Logging on

  1. Click the link on the chat room page, under 'News & community'.
  2. Click the link to 'Join our chat room' and a separate 'chat room' window will open up. (You will still have your www.lizearle.com window open, allowing you to use the chat room as well as continue to browse our website).
  3. You will see two rooms - 'Our chat room' and 'Special events'. The former is the room that you will use most frequently - the latter is for special events when we will have guest speakers online.
    (We will alert you to these special events on the chat room page of the website and via email at a future date).
  4. The 'Users' box on the right shows you how many users are in the chat room - there is currently a maximum of 20 per session.
  5. When the 'Log in' dialogue box pops up, please simply choose your log in name, e.g. Sue. (If the name is already in use, then you will be asked to select another name). Then simply click the 'log in' button and press RETURN.
  6. You will now automatically be taken to 'our chat room'.

In the chat room

  1. As soon as you have entered the chat room, please take a moment to frequent yourself with the screen lay-out.
  2. You will see yourself (e.g. Sue) in the 'All Users' box on the right. You will appear as a little blue icon / figure. You will also be able to see other users who are currently in the chat room here - they will appear by name.
  3. On the left, you will see the conversations and interactions between all our friends in the chat room. You will find that there are several different conversations taking place at the same time - it can be a little confusing at first! Feel free to join in at any stage and chat amongst yourselves, of course, too - you are all like-minded friends!
  4. To chat - type your message into the blank horizontal bar across the bottom of the page. Once you have typed your thoughts / message, simply click on the SEND button on the right of the box to send your message.
  5. Your message will appear in the chat room conversations on the left. You can start chatting to one or more than one person at a time.
  6. If you want to pick up a conversation 'thread' with a particular person, you can talk to them on a one-to-one basis 'Private chat' or simply direct a remark particularly to them (Whisper). For the latter, simply click on their name on the right hand side 'All Users' box, then write your message and hit SEND. Your message will only appear in the chat room box on your screen and also on the screen of your recipient. For a 'Private chat' in a separate room, simply click on the 'Private chat' button and another box will open up.

Personal settings

  1. You can select your own personal settings / preferences.
  2. You can, for instance, opt for audio accompaniment.
  3. You can 'lock' a whisper so that you keep talking just to that one particular person for as long as you want. Use the icon with the red strike through it - you toggle on it to set it on and then toggle on it again, to take off the 'whisper'. A toggle button should be clicked once for on and once again for 'off'.
  4. You can choose your preferred colour typeface and also choose your own icon / character - click on 'Text Properties'.
  5. Selecting 'clear' will literally clear your screen of the latest conversations. This will not log you out - there is a separate LOG OUT button on the top left hand side. This button should be used at the end of your session but you will automatically be logged out if you have not joined in the conversation for 10 minutes. If you log out by mistake, you simply need to click on CONNECT to bring you back into the chat room.
  6. The 'Ignore' icon allows you to ignore someone - this literally means that any messages from that person to you will not appear on your screen. You will see that a red strike appears next to their name - this alerts you to the fact that you are ignoring them. Again, this is a toggle button so click on it again to release the IGNORE option.