- Tell your friends or people on group chats about your site. If
you get some people on your site it will get listed on our popular list http://xatech.com/popular and more and more will visit.
- Make sure your mods are friendly and helpful.
- Get a good background (not inappropriate or you will be de-listed).
- Make your group about a special topic that you know something about.
- Try to get another group to put your group on their group tab (but do not annoy them).
- Make friends on other groups.
- Put your chat on a popular page and all your MySpace etc. pages.
- Choose good tags for your group so you can be found on search engines.
- Add a radio to your chat.
- If you promote your group, it will appear on the Xat homepage
and will attract a bunch of visitors. You can promote your group by
going to http://xat.com/web_gear/chat/promotion.php. Promotion costs 200 xats per hour of promotion. The minimum promotion time is .5 hours.
- For more information see Promotion
How do I delete a message? If someone has left you a message that you want to delete click on
the red x next to the message. Only owners and moderators see the
red x messages. If you want to delete a message you have sent you may
have to sign out and sign back in before the red x is available. Be
advised that abusing this feature is not advised.
Owner / Moderator Interact Dialog Owners and moderators have some additional options on their interact dialogs.
Kick Owner and moderators can kick members and guests (Or moderators and owners if they have higher status and superkick power, see
powers for more information on powers) out their chat box by selecting them
and clicking the kick button and entering a reason for the kick. Then an
information message is sent out to everyone that says who did the
kicking and the reason. The person is signed out and will be unable to
chat for 15 seconds. The user can sign in again and carry on chatting
but it does serve as a warning for inappropriate behaviour in the room.
It is not nice to be kicked, particularly again and again, so you
should only kick people when it’s deserved and not just for fun. You
should always give the reason for the kick so everyone knows what is
unacceptable behaviour.
Ban Owners and moderators can ban people from using their chat box by
selecting them and clicking the ban button. You enter duration in hours
(Decimals are acceptable, so .5=30 minutes ban and .05= 3 minutes) and
the reason for the ban. Then an information message is sent out to
everyone that says who did the ban and the reason for the ban. The
person banned will change to brown in colour and their name will change
to "Banned". They will still be able to view the messages being sent but
will be unable to send messages or otherwise disrupt the chat. Banned
users can still Private Chat people who have added them as a friend.
A moderator can ban for up to 6 hours (Or 8 hours if they have the Mod8
Power)
and an owner can ban for any length of time or forever (by entering 0).
You can un-ban someone by selecting them and clicking un-ban.
Moderators can unban any banned person unless that person is banned
forever, or the person that is banned is a moderator or owner.
It is not nice to be banned, particularly without a warning or
for no reason, so you should only ban people when it’s deserved and not
just for fun.
Make Member Owners and moderators can make guests to the chat members by selecting them and clicking the "Make Member" button.
You can make anyone you like members but we advise making regular
chatters and friends members, which keeps it special. Its not nice if
you are un-membered, particularly over and over again so if moderators
disagree on whether someone should be a member they should talk with the
owner first. The difference between being a guest and being a member
besides the blue icon, or being higher on the user list is guests can
not post visible links. Members can. That means when a guest posts a
link it will only appear visible to the guest who posted the link, thus
the link they post will not disrupt the chat.
Another reason why you should consider making only friends or
users who come to your chat frequently, members, and leave new users
guests, is some users like to come to other chat rooms/groups and
advertise their chat room.
This can be annoying to others, as well as drive chatters to the advertised chat.
Make Moderator Owners can make members and guests moderators by clicking on their
name and clicking "Make Moderator". Moderators have the power to kick,
ban (up to 6 hours or
8 Hours),
and un-ban (moderators can not un-ban users that were banned forever by
an owner) members and guests. They can also make guests members, and
make members guests.
You should be very careful whom you make a moderator and it
should only be people that you trust. It is not uncommon for moderators
to misbehave and this can ruin a chat box while the owner is away. You
could come back and find nobody wants to go on your chat box anymore.
