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Chat - User's Guide ***
1. Chatroom list
When starting the chat, you'll see the screen
below that allows you to choose a room. Click on a line of the list to enter in
the corresponding room.
- the button REFRESH allows to
update the list to see if new rooms have been created.
- the buttons < and
> allow to see if there are
rooms in other languages than English.
- The symbol
indicates a room with mandatory webcams
: after having entered such a room, click on icon
in the bottom right corner to turn on your webcam.
PROBLEM : THE ROOM
LIST IS EMPTYIf the room list is empty :
1) if you're chatting on a PC that is connected indirectly to the
internet via another PC that must remain online (shared connection or
proxy server), you must go chatting on the PC directly connected to the
ADSL modem !
2) protection software like Norton and ZoneAlarm can cause problems :
they must be configured to authorize the chat program to access the
internet.
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2. The Chat
Room

talk on the microphone (click and keep pressed
,
talk, then release button when you've finished talking)
no longer hear the other people talk on the microphone
no longer hear the sounds (enter room, leave cup, exclusion, whisper, disconnect)
turn your webcam on, or look at someone else's webcam (first click on a name in
the list)
modify your profile or show someone else's profile
téléphone (whisper or accept a whisper) - see explanations in chapter below.
block someone's whisper
ignore someone (first select a nick).
toc (gold or brown); take/drop toc, or exclude a user (first select a nick).
write a line without ':' between nick and the text. Example: "Erika thinks it's
good".
go/leave cup (away).
modify style and color of the font.
webcam properties (select a video source, brightness, contrast, sharpness,
colors).
start Internet Explorer to surf on the group associated to the chatroom.
display list of emoticons.
exit
- return to list of rooms.
follow more easily a user in a large room - you must first click a nick on the
right-hand list, then click on this icon : a
will then appear next to each line written by this nick.
give a temporary toc for 24h to a chatter, or take it back.
Keyboard:
F1 = decrease size of font.
F2 = increase size of font.
F3 = modify window size (press several times).
fast clics:
Profile : to see someone's profile, click on icon
left to his nick in the list.
Webcam : to watch someone's webcam, click on icon
left to his nick.
3. User Profile
To change your user profile, click on your pseudo
then on icon
below. Users who are in the same chatroom as you will be able to see your
profile.
In the area 'Pseudo-Icon' you can specify an icon-name that will be used to
represent yourself (see chapter 11 : add your own icons).

5. Webcam

To turn on your webcam, don't select any nick in the list and click on bouton
below. Your webcam image appears then in the upper left corner and anyone in the
room can then see you.
The icon
next to a nick indicates that this person turned on his/her webcam. To see
someone else's webcam, click on icon
next to his/her nick; his/her image will then appear above on the screen.
If there is not enough space on the screen, you can expand the screen by
clicking several times F3. You can also increase the windows screen resolution
(right-clic on desktop, properties, parameters, screen resolution : 1024x768
or more).
You can zoom(2X) on a webcam picture by clicking on it, but before, you need to
expand the screen sufficiently with F3.
The counter below each image indicated the number of people (except yourself)
who look at this image.
small note: here I have hidden the people's faces because I didn't ask their
authorization to show it here.
Click on icon
to set the webcam properties : select a video source, select brightness,
contrast, sharpness and colors.
To use a wifi webcam that is not registered in Windows, you need to add its
source in chat.ini like this :
example:
# chat.ini
[cam]
source = http://192.168.1.13:8080/image.jpg
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If you have a toc, you will see a question mark on the cam icon of chatters that
enter the room without toc. This question mark will disappear when at least one
room manager has clicked on the chatter's cam to watch it. This allows the
managers to distribute more easily the cam verification work of the incomers.
6. Whispers
"Savage" whispers are not possible on this chat :
each whisper must first be accepted. The example below show how it works :

Samuro (left) want to whisper something to Isabelle (right) :
1. Samuro clicks on Isabelle's nick to
color it in brown.
