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The Original Fun & Friendly Web Chat
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Alamak Chat / General Help
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To type in a message for all other users to see you need to select the input field
near the bottom of the screen. If you are using Netscape 2.0 or better this input
field will be automatically selected when you enter the chat and reselected after
most commands. If there is not a cursor present in the input field, you can select
the input field by moving the mouse to the the input field and clicking the mouse
button.
Basic Chatting
You then type in what you want to say and hit return. The return key works for most browsers but for those that do not there is a "POST" button provided and clicking on this button will send the message. You must hit return of POST on the main chat to see new responses from other chatters.
You must hit return of POST on the chat unless you are using our new client or Frame Chat. The post button or return will also refresh the screen so that you can see messages that other users have typed since the last screen refresh. As you and other users type messages they disappear off the top of the screen and more are added to the bottom. Any line that does not start with a forward slash "/" will be printed directly to the channel after your nickname enclosed in braces.
If you keep getting repeat screen turn off the buffering; with Netscape turn off buffering by selecting ( Options / Preferences / Cache and Network / Every Time ). With communicator this is under ( Edit / Preferences / Advanced / Cache ).
Lynx users should note that the page will be buffered and you will get repeat screen (ie. nothing changes) unless you select the "POST" button and then hit the "x" key to submit your input without buffering!
You should enable your Javascript on Alamak, Javascript is used to re-select the input field making chatting easier and faster! With Netscape 2.0 or higher the input field is automatically selected after you load the page. The side effect is that if the input field is below the bottom of the page ( Netscape for Windows ) it will pop the view down to the selected input field after the page loads ( it doesn't do this for X windows ). To get rid of the popup effect, decrease your font size or use /len 10 to decrese the total number of messages displayed to 10.
Duplicates of existing nicknames are not allowed. If you choose a nickname already in
use you will get a "nickname invalid" warning and have to return to the entry page and
enter a new nickname. Only letters (a-z A-Z), numbers (0-9), and underscore "_" are
allowed in nicknames. Although this prevents different people with the same nickname from
chatting at the same time, this does not prevent them from being on at different times.
If you see someone with the same nickname as a person you spoke with before, do not assume
they are the same person! Additionally, nicknames are case sensitive and there can be a
Darrel as well as DARREL and darrel on the chat at the same time. Operators
are an exception to this rule, and have reserved nicknames that cannot be used by regular users.
Nicknames
There are two ways to know who is online. There are the /who, /whoall, /whois variations
to look for people or get a list and there is the Alamak Wait function. Operators can
setup a /wait list of their favorite friends and be notified when those friends login
to the chat. There is also a seperate Wait Window that can be used to monitor all servers
for your friends while you stay offline.
Who's Online and Wait List
Alamak Chat has many different "rooms" or "locations", each with a different
group of people and topic of discussion. There are two ways to change rooms, but
perhaps the easiest for a new users is to use the pull-down location selector
next to the input field. The current location is always shown at the top of the location
selector. Use the mouse to select a new location. To make this change effective hit
the "POST" button or select the input field and hit return. If using Netscape_2.0
the change will be detected automatically as soon as the mouse button is released.
Only Operators can create new rooms and lock them.
Changing Rooms
The second way to change channels is with the "/join" command which is described in the Help: Commands section.
Commands are CASE SENSITIVE and all are in lowercase. The command "/MSG" is
not the same as "/msg" and "/MSG" will not be recognized by the server as a command.
Command Syntax
All commands start with a forward slash and this forward slash must be the first character on the input line. If you put a space before the forward slash the command will fail and it will print exactly what you typed including the forward slash.
There are three exceptions to the above rule that the forward slash must be first in a command and they are /bo /bl /it, the commands to make a single word BOLD, BLINKING, or ITALIC. Note that the /bold /blink and /italic commands which affect the entire line are not the same as the /bo /bl and /it commands which only affects the next word and can be put in the middle of a line. Only Operators can use these color and font commands.
The online commands list can be viewed by typing /help.
Command List
The command list is displayed with the command as typed with the slash followed by a space, and then in brackets an option such as [text]. Do not include the square braces "[" and "]" with the command as the braces, the braces just indicate that this is an option to fill in. This means replace the [text] with something you wish to type.
In some cases the bracketed options are a required part of the command but sometimes they are optional and a default action is assumed. For example a "/who" command without any specified [location] assumes you mean to show a list of users in your current room.
Following each command is a short description explaining what the command does.
The most frequently used command is /msg, which send a message privately to another
user. Use this command as "/msg [nick] [message]". This means to send a private message
"Hello" to a person nicknamed "Alamak" you would type "/msg Alamak Hello" (without the
quote marks, of course.)
Command List
When someone sends you a message, it will be displayed below a horizontal line, with their nickname, and a javascript link that you can click to begin a reply.
Operators are concerned Alamak users who pay and support the chat. They make this
chat possible for all users by paying for server and network maintenance and by protect
the chat from people who try to flood or otherwise harrass chat users online. We realize
that some Operators are abusive but the committee and chat administration does it's best
to identify and remove the worst abusive Ops. In the case of abuse, do not confront the
Operator online, instead please use the appropriate section of the
Contact Us Page.
Operators
Operators are the first line of defense against harrassment and abuse. You should be able to ask an Operator for help. Please provide evidence of harrassment with a /forward command and you should get some assistance, the Op will either try to talk or reason with the person or kick or ban depending on the situation.
Operators have the ablity to use special commands, colors, create new rooms, and kick or ban chatters who are harrassing other people on the chat. An operator's address is shown with "#" on each side in a /who listing, ( ie. #some .address.com#). Some Operator commands can only be used when using the Operators specific reserved nickname.