{"id":5,"date":"2006-09-07T20:02:16","date_gmt":"2006-09-07T19:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/technologies.kmi.open.ac.uk\/msg\/?page_id=5"},"modified":"2007-06-14T11:05:05","modified_gmt":"2007-06-14T10:05:05","slug":"faqs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/technologies.kmi.open.ac.uk\/msg\/faqs\/","title":{"rendered":"FAQs"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#faq0\">How can I try out MSG?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#faq1\">What do the icons mean?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#faq2\">Where do the number of users online figures come from?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#faq3\">Where does my contact list come from?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#faq4\">Can I do group chat?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#faq5\">Can I create my own contacts lists?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#popups\">How do I unblock popups in my web browser to allow MSG to launch smoothly?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#ff2-focus\">Using the FireFox 2 browser: when I click on a person&#8217;s name I expect an already-open chat window to &#8216;pop up to the front&#8217;, but it does not. How can I fix that?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#why-msg\">Why did you create &#8216;yet another Instant Messenger&#8217; instead of using an existing one?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p id=\"faq0\"><strong>How can I try out MSG?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to try out MSG for yourself, the best thing to do is to register on the <a href=\"http:\/\/openlearn.open.ac.uk\">OpenLearn<\/a> website, then enrol on at least one course (all for free!). You'll then see the MSG &#8216;block&#8217; in the sidebar of most pages on OpenLearn, where you can launch the full MSG client from. To really get an idea of how it works, get a friend or colleague to register too and enrol on the same course(s) - then you can chat to each other \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p id=\"faq1\"><strong>What do the icons mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/technologies.kmi.open.ac.uk\/msg\/images\/online.gif\" \/><\/td>\n<td>Online<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/technologies.kmi.open.ac.uk\/msg\/images\/away.gif\" \/><\/td>\n<td>Away<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/technologies.kmi.open.ac.uk\/msg\/images\/dnd.gif\" \/><\/td>\n<td>Do not disturb<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/technologies.kmi.open.ac.uk\/msg\/images\/offline.gif\" \/><\/td>\n<td>Offline<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p id=\"faq2\"><strong>Where do the number of users online figures come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The &#8216;My contacts&#8217; figures are calculated from the number of people who have enrolled on the same courses as you within OpenLearn.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8216;All users&#8217; figures are calculated from the total number of people who have registered on the OpenLearn website, enrolled on a course in OpenLearn and who have opted-in to using MSG.<\/p>\n<p id=\"faq3\"><strong>Where does my contact list come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Your contacts list is automatically created from the people who are on the same courses as you. Each course will display as it&#8217;s own group within the MSG client.<\/p>\n<p id=\"faq4\"><strong>Can I do group chat?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not currently. At the moment MSG only supports one to one chat.<\/p>\n<p id=\"faq5\"><strong>Can I create my own contacts lists?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not currently. Only the automatically generated contacts list are supported.<\/p>\n<p id=\"popups\"><strong>How do I unblock popups in my web browser to allow MSG to launch smoothly?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here is the summary of the menu sequence you need to go through to allow MSG to launch in your browser even when you have popup windows blocked:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Internet Explorer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tools&#8230;<br \/>\nInternet Options&#8230;<br \/>\nPrivacy            [x] Block pop-ups &#8230; [Settings]<br \/>\nAddress of Web site to allow:<br \/>\n*.open.ac.uk  [Add]<br \/>\n[Close]<br \/>\n[OK]<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Firefox <\/strong><br \/>\nTools&#8230;.<br \/>\nOptions&#8230;.<br \/>\nContent<br \/>\n[x] Block Popup Windows  [Allowed Sites]<br \/>\nAddress of web site:<br \/>\n*.open.ac.uk [Allow]<br \/>\n[Close]<br \/>\n[OK]<\/p>\n<p>additionally FireFox 2 users need to be carefully about another setting described below.<\/p>\n<p id=\"ff2-focus\"><strong>Using the FireFox 2 browser: when I click on a person&#8217;s name I expect an already-open chat window to &#8216;pop up to the front&#8217;, but it does not. How can I fix that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You need to alter your browser settings as in the menu sequence below:<br \/>\nTools&#8230;<br \/>\nOptions&#8230;<br \/>\nContent&#8230;<br \/>\n[X] Enable JavaScript &#8230; [Advanced]<\/p>\n<p>Allow scripts to..<br \/>\n[X] Raise or lower windows<\/p>\n<p id=\"why-msg\"><strong>Why did you create &#8216;yet another Instant Messenger&#8217; instead of using an existing one?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We have custom-designed MSG to be based on open standards (the original Jabber\/XMPP, as used by other popular tools such as Google Talk), and to ensure that it was low on features and high on web-usability.  This means that it can be used immediately and directly from your web browser, without the need for you to download any software  &#8212; though an optional download provides extra convenience, as you will see.  MSG differs from the very popular instant messaging products (like Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live\/MSN Messenger, etc.) in three main ways: (i) your contact lists are automatically created from (and restricted to) your shared course registrations; (ii) it offers (from 2007) optional mapping capabilities to see where your contacts are located; (iii) it is fully integrated into OpenLearn and thus appears in all OpenLearn units &#8212; this means that throughout the site (e.g. in discussion forums) you can see which users are currently online, so you can immediately &#8216;click to chat&#8217; to the poster of a relevant forum message.  MSG is open source, and therefore customisable.  In fact, advanced or highly-motivated users can actually use any other Jabber\/XMPP standards-compliant Instant Messaging tool of their choice!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How can I try out MSG? What do the icons mean? Where do the number of users online figures come from? Where does my contact list come from? Can I do group chat? Can I create my own contacts lists? How do I unblock popups in my web browser to allow MSG to launch smoothly? 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