2. Samuro clicks on the yellow telephone below.
3. A yellow telephone appears next to Isabelle's nick.
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4. Isabelle hears a bell and notices a
green telephone with the word "DRING" next to Samuro's nick.
5. If she wants to answer, she clicks on Samuro's nick, then on the
yellow telephone below. A private conversation window appear then.
6. If she does not want to answer and wants to block calls from Samuro,
she clicks on Samuro's nick, then on the green telephone with red
stripes below.
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Whispers are not possible in rooms of category Ados.
7. sounds
The following sounds exist :
- arrive in room
- leave room
- leave cup
- whisper
- exclusion by kick
- network disconnect
- follow a chatter
- laser shoot (3D)
- wake up : after 3 minutes of inactivity in room, if someone new arrives or if
someone talks are leaves his cup, then a toc-toc-toc will be heard by the other
people.
Click on
to no longer hear the sounds.
8. The Microphone
To talk on the microphone to all the room, press and keep
pressed
,
talk, then release the button when you've finished.
If you have microphone problems, the following advice can help you:
1) if you don't hear anything, don't forget to
unclick the red bar on icon
.
2) if you still don't hear anything, to setup your
mic in windows, click here :
micro
3) for a quality setup, enter the chatroom twice :
you will then be able to hear yourself and make adjustments.
4) on Windows 95/98, a single programm can access
the microphone and speakers at the same time. Close all other programs that use
sound, close the chat and reopen it.
You can block the micro button by clicking on it then by moving the mouse
upwards; this allows listening to continuous music, if the connection speed
allows it. Nevertheless, to avoid accidental blockings of the micro button, the
button will unblock automatically after 5 minutes, unless you've set the
following option in chat.ini :
A room owner can avoid that the message 'xx talks on the micro' be displayed for
golden tocs by adding the following option in chatserv.ini :
In 3D rooms, the micro sound can't be heard if the chatters are more than 5000
pixels apart. This value can be changed in chatserv.ini :
[3D]
distance-micro = 5000
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9. Macro Files
Each user can
create a macro file that can be used to display prepared lines of text. For
example:
you type :
following text appears :
gooo eva, go find
happiness |
To obtain this result, you must create a file MACROS.TXT that you need to copy
in the same directory as CHAT.EXE, that means in C:\CHAT.XXX\ (where XXX is
your nick marked on your chat icon on your desktop).
Here's an example of a line of this file :
&go : gooo %1, go find
\001\255\000\000\002\009\000\000happiness(f):p |
Explanations:
&go |
keyword to start the macro (must start
with '&' and be followed by letters and digits) |
: |
colon (this is a separator) |
%1 |
macro parameter that will be replaced when you type
your text; up to 9 parameters (%1 to %9) are allowed. |
\001\255\000\000 |
text color change; must begin with \001
followed by 3 values for the amounts of red, green and blue of the
desired color (each value must be between \000 and \255). |
\002\009\000\000 |
text font change; must begin with \002 followed by a
value between \000 and \016 for the font number, followed by \000\000. |
You can create any color; here are some with their codes :
\001\000\000\000 |
black |
\001\255\000\000 |
red |
\001\192\000\000 |
red carmin |
\001\255\255\000 |
yellow |
\001\255\000\255 |
violet |
\001\255\128\000 |
orange |
\001\000\128\128 |
dark green |
\001\000\200\000 |
light green |
\001\000\000\255 |
dark blue |
\001\000\210\255 |
light blue |
\001\160\160\160 |
grey |
here's the font list with their codes :
\002\000\000\000 |
Tahoma |
\002\001\000\000 |
Times New Roman |
\002\002\000\000 |
Arial |
\002\003\000\000 |
Arial Black |
\002\004\000\000 |
Comic Sans MS |
\002\005\000\000 |
Courier New |
\002\006\000\000 |
Franklin Gothic Medium |
\002\007\000\000 |
Georgia |
\002\008\000\000 |
Impact |
\002\009\000\000 |
Lucida Console |
\002\010\000\000 |
Microsoft Sans Serif |
\002\011\000\000 |
Palantino Linotype |
\002\012\000\000 |
Sylfaen |
\002\013\000\000 |
Trebuchet MS |
\002\014\000\000 |
Verdana |
\002\015\000\000 |
Kartika |
\002\016\000\000 |
Vrinda |
Attributes : the attributs are at the end of the font
codes. Instead of \000\000 you can have:
\000\000 |
normal |
\001\000 |
underlined |
\002\000 |
italic |
\003\000 |
underlined+italic |
\004\000 |
bold |
\005\000 |
underlined+bold |
\006\000 |
italic+bold |
\007\000 |
underlined+italic+bold |
An macro example is available
here.
