Welcome to BabyZone’s New DigiChat

Digichat offers our members and hosts several bells and whistles. We’ll go over a few things with you in this document so you will know how to get around in this new chat. There are screen shots in this document. They may be too small for you to see some details, but all you need to do is double click on them and size them up.  It may mess up the text formatting but it might be helpful if you are having problems seeing the images. In order to login to chat and have hosting rights you must access this link http://bzchat.babyzone.com/DigiChat/ChatMaster.html You must first obtain a username and password by either emailing cmsteph@babyzone.com or jojo@babyzone.com (or both of us J) When emailing us tell us your host username and the password of choice.

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CHAT SETTINGS

First off, as you can see from the graphic below, if you click on Settings on the right hand side it will bring up the box that you see above with “This screen pops up when you click settings” Here is a break down of the tabs:

Profile Tab – Here you can put in your information that you want others users to be able to see when they click on the first icon on the right side under users tab. If you want, you can also tick the box that reads “Block profile from other users” and users won’t be able to see your information.

Options Tab – Here you can choose your message scroll speed and you can choose to have your PMs (private messages) pop up in a new window, instead of just showing in the chat message area.

Fonts – here you can choose the font type, size, style and colors. This includes color coding for private messages, flagged users, and your background colors on chat and PMs.

Sounds – Assign the sounds you want for the various activities in chat, including when new users enter, new messages are sent, flagged messages are sent, PMs are sent and when a user exits. If you prefer you can select no sound for everything.

Info button – This will give you info on DigiChat (such as their website and copyright info) and it will also tell you your operating system and the version of Java you have installed.

Once you have changed all the settings you want, click on save and the box will automatically close taking you back to the main chat screen.

USER PROFILES

In         order to see a user’s profile you need to first select a user’s name from the list.  Then click on the first icon on the right hand side under the tabs (Users/Rooms). If this button is not clickable while on a user’s name, this means they have opted not to share their profile. If they have not shared their profile you can still get their IP. Keeping reading below to find out how.

KICKING and BANNING USERS

To ban a user, you must first highlight their name in the user list. Then click the last button on the right (the one that has a symbol of a red circle with a slash through it). A box will then pop up on your screen like the one on the left hand side of this image. Here you can type the message the user will receive upon being kicked out of chat.

Example:

Username gmv91102 is harassing others – calling them names and such.  In this instance, we would like you to use something such as this: “You have been disconnected from DigiChat by BabyZone for harassing other members. This is against our Community Usage Policy and will not be tolerated.”

You then will see two tick boxes at the bottom.  The first one will ban the I.P. address; the second will ban that user’s host (an example of a host is mindspring.com). Continuing with the example with user gmv91102 harassing members, leave everything unchecked and just kick the user. The message will serve as a warning to them. If they then come back in chat and do this again, next time you go to kick them, check the first box to ban the users I.P. address and press kick.

Another way to ban a user without kicking them would be to go to Ban Users under Set Site options.  Follow this graphic with instructions to reach this area: 

Click on DigiChat in top left hand corner – go down to Set Site Options and click on it.

The box on the top what pops up on your screen after clicking on set site options. Click on the Ban Users tab. Then you will see this screen (bottom pic).

On the Ban Users Screen click on Add which will display this box:

If you have their IP from their profile you can go ahead and input their IP number in the IP/Host box and press ok. Remember if they have blocked their profile you can get their IP from the kick user button (where you can also block them as well)

FILTERED WORDS (CHAT WATCH)

Also, under the set site options you will see the ChatWatch Tab. Here you can input words for the chat filter. Please do not enter words in here that aren’t curse words, derogatory statements, competitors that come up a lot, or the like. Please do not change the drop down menu at all. Leave this set as always on. If it’s changed then our filter will not be working.

If a word or statement comes up in chat that is not appropriate and it’s not filtered, then click on Add and you will see this screen pop up.

In the “Replace” field put the word you want filtered out and then leave the “With” field blank and it will automatically replace with asterisks

BROADCAST MESSAGES

When you have a scheduled chat, it’s good to let the other users in chat know about your chat. In order to do this click on DigiCast in upper left corner (see graphic below)

Then, click on Send Chat Broadcast the box (below) will pop up.

Choose the Rooms you want to send the broadcast to. Choose all rooms if you want to let all users know about a chat. If you want to just tell the users of your room something then pick the room you are currently in from the “Send to” Drop down. Type your message in the white area and click send. A small box like this will then pop up for all users with your message.  Below is an example:

This chat broadcast is to be used for chat announcements, warnings about community usage violations, or if you are having a scheduled chat.   You can send  a message to all your room users to let them know chat is starting or to announce something special to them.  Please do not use this feature as a toy. It should be taken seriously.

INVISIBILITY and USER LIST COLORS

As a host you can come into chat as invisible.  Hosts that are in chat under invisible mode will show up in green on the chat user list. When a host is green do not say hi to them in chat J. Hosts that are invisible can still post messages, but they cannot be seen on the user list (except by other hosts).

Hosts logged in through the admin site will appear in blue. Users logged in through the main site will appear in black. Your name will be in purple.

EMOTICONS

Some fun extras in our chat are the emoticons. Here are graphics showing you what we currently have available (we’ll add over time and I will show you anything we add.)  You can use these while in chat. Just type in the characters to the right of the emoticons to display the smileys on the left in chat.