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	Linktivity WebDemo

Text Chat

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Linktivity WebDemo provides a full-featured text chat facility that is ready to use for all meeting attendees, immediately after they join a WebDemo meeting session. The WebDemo text chat facility is called "Keyboard Chat".

Review Overview
This review discusses the following aspects of the text chat option within Linktivity WebDemo:

Keyboard Chat Rights

Undocking the Chat Panel

Private Messages

Preset Phrases

Message History

Clipboard

Clearing the Message History

AutoScroll

Raise Hand

Cons

Keyboard Chat Rights
WebDemo's keyboard chat panel is always enabled by default. The meeting host can disable keyboard chat for each attendee individually by right-clicking on that person's name and deselecting the Keyboard Chat option.

Undocking the Chat Panel
The keyboard chat panel is undockable, which means that it can be detached from its original position. Once separated from the main WebDemo control panel, the keyboard chat window can be resized and placed anywhere on the screen. To access the undocking feature the user needs to right-click in the keyboard chat area and select the Undock command from the context menu.

The keyboard chat window may be turned back to its docked state by closing it.

Private Messages
In addition to the usual, public message exchanges, WebDemo keyboard chat also allows private messages intended for a particular attendee. All attendees have the right to use this facility.

Preset Phrases
The "Phrase File" facility is a unique feature only available to the presenter/moderator within the WebDemo text chat panel.

Below the two standard text chat areas (display and input), at the bottom of the text chat panel, another input area is displayed with three command options: "Edit Phrase File", "Reload Phrase File" and "Save Send Text". Different from what one would intuitively expect, the three elements are in fact active buttons that allow the editing and presetting of frequently used phrases. This useful function can be leveraged in customer support, training and marketing situations of all kinds. The WebDemo "Preset Phrases" feature is easy to use and shows the long experience of the development team behind Linktivity in designing quality remote control and technical support tools like WebInteractive.

Message History
A persistent, continuous transcript of the chat session is available to all participants, even if they join the meeting at a later moment in time. This transcript allows them to see what has been discussed up to that point. If you need to leave a conference and return to it later on, the message history is still there. The full chat transcript can also be saved as a standard text file.

Clipboard
Any text in the chat panel can be selected and copied to the clipboard.

Clearing the Message History
The conference presenter/moderator has the capability to erase the entire message history. It is not possible to select which participants are affected by this operation. The message history box is not cleared immediately: only after you log off from the meeting and log on again, the message history box will be empty. This behavior is not entirely logical.

AutoScroll
WebDemo provides an autoscroll option for the message history log. By default AutoScroll is turned on, which means that the text scrolls up each time a new chat message is sent. If you turn off autoscroll, however, the contents inside the message history box no longer scroll up. This allows you to keep a specific, important part of the message history in sight.

Raise Hand
By clicking on a little icon with the shape of a hand, attendees can request the attention of the presenter/moderator. The same icon will show up next to that person's name in the attendee list. Only the presenter/moderator can turn off that icon.