If it
doesn't work, try to rename your file in "MACROS" instead of "MACROS.TXT" (notepad
adds the hidden extension .TXT automatically, for more details
click here)
10. Personnalised sounds
The following sounds exist
:
name of sound |
use |
arrivee |
arrive in room |
quitter |
normal leaving of room |
deconn |
someone has disconnected |
toquer |
kick |
tasse |
leave cup |
knock |
toc-toc-toc - wakeup after 3 minutes of
inactivity |
pv1 |
ask for whisper |
pv2 |
whisper ringing |
discon |
you have been disconnected |
tag |
a chatter followed with
writes a line |
shoot |
laser shoot (3D) |
Each user can modify the chat sounds on his own PC only.
To do this, he/she must modify the chat.ini file that can be found the same
directory as CHAT.EXE, this means in C:\CHAT.XXX\ (where XXX is your nick
written on the yellow chat icon on your desktop).
This file will have to contain the following line :
example:
# chat.ini file
[sound]
arrivee = ding.wav
toquer = fouet.wav
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The user must obtain his/her own audio files (with extension .WAV) and
put them in the same directory as chat.exe
--
These modifications have no effect on the other PCs that keep the
standard sounds. --
11. Add your own icons
Each user can add his/her own icons if
he/she thinks the standard emoticons aren't enough varied.
For that, he/she needs to start Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox,
to surf on the internet to select a picture or an animated icon, to
click on the picture with the mouse then to move the mouse over the
chat window while keeping the mouse button pressed : a special code
for the picture will then appear on the chat text line.
Remark: this method does not work on images that are links in
Internet Explorer, thus on 'clickable' images.
Besides this simple but volatile method (you don't keep the images),
it's also possible to add pictures and icons permanently, but it's
slighly more complicated. Here's how to do :
-
configurate windows explorer by
following the explanations at this link
-
open the file chat.ini of your chat directory.
Here's how : if your yellow chat icon you start the chat with is
called CHAT_SAMU ( ,
see the picture on the right, you must type the text c:\chat.samu
in the red area (1), then click on
(2), (3) and
(4) :
Here's a example file chat.ini when it's open :
# chat.ini
[icons]
heriss = c:\mes documents\herisson.gif
soleil = soleil_rouge.jpg
fille2 = fille125.bmp
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-
If you're drawing your pictures using a program (for
example Paint or Photoshop) make sure you're always saving your
original creations in format .BMP 24-bits because this
uncompressed format is the only one that garantees the full
richness of the 24 million colors available with these programs.
-
When your picture is finished, you can reduce its size on
the disk by saving it in one of the following compression
formats :
-
GIF : choose this format if your creation contains no
more than 256 colors - you must know that if your picture
contains a lot of colors, a conversion to GIF will reduce
stronly the richness and luminosity of the picture's colors
- compare with the original BMP picture before selecting
this format.