Make Owner Main owners can make guests, members, and moderators owners by
clicking on their name and clicking "Make Owner". Owners have the power
to kick, ban (For as long as they want, even forever), un-ban (Even
forever banned users) guests, members, and moderators. Owners can make
guests, and members moderators, and make moderators members or guests
(They can of course make guests members, and members guests like
moderators can).
You should be even more careful whom you make an owner, and it
should only be people you trust. Owners have even more power to ruin a
chat than moderators such as making bad moderators, demoting good
moderators, and forever banning everyone who isn't an owner.
/ Messages xat support special / messages that allow you to do advanced things that are not in the graphical user interface.
/p Protect your group from invaders If your chat is being raided you (owners) can enter protect mode by
typing /p in the main chat. For 1 hour guests (green) will not be able
to talk (gagged) for 3 minutes. You can exit protect mode at any time by
typing /p again. Note kicking users now gags them for 15 seconds.
/s Scroller Update If you are an Owner or Main Owner you can send a scroll message to the bottom of the chat.
For example type:
/sWelcome to my chat. Please behave well or you will be banned.
(N.B. This has changed from previous release and is now /s from $s)
You can change the color by adding a color code, for example add #FF0000 to the end of the message for Red.
/sWelcome to my chat. Please behave well or you will be banned.#FF0000 will produce a red scrolling message.
You can also set the scroller remotely using an API:
SetScroller /i Information If you are an owner you can find out who changed the scroller or who
entered protect mode type /i in the main chat. The chat will reply with
something like: /s 1345634 /p 2365342 which shows you the ids of the
last users to use the /s and /p commands.
/o Smiley Effects You can make the chat box automatticly add smiley effects to all the
smileys you send. To do this, type /o followed by the code of the effect
without the # sign.
For example, if you want all your smileys to be mirrored and you have the
Powers,
type /om in the chat box and send it like a message. You can also
combine effects, for example, /omis will make all the smileys mirrored,
inverted and made square, as long as you have all the powers. You can
also combine color effects, for example, /oFFFFFF will make all your
smileys white.
/f Add Friend By ID To add any xat user to your friends list when you only have their xat
ID, type /f followed by their ID, then one space and the name you want
to appear on your friends list.
For example, "/f999999999 Abcd" will add the user with the ID 999999999 to your friends list with the name "Abcd".
/t Ignore User Type /t in PC to ignore a user. If you have the ttth power you can also send a full-screen message along with ignoring.
/h Hush Chat NOTE: Must have hush power Type /hg10Hush!! to hush the chat. Change G to G for guest, M for
member, D for moderator, or O for owner (hushing for example Mod will
also hush lower ranks). Change 10 to any amount of seconds. Change
Hush!! to any message (that will appear in the reason box). Note you can
not hush owners if you're a normal owner, and main owners can never be
hushed.
Edit Your Chat Dialog Click [Edit Your Chat] button on the bottom right of your chat box.
Only the main owner can do this, for everyone else this button will say
[Get a Chat Box] so they can get their own chat box if they wish.
Change the background picture? To change the background picture click on the [Change Background]
button. You can choose a stock image from the selection shown or get a
custom one using a number of different techniques. Chat boxes that have
custom image look so much better and are usually much more popular. In
the Background edit box you can:
- Enter a link e.g. an image you have uploaded to Photobucket,
press the Get Images button to use the image specified as a background.
- Enter a website and press the Get Images button, this would get
all the images from the page for you to choose one to use as a
background.
- Enter a search term for what you want as your background e.g.
shark, city, emo and press the Get Images button. The Chat box will show
a number of related images for you to choose from.
Add a chat group tabClick [Edit Your Chat] and choose a group. If you know the name of a
particular chat group you want to put on there type it in to the edit
box to the right of "Enter Group name here" and press the "Get" button.
To remove a group from the tab uncheck it.
Edit Your Chat on xat Extra features are available for the chat box by pressing the Extra Features button on the Edit Your Chat dialog.
