This is an automatically updating little window that shows when something happens in the chat. I recommend that you figure out how to use it.
How to start it:
It looks something like this:
* 13:25 David - 13:26 meeeooow - 13:26 VK * 13:26 David * 13:31 David - 13:32 brojek - 13:42 VK - 13:45 meeeooow - 13:48 osfameron * 13:50 VK |
It consists of ten "entries" (rows of information). Each entry consists of three columns of information. To the left is a column with hyphens and asterisks. In the middle is a column with time stamps. To the right is a column with names.
If you look at the time stamps you'll see that they are in chronological order from top to bottom. New entries will appear at the bottom. When a new entry appears the other entries "move up" one step and the oldest entry is removed (so there are always the ten last entries visible). In the example above you can see how the last ten entries are from within half an hour of each other. (The time zone is the one that Sweden is in.)
The column on the right shows who made the entry. Each entry also has the text colour that person uses in the chat. You can see in the example that the last ten entries were made by David, meow, VK (that's me), brojek and osfameron.
The hyphens and asterisks show what kind of entry it is. There are two kinds, "Send" and "Refresh" (this corresponds with the "Send/Refresh" button in the chat). The asterisk ('*') is for "Send" (and means that there is something new to read in the chat) and the hyphen ('-') is for "Refresh" (which means the person who refreshed has now seen that entry you made a couple of minutes ago). The entries are made automatically when somebody pushes the Send/Refresh button in the chat.
Now to interpret the entries:
* 13:25 David At 13:25 David sent something to the chat - 13:26 meeeooow at 13:26 meow refreshed (and read what David wrote) - 13:26 VK then I read what David wrote * 13:26 David then David wrote something more * 13:31 David then David wrote something more again - 13:32 brojek then brojek refreshed and read several new posts - 13:42 VK then I read what David wrote - 13:45 meeeooow then meow read what David wrote - 13:48 osfameron then osfameron read what David wrote * 13:50 VK finaly I wrote something |
Here is a situation where osfameron and Phydeaux are discussing something. This pattern is fairly common in discussions between two people, first you refresh, then you post, then the other person refreshes and posts.
*14:01 osfameron -14:04 Phydeaux *14:05 Phydeaux -14:12 osfameron *14:12 osfameron -14:14 Phydeaux *14:15 Phydeaux -14:21 osfameron *14:22 osfameron *14:24 osfameron |
If the toy goes grey it means that it has "died" and stopped updating. This is something that happens sometimes. It's because of some browser problem, but doesn't seem to be connected to any specific browser. If this happens, just restart the toy (right-clicking and reloading works too). When the Toy is working it updates about five times per minute.
*14:01 osfameron -14:04 Phydeaux *14:05 Phydeaux -14:12 osfameron *14:12 osfameron -14:14 Phydeaux *14:15 Phydeaux -14:21 osfameron *14:22 osfameron *14:24 osfameron |