SnowBabySP's Place
Chat Preferences Help
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About Internet Chat Generally
You have accessed an internet chat. Internet chat differs slightly from client software chat such as America Online chat or other Internet Service Provider client software that may be familiar to you. In a client software chat package many decisions that are driven by your hardware components can be predetermined and set for you in the client software. Thus, if your computer supports the client software, the provider knows that your machine will handle certain chat options and predetermines them.
Internet chat is different because here we are trying to provide chat capabilities to anyone that choses to access the chat scripts we provide. Chat scripts must be designed to work over as a broad a spectrum of hardware types as may be possible. Since visitor computers have a wide arrange of capabilities and shortcomings, its not wise to predetermine certain chat script preferences since they may not work or be convenient for a particular visitor's computer. Thus, in internet chat, you often have to experiment with chat preferences options that you find best for your machine :)
The SBSP Chat Preference Options
Our Chat Preferences table defaults to certain values. These are preference options I have predetermined for you without benefit of knowing you or your machine. They may or may not suit you needs, and you may have to alter them to obtain a better chat experience here.
You must choose a Screen Name While In Chat. Please DO NOT use your real name. Also, please limit your choice of name to no more than 12 characters. While longer screen names will still work the formatting of the chat conversation becomes distorted and hard to follow when folks use longer screen names.
You can choose How Many Old Messages To Display in the chat room you select if you want to display some older messages along with the new ones whenever you refresh the chat message list. The default value is 10 messages which means that no more than ten messages will appear in the chat room during that visit. You may change the default to more or less (up to 50) to find the preference that suits you and your machine best.
If your browser supports Automatic Refresh Rates (most now do) then new messages will appear automatically in the chat room. The default value is 15 seconds. You can enter any number of seconds you want to pass before the chat message list is automatically refreshed, and you may have to experiment in successive visits to find what best suits you and your machine. If you cahnge the default value to zero then new messages will not appear automatically, and you will need to use the Chat Room Control "New Messages" to retrieve any new messages that have appeared in the chat room. You must change the default value to zero if your browser doesn't support refresh rates (highly unlikely).
If your browser supports Frames (most now do) you may wish to leave the frames option ON (the default value). Frames are OFF when you uncheck the check box which means that your chat controls will appear in the same screen as the chat room messages. The messages will be below the controls and will scroll downward. If you chose frames ON, messages will be displayed in one frame at the top of your window, and your chat controls will appear in a different frame below but within the same window. Frames provides more of a chat room "feel", but your preference is a matter of personal choice assuming your browser even supports them. I like the frames look the best :) Also, if you do not select the frames ON option then you must change your Automatic Refresh Rate to zero.
Finally, you have two choices of Chat Rooms. The Frosty Frolic Forum is the default room, and it is intended to be our general meeting place. Your other choice is the Icy Igloo Auditorium where we plan to have prescheduled and more formal topical chat presentations from time to time. You may use either chat room at your pleasure, however, on those occasions when there may be a topic presentation in progress in the Icy Igloo Auditorium which does not interest you, we ask that you use the Frosty Frolic Forum for general informal or off topic conversation with others.
As always ... enjoy the place :)
END OF CHAT PREFERENCE HELP