Sending Instant Messages (Using Chat and Conference Rooms)

This section contains the following information:

• Chat Window Overview

• Cut, Copy, and Paste in the Chat Window

• To Send an Instant Message (To Invite Someone to Chat)

• To Respond to a Chat Invitation

• To Send a File to a Contact

• To Start a Side Chat

• To Set the Subject for a Conference

• To Save a Chat or an Alert

• Emoticons and Shortcut Characters

• To Type Multiline Messages in Instant Messenger

• To Initiate a Voice Chat

Chat Window Overview

The Chat window is displayed when you:

• Initiate a chat

• Are invited to participate in a chat session

• Enter a conference room

The Chat window title bar indicates either the conference room name or the first name of the contact you are chatting with. Depending on the settings, multiple chat or conference room sessions can take place in multiple tabs or in multiple windows. When you start a chat session with multiple individual participants, the tab displays the names of the participants. In case of a private conference, the tab displays the names of the first few participants and then a number in parenthesis indicates the total number of participants. When multiple tabs are displayed, a tab that is currently not selected blinks to indicate that a chat participant has sent a message.

The Chat window contains the following items:

• Chat Window Menu Bar — The menu bar contains the following items:

  • File Menu — Allows you to send, save, and print messages, invite other users to chat, moderate conferences, set the subject for conferences, and customize how you type multiline messages.

  • Edit Menu — Provides commands for cutting, copying, and pasting within a message.

  • Format menu — Provides commands for formatting text within a message.

  • View — Allows you to customize the display of your chat window by choosing to display the tool bar, participant list, and time stamps within the chat window. In addition, you can clear the chat window contents using the Clear Screen option from this menu.

  • Tools — Provides commands for creating a side chat, attaching a file to a message, and viewing the HTML formatted source of a chat or conference session. In addition, you can access the Send Alert window and the Add Contacts window through this menu.

  • Help — Brings up this help topic.

• Upper Message pane — Displays all messages sent by all the participants in the session in chronological order.

• Lower Message pane — Displays text that you type prior to being sent to the upper message pane. You can add text formatting to your message before sending it.

• Session Member list pane — The pane at the right of the window displays a list of the current participants in the room. If this is a chat session, users that you invite to the room are listed. If this is a conference room, users you invite, as well as users who enter on their own are displayed. The current status of the members is indicated by one of these icons:

  — The user is currently typing a message or response.

  — The user is in the conference.

  — The user is away.

  — The user is offline.

• Tool bar — The tool bar contains the following:

  • Invite Users to Chat — Displays the Invite Users to Chat window where you can select users you want to invite to the chat or conference room session. See Searching for Users, Adding Recipients, and Inviting Other Users for more information.

  • Leave button — Exits the current chat session but not all sessions. This icon is located next the chat window name. If you have only one chat session open, then this dismisses the entire Chat window. Click this icon to leave a conference room.

  • Bold, Underline, and Italic buttons — Provide the standard Windows character formatting functions.

  • Text Color list box — Displays a menu of colors from which you can select the text color to display in the message panes.

  • Text Size list box — Displays a drop-down of sizes from which you can select the text size to display in the message panes.

  • Emoticons menu— Displays a menu of emoticons to insert into your chat message. For a list of emoticons and corresponding shortcut characters, see Emoticons and Shortcut Characters.

  • Attach File button — Attaches a file to your message. When the attachment is sent, a pop-up message appears on the user’s screen, with options to save or launch the attachment.

• Send button — Type your message in the lower message pane and click the Send button to send the message to the room. Your message is displayed in the upper message pane of all the participants in the session.

• Audio Pane — This pane is available at the bottom right of the Lower Message pane. This pane contains buttons in the form of phone icons. Use these icons to initiate and end voice conversations with other users. The audio pane contains the following items:

  • Initiate a call — Click this icon to initiate an audio chat with other users.

  • Hang up — Click this icon to end an audio chat.

Cut, Copy, and Paste in the Chat Window

You can copy or cut text from other applications and paste it in the input area (Lower Message pane) of the Chat window to then send the text as part of an instant message. Likewise, you can copy from the Upper Message pane and paste into the Lower Message pane, or into another application.

Use the standard Windows key strokes listed in Table 1 to cut, copy, and paste or select the Cut, Paste or Copy options from the Edit pop-up menu.

Table 1 Standard Keyboard Shortcuts

To Send an Instant Message (To Invite Someone to Chat)

1. With the Contact List tab selected, click the contacts with whom you want to chat.

   You can start an instant message session with one or multiple contacts. Use the Shift or Control keys for multiple selection. See Selecting Contacts and Contact Groups for more information.

2. Select Chat from the Tools menu option or click the Chat icon.

   The Chat window appears.

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   Tip - You can double-click a user or users to launch the Chat window.

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   Note - Double-clicking a contact group does not launch the Chat window.

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3. Type your message in the input area and click Send.

