The Bonanza Brand FAQ was compiled by various members. If you have any questions about this or think of something that should be added just email Sneddy

Technical Issues and Support - Chat Room

Chat Room - Tips And Tricks (written by Ellen)
Here are some basic tips for the chat room:
Getting In
To get into the chat room(s):
1. Go to the Forum "home" page, and click on the "Bonanza Brand Chat" link in the dark brown bar at the top of the page.
2. You will see a login screen. Enter your user name and password.
3. The default room is the general "Brand chat" room, which is where we have our scheduled chats. There are also other chats:

• Administration - this requires a 2nd password
• R rated chats - this also requires a 2nd password. The password is in a pinned thread in the "Silver Dollar Saloon R" forum.
• Euro Chat - a second room for general chats, usually reserved for non-English members
• Tech Talk - a room for technical discussions

All the rooms (except the Admin room) are open for all members 24/7. If you want to schedule your own chat about any topic, just post about it in the appropriate forum.

Basic chat features:
Entering the conversation: Once you are in the chat room, you will see a large window for chatting, a row of buttons, a box below the buttons, and a window to the right. To join the chat, just start typing in the box below the buttons. Click on the "Send" button, or just press your Enter key, to add your message to the conversation.

Change your font color: If there are several people in chat, you may want to pick a font color. Press the color palette (the first button) to pick a color. Press OK when you found one you like.

Adding a smilie: Press the blue flower button to see a selection of smilies. A separate little window will pop up.

There are 3 ways I have found to add a smilie to your post:

• Click on the smilie in the window
• If you hover your cursor over the smilie, you will see the text equivalent. You can type that in directly. (For example, type :| to get the skeptical smilie. Type lol to get the smilie face. You must have a space before and after for the smilie to show up.)
• If someone else has typed the smilie you want, you can click on it in the conversation window

Adding a sound: Press the musical note and a little window will pop up with a couple sounds. To use them, you can click on them, or you can type them directly. Like the smilies, you need a space before and after for this to work.

Undocking (floating) the window: If you want to enlarge the conversation window, you can make it float. Press the button that looks like 2 white boxes (right next to the circle with the question mark). This brings up the chat in a larger window. There will be another brown window behind it. DO NOT CLOSE THE BROWN WINDOW! You can minimize it, but if you close it you will be kicked out of the chat. Now you can enlarge the chat window to the size you want.

Logging out of chat: You can either just close the windows, or you can press the last button on the right.

Click or hover on the other buttons to see what they do. They're pretty self-explanatory.

Stuff that's not so obvious:
"Be right back" - over on the right, you can see a list of who is in the chat room. The symbols next to each name are color coded; red means the person is a Brandster. (No, the others are not blue dresses!) If you want to indicate you are temporarily away from the chat, you can click the drop-down menu at the top of the list - the field that says "Online". If you select "Away", an hourglass will appear next to your name. This does not prevent you from posting, it is just a quick way to tell others you've gone to answer the phone or whatever. Select "Online" when you get back.

Jumping to another room: Just click on the room you want to enter. For the Admin and R-Rated rooms, you will have to enter a separate password to get in.

Starting a private conversation: If you want to give someone your email address, or you want to say something that the others cannot see, you can start a private conversation. Right-click on the other person's name, and select "Instant Message". Another little window will pop up. Just start typing and the person will see your message.

Adding "asides": This is fun... Rather than type "I just fell off my chair laughing", you can have the screen display "Ellen just fell off her chair laughing". To do this, type /me just fell off her chair laughing.

Ignore another user: If someone is getting on your nerves, you can mask their conversation. Right-click on the other person's name, and select "Ignore". They will not know they are being ignored. (But they might be able to figure it out!)

If you want to play around, just go into the chat room and start talking to yourself! And press the help button (the circle with the ?) to get better help information and a full list of features.