show Names List" and click OK. Double-click on any name in the list to bring up a private message window with that participant. Once the private message window is open, type your initial message in the Input Box and press the Enter key to initiate the conversation.

Input Box - The Input Box is the box where you type your message. Once you have finished typing (or pasting) a message into the Input Box, press the Enter key to send the message to the Chat Room. The message will appear in the Text Window prefixed with your nickname.

Below is a complete description of all the options in the Chat Preferences Window. Take a close look at these preferences to get a better understanding of how Chat Rooms work. Additional Information on IRC chat can be found at www.mirc.com.

Chat windows can participate in Investor/RT Layouts. When you open a layout that includes a Chat Room window, Investor/RT will automatically connect to the chat room when the window opens.

CHAT PREFERENCES

The Investor/RT Chat Room Preferences can be accessed in one of 2 ways:

1. by clicking on the "Open Chat" button in the main toolbar and selecting "New" from the list. 2. by right-clicking or double-clicking inside an existing chat window.

A complete description of each preference setting follows:

Chat Locations - This group box contains all the information needed to connect to a chat room. Each chat room that has been created and saved in the database can be accessed from the drop down list box at the top.

New - Click this button to create a new chat room. After you click this button, you will be able to edit the Description, Channel, Server, etc., to correspond to the settings necessary to connect to your desired chat room. When you are finished, click Save. Your new Chat Room Description will be added and selected in the drop down list at top. The newly defined chat room will also appear in the Open: Chat Room menu.

Edit - Click this button to Edit a Chat Room you have already created. After you click the button, you will be able to edit all the edit boxes except for the description. If you would like to actually Edit the description, follow this procedure: First click New, change the Description, and click Save. Then select the former description from the list and click Delete. Save - This button allows you to save a Chat Room based on the information filled in the text boxes below. If you have not supplied enough information, the program will alert you of this and the save will not succeed. Please fill in all boxes (with the exception of the password if not needed) before saving.

Delete - This button will delete the chat room that is selected in the drop down list box.

Title - This is the descriptive name by which you will remember the Chat Room in the future. This list button at the top of the Chat Preferences window displays the titles of all Chat Rooms defined to Investor/RT. This same list appears when you click the "Open Chat Room" button on the main toolbar. The list of chat room titles also appears in the Open menu, Chat sub-menu.

Channel - This is the IRC Channel name, sometimes called the chat room name. The Investor/RT chat room has the channel name "#linnsoft" on the "othernet" Investor/RT network. Channel names are usually preceded by a #.

IRC Server - This is the Internet address of the IRC server, or host. It specifies the location of the server to which you will be logging into when connecting to the chat room. In the case of the Investor/RT Chat Room (#linnsoft), the server address defaults to "irc.othernet.org". For a list of all "othernet" servers, see www.othernet.org/servers.

Port - This is the number of the port that the server uses for IRC traffic. This will generally be a four-digit number, such as 6667.

Password - Some servers require a password in order to connect. If the server you are connecting to requires a password, fill it in here. If it doesn't require a password, leave this field blank or enter "null".

Nickname - This is the name that will be seen by other members of the chat room. Try to limit your nickname to 9 characters or less, and use only letter, numbers, or '_'. You cannot use spaces in your nickname.

Real Name - The real name is accessible by other participants in the chat room via the "WHOIS" command. The real name can be your actual name or any text you like.

Show Names List - If you would like to create more room in your Chat Window for text, you may hide the Names List by un-checking this checkbox.

Ignore Administrative Messages (JOIN, QUIT) - In some very busy chat rooms, the JOIN and QUIT messages can be very distracting and fill your window with unnecessary lines. You can check this box and Investor/RT will not send such messages to the Text Window.

Sound Alert on Incoming Messages - Check this checkbox if you would like Investor/RT to sound an audible alert whenever the chat room receives an incoming message.

Show Time - When this checkbox is checked, each line will be prefixed with the time that the text arrived in the room. If you would like additional room for text and don't particularly care about the time, uncheck this box.

Military - This specifies whether or not to show the time in Military (16:24:34) or Standard (04:24:34 PM) format. This checkbox is only activated when the "Show Time" checkbox is checked.

Seconds - This specifies whether or not to show seconds in the time. This checkbox is only activated when the "Show Time" checkbox is checked.

Text Format - The Ircle and mIRC popular chat programs use two different text formats. Ircle right aligns the nicknames (most effective with monospaced fonts), while mIRC just left aligns the nickname and placed it in brackets. This groupbox allows you to specify which format you would like to use.

Font and Size - Click on the Font Button to specify the size and font you would like to use for the text in the Text Window.

Text Color - Color of the text in the Text Window.

Background Color - Color of the Text Background in the Text Window.

PRIVATE MESSAGE WINDOWS

Private Message Windows can be initiated by double clicking on a nickname in the Names List. Messages that you enter in this window will go only to the one nickname that is shown in the title of the private window. The window title will have a title such as "Private Chat with John". When someone sends you a private message in Investor/RT, a new window will open automatically with the message. Private message windows do not have Names Lists since there are only two participants in the chat.