Messaging

General

Exchanging text messages in real time is the major feature of any live chat system. Messaging in our Operator Console is very simple and similar to messaging in any instant messenger.

To send a message to the visitor, please type the message in the text input area and click Send (2) button or press Enter.

You can add line breaks to your message by pressing Ctrl+Enter.

Messaging possibilities in Operator Console

1.Text input area - you can type your messages to the visitor in this area. HTML formatting is not supported in messages, but URLs and emails will become clickable after sending the message.

2.Send button (replaced with Invite when sending a proactive chat invitation) - you need to press this button to send a message to the visitor. You can also do this by pressing Enter on your keyboard.

3.Text input area context menu - this menu is opened by right click on the text input area. It contains basic editing functions (Cut, Copy and Paste, Select All), a call to spell checker options and a call to switch between Left-to-Right and Right-to-Left modes.

4.Additional features toolbar - this toolbar contains basic editing buttons (Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo, Redo) and a set of buttons to activate special features: canned responses, emoticons, file transfer.

There is a possibility to resize chat history, text input and tabs areas in the console. There are two movable areas to perform resizing:

1.Between chat history and text input areas

2.Between text input and tabs areas

Movable areas in the console

To resize the needed area, please do the following:

1.Put the mouse cursor over the movable area, a double-arrow mouse pointer will appear

2.Press the left mouse button

3.Move the mouse up or down to resize the area

4.Release the left mouse button

Basic editing

You can perform basic text editing actions when typing messages in the console.

Please use appropriate icons in the additional features toolbar or items in the context menu to cut, copy and paste text, undo and redo changes, select all text.

You can also use standard Windows shortcuts:

•Ctrl+C - copy

•Ctrl+X - cut

•Ctrl+V - paste

•Ctrl+A - select all

•Ctrl+Z - undo

•Ctrl+Y - redo

File transferring

To transfer a file to the visitor, please do the following:

1.Click (Send file) button in the additional features toolbar above the text input area and click Browse… in the opened window and choose the file

2.You will see the File Transfer Manager showing your file sending progress

3.After the file sending process has been completed, the file will be shown to your visitor as a clickable link, which can be opened in a default browser.

Transferring file to the visitor

To receive a file sent by the visitor, please click the link to the file in the chat area.

Receiving a file sent by the visitor

You can transfer files of any format through the chat. The maximum allowed file size is 100MB. If your feel exceeds this limit, you will see the following error in the File Transfer Manager:

File too long error

Note! Transferred files are stored by the system until the chat is closed. As soon as the chat is closed, the file is removed from our servers and the link to the file becomes invalid.

Note! Our system doesn't check files transferred through the chat. Thus we advise you not to accept files from your visitors if the file transfer wasn't agreed previously and to check transferred files with antivirus before opening. Some files can contain spyware or viruses and can harm your computer.

File Transfer Manager

File Transfer Manager allows you to check the progress of file sending, check the queue and terminate sending or repeat sending of a terminated process. To start File Transfer Manager  you need to click its icon in the operator console toolbar.

File Transfer Manager

1.You can terminate sending process of any selected file

2.If you would like to repeat sending of a terminated file, click 'Repeat' link

3.'Terminate All Transfers' command will terminate the process of all files sending

4.With help of these icons you can either repeat terminated file sending or remove from the file sending queue

Canned responses

To insert a canned response to the message, please do the following:

1.Click (Open canned responses) button in the additional features toolbar above the text input area

2.Choose a response by clicking on it (It can take a few moments to load the response from the server. Send and Insert buttons are disabled during this time)

3.Click Insert (1) button to insert the response to the message

or

Click Send (2) button to send the response immediately as a separate message

Using canned responses

Our system allows creating canned responses from the account Control Panel only. You can do this in the account Control Panel, Canned Responses page. If you don't have an access to the account Control Panel, please contact your account administrator to add, edit or delete canned responses.

Emoticons

To insert an emoticon to the message, please do the following:

1.Click (Select smiley) button in the additional features toolbar above the text input area

2.Choose an emoticon and click on it

Using emoticons

You can also type a certain character string that will be automatically converted to emoticon directly in the text input area. You can find character strings for each emoticon at the bottom of the emoticons list.

Emoticons can be disabled by using special key /nosmile. It should be placed before the message. E.g. /nosmile test :)

In case you would like to disable and to show emoticons within one message, you can use /smile key for enabling them

/nosmile and /smile keys are system keys and do not appear after sending a message. Smileys are enabled by default, thus /smile key should be used only in combination with /nosmile if you decided to disable smileys in a part of your message.

/nosmile and /smile can be used in canned responses and /nosmile is recommended to be placed before HTML if it is sent in chat to prevent from converting symbols to emoticons.

Number of concurrent chats

You can have as many chats concurrently as you can handle, we don't limit this. But if you are overloaded by chats, you can switch the console to Away mode in order not to receive new chat calls but be able to continue all current chats.