   The message is sent to the users displayed and appears in your upper display area. The message includes the user ID and the time the message was sent. As users respond, their messages also appear in upper display area.

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   Tip - Use the toolbar to change text size or color, or to emphasize with bold, italic, or underline.

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4. To invite other users to participate, click the Invite Users to Chat icon.

   Use the Invite Users to Chat window to search for other contacts that you want to add to this chat session. See Add Recipients/Invite Users to Chat Window Overview for more information.

To Respond to a Chat Invitation

When you are invited to chat, the Chat window is displayed on your desktop with the name of the person who invited you in the title bar.

1. To respond to this invitation, type your response in the lower message pane and click Send.

   Everything you type, and everything other participants type is displayed in the upper message pane.

2. To decline this invitation, click Leave in the Chat window, if you are participating in multiple chat sessions. Alternatively, choose Close from the File menu to close the entire Chat window.

   If desired, you can expand the size of the window so that more of the message content may be seen at one time.

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   Tip - Once you have been invited to a conference, click Invite Others to invite other users to chat.

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To Send a File to a Contact

Sun Java™ System Instant Messenger lets you send files to other online contacts. When you send the file, the recipient receives a notice to launch or save the file.

Follow these steps to send a file:

1. With the Contact List tab selected, select the contacts to whom you want to send a file.

   You can start an instant message session with one or more contacts. See Selecting Contacts and Contact Groups for more information.

2. Select Chat from the Tools menu option or click the Chat icon.

   The Chat window appears.

3. Select Attach File from the Tools menu option or click Attach File.

   A Find File window appears. Find the file you want to send and click OK.

4. The name of the file to be sent appears in the tool bar, and the Attach File button changes to Remove File button.
5. Type your message in the input area and click send.

   Sun Java System Instant Messenger sends both the message and the file.

   When the file arrives, the Instant Messenger program notifies the recipient in the Chat window, and also gives the recipient the choice to either open or save the file.

To Start a Side Chat

When you are participating in a chat with multiple contacts, you can start a separate chat session, a side chat, with selected contacts.

Follow these steps to start a side chat:

1. In the Chat window, select the contacts with whom you want to start a separate chat session, in the Session Member list pane.
2. Select Side Chat from the Tools menu. You can also right-click on the selected contact and select Side Chat from the pop-up menu that appears.

   You can start chatting with the selected contacts from the new chat tab that appears.

To Set the Subject for a Conference

1. In the conference Chat window, select Set Subject from the File menu.

   The Input dialog box appears.

2. Enter the subject of the conference in the text box provided and Click OK.

   The subject displays at the top of the conference Chat window. In addition, Instant Messenger uses this subject as the subject of emails sent to conference participants when email archiving is activated. Contact your system administrator for more information about email archiving.

To Save a Chat or an Alert

• To save the chat sessions or alert messages on the desktop:

  Select Save from the File menu in the Chat window or select Save as from the File menu option in the Alert received window.

Emoticons and Shortcut Characters

Emoticons can be inserted into your messages in two ways:

• By selecting them from the emoticon menu on the toolbar.

• By typing the shortcut characters that correspond to one of the emoticon characters directly into your message.

Selecting one of the emoticons inserts the emoticon’s shortcut character into your message in the lower message pane. When you send the message, the shortcut characters are converted into the graphic representation of the emoticon, which you see displayed in the upper message pane.

You can also type the emoticon shortcut character directly into your message. This is converted to the graphic emoticons when you send the message.

The following emoticons and their corresponding shortcut characters can be used in the chat message (lower message pane):

To Type Multiline Messages in Instant Messenger

By default, you cannot send multiline messages from the chat window. Alternatively, you can configure Instant Messenger not to send the message you are typing when you press Enter as follows:

• In the Chat window, select Send Message on Enter Key in the File menu.

  The checkmark disappears from next to the option in the menu. You can now press Enter while typing a message in the chat window and the message will not be sent. To enable this option, select Send Message on Enter Key again.

To Initiate a Voice Chat

Sun Java System Instant Messenger lets you talk to other users using the Peer to Peer audio facility. The instant messenger uses the audio hardware resources of the PC to send and receive audio data.

Follow these steps to initiate a voice chat with another user:

1. Click the Chat icon from the main chat window.

   The Chat window appears.

2. Click the Invite Users icon

   The Invite Users to Chat window appears.

3. Use the Invite Users to Chat window to search for the other user that you want to start a voice chat.

   See Add Recipients/Invite Users to Chat Window Overview for more information.

4. Select the user that you want to chat with from the Session Member list pane.

   The phone answer icon is activated.

5. Click the phone icon to initiate a chat.

   You will see a message indicating that Instant Messenger is trying to establish a connection with the other user. A request is sent to the other user. The user can accept this request by clicking on the green phone icon or decline by clicking the phone hangup icon .

   Once the connection is establish, you can speak to the other user using a microphone and headphones.

6. To hang up, click the phone hangup icon.