Welcome! If you are here, it means you are presently using (in our opinion) the web's finest, online chat service. This online chat program includes features such as multiple subrooms, customization, audio, emoticons, private messaging, profanity filtering, and many more! This page will provide a brief summary of many of the features that you presently have access to.

If you have come this far, it means you have already figured out how to log in. You may also have come to notice that your username may not contain spaces, or other special characters. Usernames (or aliases, or handles, or whatever you like to call them) may contain only letters, numbers, and underscores. Usernames may be between two and fifteen characters long. Some chat rooms are configured to automatically log you in.

To communicate in the chat room, you merely need to type text into the little text box towards the bottom of the applet, and press Enter to send your message. Your message will appear in the content (larger) box above it when it is received by our server. Others may then read what you have typed, and respond to you. If you wish to get another user's attention, simply type in their name somewhere within the message that you are sending them. Their message will appear in a different color, and a sound will be played.

You will notice various buttons and checkboxes on the left hand side of the chat room. These allow you to logout, request help (as you have already figured out), float/dock the chat room, turn on/off audio, turn on/off the timestamp and turn on/off the autoscroll feature.

If you wish to exit the chat room at any time, simply click the Logout button. You may then log in again if you so choose.

Emoticons are textual representations of emotions, for conveying feelings in an atmosphere where it would be difficult to express them otherwise. Certain text emoticons are recognized by The Chat Lobby and will automatically be translated into their graphic counterpart. To your right is a list of the presently recognized emoticons. Simply type in the text you see in the second column, and the graphic (shown in the third column) will appear in the chat room instead. Your chat room operator may have added additional emoticons, or possible removed some of the emoticons listed to the right.

You may change the size of your font by accessing the right-click content menu. To do so, right click on the content area (the area where messages are displayed) and a small menu will appears allowing you to change your font size. Available options are Very Small, Small, Medium, Large, and Very Large. On certain systems, the Very Small font is identical to the Small font. After a font selection is made, the content area is reset.

The chat application you are using is capable of hosting multiple subrooms. Subrooms are shown in the list on the lower right hand side of the applet, just below the user list. Depending on how your chat room has been configured by it's owner, you may create, join, and leave subrooms. Subrooms may be password protected as well to accomodate privacy. There is no limit on the amount of subrooms that may be created, however; subrooms are automatically removed when they are empty.

Some systems may automatically place you in your own unique subroom. The subroom will have the same name as your username. Often times this is used for technical-support solutions.

To create a new subroom, type /create [subroom_name]. Subroom names are subject to the same limitations as usernames. They must be between 1 and 15 characters, and may not contain spaces. You will automatically be placed in a subroom that you create. If you wish to password protect the subroom you have created, type /create [subroom_name] [subroom_password]. All users wishing to join your subroom will be required to enter the password you have chosen. Passwords are subject to the same limitations as subroom names.

To leave a subroom, type /leave. You will then be brought back to the main chat room. If the subroom you leave is empty, it will be removed from the system.

To join an existing subroom, type /join [subroom_name]. If the subroom is password protected, you will need to supply the password (not neccesary for system operators) by typing: /join [subroom_name] [subroom_password].

All users within the entire chat are listed in the Main Room (which may have been renamed by your chat operator), however; when inside a room, only users within that room will be listed on the user list. To determine where another user is (what subroom he/she is in) simply double click on that users name in the user list, or type /whereis [username].

You may send private messages to multiple recipients by employing the use of the user list in combination with the /mmsg command. To do so, select the users you wish to send a private message to by clicking on their names on the user list. Each user's name will become highlighted. Then, in the input box, type /mmsg [message]. Each highlighted user will receive the private message. To send a private message to just one user, you can either use the /mmsg command, or you may use the /msg [username] [message] command.

Your chat room may have filters in place to ensure that certain words (such as profanity) are not allowed. You may receive a warning message such as "Please refrain from using profanity" if you use an illegal word in a chat room that censors profanity. If you receive this warning, you can easily go back and edit your message by using the Message Scrollback feature.

Autoscroll is the feature that ensures you are always looking at the most recent events in the chat room. Sometimes you may wish to look back upon previous messages entered into the chatroom. Without being annoyed by autoscroll, you can optionally turn on/off this feature by using the checkbox on the left hand side of the chat room.

You may turn the timestamp on by clicking the appropriate checkbox on the left hand side of the chat room. When this feature is turned on, all incoming messages will be displayed with the time that they were received. This time is relative to your own computer, and the timezone in which it resides.

Click the float button to load the chat room into a seperate window. This feature allows you to surf the web while you chat. When you wish to return the chatroom to it's home page, simply use the arrow buttons on your browser to return to the page from where you floated the chat room, then click "Dock"

Scrollback allows you to scroll back through the previous messages you have entered into the chatroom. To use this feature, simply press the Up and Down arrow buttons in the blue box where you type messages. Often times, we make typos, or we are censored by The Chat Lobby's profanity filtering. This feature makes it easy to simply go back and edit the message that you have just typed.

If you are having difficulties getting online one of our chat clients, this check-list may help you determine exactly what the problem is, and how to resolve it. The majority of our users have no trouble at all connecting.

First, ensure that our servers are online. We are constantly upgrading our services to provide you with additional features, and powerful software. You can find more help and recent news at http://support.raidersoft.com/sigmachat.pl. Be sure to read this news, as it they may contain hints for you. If we have made a recent upgrade to our chat clients or servers, you may be required to empty your web browser's cache, and reload your web browser to get online.

Secondly, ensure that your computer is capable of running our software. Chances are most likely that your computer can run our chat software. Often times; however; users may disable a specific feature on their web browser that may cause problems. Ensure the following features are enabled on your computer's web browser:

• Java™

AOL Users: Do not use the built-in AOL web browser as we have had many reports of AOL users having trouble connecting to our chat room when using this browser. Instead, use the browser shipped with your copy of Windows, or use a modern version of Netscape. You may also wish to consider upgrading your Java Virtual Machine by visiting http://java.sun.com/getjava/.

Difficulties have been reported using some non-english language/keyboard settings. Additionally, certain browsers running on Macintosh platforms are not capable of running our software due to problems outside of our control. As WebTV does not support Java™, WebTV users will not be able to access our chat rooms.

Users behind firewalls you, or your network administrator will need to modify the firewall settings to allow bi-directional TCP access to port 8004 at client.sigmachat.com (66.129.95.26).

AOL Members: Some users have reported that the built-in AOL browser has difficulty connecting to our service, or does not load colors/emoticons properly. To resolve this, minimize your AOL connection, and use the Internet Explorer browser that came with your computer to access our chat rooms.

If you continue to experience difficulties, and have followed all of the advice given above, feel free to contact us at Chat Support. Our staff will be more than happy to help you resolve any difficulties you may experience.