Tripod Chat Commands

/box: This command changes the text box from a wide field to a single line. When your text box is a single line, you can simply type the "return" key to send your message. When your text box is a wide field, you need to click the "send" button below the box.
/bottom: This moves your text box to the bottom of your screen. Your browser will not automatically refresh in this position, and you will need to hit "refresh" to update the screen with the current messages. Use /top to return the text box to the top of the screen.
/bozo member name or /ignore member name: This command allows you to ignore another user. For example, if member name "Fred" is annoying you, type /bozo fred -- you will no longer see messages from "Fred" on your screen.
/unbozo member name: This cancels a previous /bozo. If you had a change of heart and want to hear from Fred again, type /unbozo fred.
/exit: This allows you to exit a room. You may also click the "exit" button. Please use the /exit command or the button to leave the room; if you quit your browser or just jump to another URL, your browser won't tell Chat that you're gone; you will remain "in the room" from the point of view of the other chatters until you eventually time out.

Q: What other commands are there?

/who member name: This prints the member profile of the person you named. For example, if you want to know more about member "Fred," type /who fred. You may also just click on Fred's name; that does the same thing.
/archive or /review: This does the same thing as the "review" button: it prints all public conversation from twelve minutes ago until now, so you can catch up on what's been said.
/reset: This resets your chat environment to the default for your particular browser. Everything is returned to the condition it was in when you entered the chat room, except that the list of people you are ignoring with /bozo is not deleted.
/push time-in-seconds: Chat works by taking a very long time to deliver a web page; it sends a chatter's message as the next part of the web page. Your "push" time is the number of seconds Chat will take to send a page; for that time, you should see messages appear as soon as somebody sends them. Netscape handles this technique quite well; Internet Explorer and Lynx (and most other browsers) don't. If you are having trouble, try setting "/push 0" to disable server push; you will have to hit the "refresh" button whenever you want to see new messages, however. For non-Netscape browsers, push is disabled by default. If you have sent the text box to the bottom of the screen with /bottom, push will be disabled as well: otherwise, you'd only see the text box after the push time has expired!
/messages number: Whenever you say something or refresh the screen, Chat will display a maximum number of old messages. This command changes that maximum number. The default is usually pretty good for most browsers and window sizes.
/lookback time-in-seconds: Whenever you say something or refresh the screen, Chat will only display messages that have appeared recently. This command changes how recent a message has to be before Chat will display it. The default is usually pretty good for most browsers and window sizes.
/overlap number: Whenever you say something or refresh the screen, Chat will only display a number of messages older than the last message you sent. Use this command to change that number. The default is usually pretty good for most browsers and window sizes.
/textsize number: Changes the font size. 1 is teeny-tiny; 3 is normal; 7 is huge.
/space short, medium, or long: Changes the amount of space between messages. /space short is the default; there's only a line break between messages. /space medium adds a little space. /space long puts a horizontal line between messages.

Q: What commands do I need to know to administer my own Personal Chat room?

If you are the owner of a Personal Chat room, you have several other options availible to you. These commands are not available to you if you are not the room's owner.

/gag member name

This command allows you to "gag" a user and prevent their messages from appearing on the screen. To gag member "Fred" simply type /gag fred. /gag commands are stored in memory with the /save command, and are restored with the /load command.

/boot member name

This command allows you to "boot" a user and prevent them from re-entering your chat room. To boot member "Fred," simply type /boot fred. Please remember that if you boot Fred, he will not be able to re-enter your room until you /pardon him. /boot commands are stored in memory with the /save command, and are restored with the /load command.

/pardon member name

This command allows you to forgive a member after you /gag or /boot them. If you want to pardon member "Fred," simply type /pardon fred and that user will be able to chat in your room again.

/title A New Title

This command allows you to change the title of your room. For example, /title Fred's Photo Shop would change the name of your room to "Fred's Photo Shop."

/topic A New Topic

This command allows you to set the topic of conversation. /topic Anything is fair game! would appear as "Topic: Anything is fair game!" on the Chat menu.

/flush

This erases all back messages. If somebody said something unfortunate, or whatever, you can erase it.

/list

This command will remove your room from the public list of available rooms. Note that people can still enter the room from a search link or by typing in the room URL manually, so it's not a perfect way of keeping your room private. The /boot command can be used to remove unwanted visitors, however. To put your room back on the public list of rooms, just type /list again.

/save

This will save many things about your room configuration, so you can /load them again later. This overwrites any configuration you may have saved previously. Things that are saved are:

Current room colors
Whether or not the room is listed
Current list of gagged and booted member names

/load

This will return your room's colors, listedness, and gag/boot lists to the state most recently saved with the /save command. Please note that this will not erase your current lists of gagged and booted member names; it will merely add any names in the saved configuration to those lists.

Q: What commands do I need to know to change the appearance of my own Personal Chat room?

Certain commands allow you to change the color and appearance of your chatroom. To change the color of your room, you must be the owner of the room, and you must know the RGB numbers for the colors you want. RGB numbers are made up of three colors: red, green, and blue. Each color is a two-digit hexidecimal number -- this means that the digits are: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, and F. "FF" will give you the brightest color, "00" will give you the darkest. For example, bright green's RGB number is "00FF00" (no red + much green + no blue), bright yellow is "FFFF00" (much red + much green + no blue), and bright purple is "FF00FF" (much red + no green + much blue).

/bgcolor color: This allows you to change the background color. For example, /bgcolor 006600 will give you a dark green background.
/background URL: This allows you to enter an image as your background. You must know that image's URL. For example, to enter a .jpg as your room's background, you would type /background http://members.tripod.com/~membername/filename.jpg
/text color: This allows you to change the text color. For bright white letters, try /text FFFFFF.
/link color: This allows you to change active link colors, such as the names of the people chatting in your room. For bright yellow links, try /link FFFF99.
/vlink color: This allows you to change the color of a visited link. For dark yellow links, try /vlink 999933.
/alink color: This allows you to change the color of an active link. For links that glow blue-green when you click on them, try /alink 00CCCC.
/privatecolor color: This allows you to change the color of private messages. For dark red private messages, try /privatecolor 660000.

Note: Tripod accepts no responsibility for any brain damage or other injury resulting from the implementation of the example colors in this section. :)

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