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Text Chat

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Text chat is always accessible across all of Groove modules. It can be displayed or it can be hidden at will by anyone among the participants.

An "Options" button allows the formatting of the text within the chat window but is not very user friendly, as it requires many repetitive mouse-journeys to it to format properly any text. Formatting text in the chat window is very awkward. The usability of the approach utilized is very bad and it taints an otherwise impeccable tool. Further the formatting choices cannot be set as "defaults".

The interface is effectively designed and the interaction controls allow to type text freely and to just press the Enter key when ready to send the message (I find very cumbersome those Chat systems that "force" to press a "Send" button when you want to send in a message.)

The text chat window can automatically detect URLs and make them immediately recognizable to users (by coloring them in blue and underlining them) while making them clickable.

All Text in the chat window can be select and copied to the Clipboard (very good. Many Java-based chat system do not allow you to do this).

Multiple Chat sessions can be opened at the same time while inviting different colleagues to attend them.

Chat Invitations allow you to send a text + audio message to all of your selected contacts with just one click of your mouse. Groove will display in real time, in the lower right corner of the screen, the delivery status of these messages, as well as signalling the moment recipients open them.

A nice and refreshing touch, showing all of the power of a P2P collaborative platform is that text in the chat window is by default "persistent" across live sessions and logins unless you expressly request to clear it. In this way, you can see the full transcript of a meeting session you may have come late to attend or even build an asynchronous discussion by posting questions in the text chat area that other users can take on at different times.