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Want to have a conversation with one or more Organ Forum members in real time? The Forum's chat facility makes it easy.
What Is the Forum Chat?
The Forum Chat, vB Messenger, is an enhancement to the Forum's Private Messaging System. Private Messaging enables you to communicate with other Forum members with private text messages. Before Forum Chat was implemented these text messages were received in your Messages Inbox.
When you use the Forum Chat, a new interactive window containing your conversation opens on your device allowing you to converse with others in real time. This window will appear whenever you're online and signed into the Forum when another member is trying to contact you, or when you instigate a chat with other members.
If you're not online, or have disabled Forum Chat in your User Settings, when someone starts a chat with you, the message is directed to your Private Message inbox for later viewing.
Enabling Forum Chat In Your Settings
Whether or not the chat feature is available to you depends on your user settings. Because the Forum Chat is based on Private Messaging, you must have Private Messaging enabled in your Forum Settings. In addition, you also need to check the Use vB Messenger option. Also note, that you can choose to limit private messages and chat sessions to your subscribers and forum moderators and administrators.
To Enable Forum Chat
- Enable Private Messaging in your User Settings/Account tab
- Enable vB Messenger in your User Settings/Account tab
- Choose who can communicate with you via Private Messaging and Chat by selecting the desired Receive Private Messages option.
Starting A Forum Chat
There are two ways to begin a Forum Chat
From a post
If you want to contact a member regarding one of their posts, the most convenient way is by clicking on the balloon icon in the user information attached to the post.
If you want to contact a member regarding one of their posts, the most convenient way is by clicking on the balloon icon in the user information attached to the post.
A chat window will open on your screen. Notice how the editor has been pre-populated with a link to the topic for the convenience of the recipient. The topic name will also appear as the message subject in your Messages Inbox.
from your Message Center
To send a private message, go to your Message Center, click the Compose New button, and enter your recipients and message.
If you've enabled VBChat in your settings, sending a private message from your Message Center will cause the chat window to open on your desktop and that of your recipients when you send the message.
Adding Users to a Chat
You can add other participants to a live chat when the chat window is open. Click the Gear icon in the upper right corner of the chat box and click Add Participants.
Scheduling a Chat
- Create a new topic in the Events and Announcements Forum
- In the topic editor click the Calendar icon and enter the date and time of your event along with any other information.
- Save the event.
- The event will be appear as a topic in the Forum and will also be present on the Forum's calendar.
- People interested in participating in the chat would have to ask the chat organizer to be included either by replying to the event invite or contacting the event organizer via PM during the chat time.
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