Change the size of the chat box? To change the size of your chat box either choose Small/Medium/Large
or enter the required dimensions in pixels in the Width/Height boxes.
Then press the Update and Get Code button. You will then need to copy an
paste the embed code again to get your resized chat box on your page.
If you make the chat box too small or unusually shaped some elements
might not be visible.
How do I convert my chat box into a group? Press "edit your chat" then "extra features"
Then press the blue and white button that says "make this chat a group"
How do I make my chat box private (for members only)? If you want more privacy you can set your chat box to be for members
only. This is ideal if you want a chat box just for family of friends.
Only members are allowed to post messages and only members can view the
messages.
Note that when visitors arrive at your chat box they won't be
able to post but they can private chat owners and moderators and ask to
join.
To set your chat box for members only:
Click on:
Then click:
Then scroll down until you see (in "other options"):
And make sure the box is checked.
Then press the "Update these options" button.
Button colors? Here are some color codes:
- Black = #000001
- Green = #008000
- Silver = #C0C0C0
- Lime = #00FF00
- Gray = #808080
- Olive = #808000
- White = #FFFFFF
- Yellow = #FFFF00
- Maroon = #800000
- Navy = #000080
- Red = #FF0000
- Blue = #0000FF
- Purple = #800080
- Teal = #008080
- Fuchsia= #FF00FF
- Aqua = #00FFFF
You can also go
Here to make your own customized color or
Here to see a list of color codes, you can simply pick the one you want an add the hex code to change the chat buttons.
After you copy the code of the new color you want your buttons to
be, click *edit your chat* located at the bottom right of your chat
box. After you click the edit your chat button you will be brought to a
new page, scroll down then enter the code you copied in the little text
box, if you have not already added a code the text box will say -cant,
backspace -cant an enter the hex code an press *update options*
Add a radioThe xat built in jukebox feature allows you to play a shoutcast
station or a ip based radio station inside your chat, it is fairly easy
to setup. We have a guide below to guide you how to setup the jukebox
inside the xat chat.
Setup a radio on your xatchat General When should I kick and ban people? It depends on the severity of the offense. You should try to be fair
and for a minor or first offense you should warn them or kick them
first. Generally the first ban should be for 1 hour so the person has a
chance to get back on later and change their behavior. If you ban
someone and they remain online, you could decide to un-ban then and give
them a second chance. Most people follow the rules after a brief spell
of being banned. If someone is being annoying we suggest you ask the
other chatters if they want the person banned, like a vote.
You should always give good reasons so everyone else knows why
you did it. Otherwise they may think that you are being unfair and
decide to chat somewhere else. If your rules are hard to find for users
or to complex, making the rules aware to users may prevent having to ban
or kick them.
Often times chat rooms with no rules displayed will give users the
instinct that you have no rules for the chat, that will only lead to
misuse of your chat by others. In short, letting users know were the
rules are located, or what the rules may be, will prevent having to ban
or kick frequently.
How many moderators should I make? You should make enough moderators to look after your chat box when
you are away. You need to be careful whom you make a moderator as it
only takes one bad one to ruin a chat box.
I’m not an owner anymore, how do I get my owner status back? Click on the create link that you bookmarked when you made your chat box. This will restore your ownership status.
You can also regain ownership by clicking the edit button above
the group and entering your password, then clicking *Chat Box Settings*.
Then click *Update and get code* to regain ownership. You can also
click on
this link and replace the *'s with the name of your group.
NOTE This feature only works for Groups I’ve received feedback If someone presses the Send the Owner a message button we will relay
this to you by e-mail. If the message is about moderators abusing their
powers when you are not around you should investigate but some people
will complain even if they have been banned fairly.
I made a main owner that I shouldn’t have or someone has hijacked my chat box? If you have owners on your chat box that you didn’t make or no longer
want then you can reset the chat by going to "Edit" above the chat,
then filling in your password and clicking "Submit", then clicking
"Reset Chat" at the bottom. Everyone on the chat will be made a guest
excluding the person who reset the chat.