-
JPG : if you save your picture in format JPG, you
must know that many programs allow you to specify a
compression rate from 0 to 100. A too small value will
produce fuzzy pictures; a too large value will produce a
large file on the disk - be aware that a compression to JPG
will always reduce the quality and sharpness of your image -
compare with the original BMP picture before selecting this
format.
-
BMP : you can also keep your original BMP picture to
be sure not to loose any quality, but on the condition that
your image does not exceed 63K on the disk.
-
Copy your image files (.GIF, .JPG or .BMP)
in the same
directory as chat.ini - next to the red circle (4), not on it.
-
Then, for each image, write a line in chat.ini under the
line [icons] (look at the example that already contains 3 lines).
For each line, you must give a 6-character-name to your icon (no
less, no more than 6 characters otherwise it won't work !),
followed by an equal sign '=', followed by the image filename on
the disk with its extension (.GIF, .JPG or .BMP).
Then you must close the chat.ini window and save the changes.
-
When this is done, click on the chat window (where you
chat) and press the F5 key. You'll see a line 'system info:
loading chat.ini : ok' which indicates that the chat has
reloaded your new chat.ini file.
-
Type now on the chat : {heriss} {soleil} {fille2}
You should then see your icons.
Instead of an image, you
could see one of the following error messages :
sign |
meaning |
{.ini??} |
chat.ini or chatserv.ini not found
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{icons?} |
paragraph [icons] not found in file .ini
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{name??} |
name of icon not found (before sign
=) |
{found?} |
image or sound file not found (after
sign =) |
{big???} |
file size exceeds 63K |
{wav???} |
sound icon not authorized here
|
{size??} |
image dimensions (width, height)
exceed limit
limit |
value |
icons used for pseudos
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max dimensions:
168 x 21 pixels |
icons used for text
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max dimensions:
320 x 240 pixels |
icons used for room styles (see
chapter J. Style) |
max dimensions:
21 x 21 pixels |
icons used for room titles
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max dimensions:
900 x 21 pixels |
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{illeg?} |
illegal file format |
Correct then the problem and retry
(don't forget to press F5).
It is recommanded, to avoid "lag" and slow scrolling, to select a
small image, to cut it well using MsPaint at minimal dimensions. A
transparent background for GIF images is recommended.
Here
are some more special cases :
-
To use an icon as nick-name, use an image of max
dimensions 168 x 21. When the icon works in the room, open your
profile and in the area Pseudo-Icon write your icon name between
brackets, for example: {fille2}.
-
Instead of an image file, it is also possible to use an
audio file with extension .WAV, which will make this sound heard
in the room by all other chatters. Such a "sound" icon does not
work if placed in a nick, but works as text or in an exclusion
message.
-
In the room, when an image is followed immediately by an
url link :
example:
{image1}http://www.here.com
then the link is not displayed on the screen but when you click
on the image, the internet explorer is started with this link.
-
If animated icons make you sick, use the following option
in chat.ini to freeze them :
# chat.ini
[settings]
animated-gifs = no |
or use the following option to allow only animated images, but
no animated pseudos :
# chat.ini
[settings]
animated-gifs = after |
12. How to
change the chat's starting screen color
To change the color of the
chat's starting page (on your own PC only), use the option :
#
chat.ini
[settings]
screen-color = 1CBBF0 ; hexa colors
field-color = FFFFFF |
This option is also available in chatserv.ini to change the chat server's color.
13. How to
move in a 3D room
In a
3D room, you can move using the keyboard arrows :
-> forward, backward, turn left or right.
-> using control-left and control-right : move sidewards left or right without
turning.
-> using Tab : jump.
You can also move using the mouse :
-> to turn, click on a point of the upper half of the screen and roll the mouse
left or right.
-> to move, click on a point of the lower half of the screen (where you want to
go), and while leaving the mouse button pushed, roll the mouse towards you.
-> if you have ammunition, shoot with the right mouse button.
contact
me : chat_anime@hotmail.fr
label
ICRA
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