How do I make more main owners? We would strongly advise against making multiple main owners. Only
the original main owner, who created the chat box/group, should make a
person a main owner.
To make a second main owner/admin give them the URL for editing
the chat box. You can get this by going "Edit your chat", "Extra
Features"
The URL will look something like:
http://www.xat.com/web_gear/chat.php?id=123456&pw=12345678Give the link to the person you want to make a main owner (you
cannot send it through xat to prevent you from accidentally pasting it).
You will be still the main owner of your chat if you add another main
owner.
WARNING: ONLY GIVE THE LINK TO A PERSON YOU CAN TRUST! OTHER MAIN
OWNERS CAN EDIT YOUR CHAT AND CAN NOT BE DEMOTED OR BANNED! It is
highly recommended you only do this on
Groups so you can get control back if they go bad. If you make a main owner on
a non-group box, they have the ability to convert it to a group and
make you a guest and even ban you.
Can I put the same chat box on several different pages? Yes, you can paste the embed code on as many pages as you like. If
you have multiple social networking sites you can use this as a way of
connecting them together so your friends for each site can interact with
each other.
Can I put several chat boxes on the same pages? Yes, you can but generally we would advise against it. The exception
is if you have a personal and a group chat box and want them separate.
$tealth Mode Owners can appear on the user list as a guest (green) by putting a $
as the first character of their name. So if you were normally called
WuggyBunch, you would change your name to $WuggyBunch. Only you will be
able to see the $. You can use this if you just want to talk with your
friends and don't want to be bombarded with private chats by new
visitors.
Moderators and other owners may still be able to figure out
you're an owner by clicking on your name and seeing that the "Ban"
"Kick" and "Make Member/Guest" buttons are grayed out.
Anyone will be able figure out you're an owner if you use your owner powers (Make members, ban, etc.)
Scrolling messages To make your message scroll in the text box instead of appear on the
chat box window were all normal posts go, put /s before your message,
then when you press the button that enters your text it will scroll
instead of reveal on the chat page were all other messages go.
/s*message*
You can also change the color for the scrolling messages. To customize
your text color get the code for the color you want
Here or
Here for a list of hex codes. Simply add the color code you want after your message example:
/smessage#9400D3
Chat Group Owners How do I start a chat group? Go here
http://www.xatech.com/web_gear/chat/creategroup.php and complete the online form. Be sure to use a correct and valid email address. See
Groups for more information on this subject.
How do I put stuff on my page? Go to your group on xat, click the edit link (top right), enter your
password and you will be able to edit the settings and add stuff to the
page. If you put interesting content, this can make your chat group more
popular as people will visit it to see it.
What can I do if I don’t want to run my chat group anymore? You can't delete a chat group. But if you want to close it, edit your group, RESET the chat box and set it to members only.
I'm not owner of my group anymore? Go to your group on xat, eg xat.com/Myxatchat. Next press the "Edit"
button at bottom right, type in your password and press the "Submit"
button. Then press the " Chat Box Settings" button. This will restore
you as owner.
How to set a group background The editgroups page now includes a box for a background URL. In here
you can put the URL of an image eg
http://www.mydom.com/MyPic.jpg. Note
the image must start with
http:// in lowercase. You can also enter
background CSS in this box, so for example if you want an fixed,
centered, non repeating image use:
background-image:url(http://www.mydom.com/MyPic.jpg); background-position:Center Center; background-attachment:fixed;
(Note this must be one line with no line breaks)
How to stop my group being listed On the chat box click "Edit your chat", then "Extra features". Scroll
down to "other options" and check: "Don't include this chat box in any
lists or charts"
How to reset your chat group If you lost control of your group or made a main owner etc do this:
1) Go to your group (eg xat.com/MyGroup)
2) Click the "edit" link at the top right
3) Enter your password an press "Submit"
4) Scroll to the bottom of the group edit page and press "Reset chat
box" button. (WARNING This will clear all moderators, members and bans!)
5) It might also be a good idea to change the group password and your email password
