(c) Copyright 1995-1997 Kali, Inc. All right reserved.
Introduction
Kchat lets you meet other Kali users on the server you're connected too. You can find gamers to play with, ping people to test their connections, find out information about the current server and other servers, and of course hang out with fellow game-players talking smack.
Commands
All Kchat commands begin with a slash, for example, "/help". Most Kchat commands have a menu equivalent. Some commands take arguments, for example, you might type "/ping LiquidCarnageDispenser". You can also ping someone with the menu command "Ping". In this case, you would type "LiquidCarnageDispenser" and then select "Ping" from the Command menu. All the commands listed in the Command menu with "{x}" function in this manner.
Talking in a channel is anything that isn't a command.
The following commands are understood:
/nick <nickname> change nickname
/away <message> tell everyone that you are away
/join <#channel> [<password>] join a different channel
/info <nickname> display brief information about user
/msg [<nickname>|#<node>] <message> send a private message.
/me <message> post a message
/ping [<nickname>|#<node>|*] test connection speed
/ignore <nickname> toggles the ability to ignore someone
Hidden Features
• You can navigate the text window not only with the Page Up, Home, etc keys, but the Help and Del keys also scroll the window one line at a time.
• The tilde key (~) is the name completion key. It will take the characters you've typed so far and look through the player list for any names that are a continuation of those characters. Additionally, it's smart about names with special characters at the start. For example, if you type "hil" and then hit the tilde key, it might expand to "{-*HillbillyBob*-}". (Please note that I call it the tilde key for convenience, not because you have to hold the shift button down when you hit it. I have no idea what to call that silly quote under the tilde.)
• The TAB key will respond to a private message sent to you. Pressing TAB repeatedly will cycle through possible recipients. For your convenience, names also get added to this list when you send private messages.
• The up and down arrow keys will step through a convenient command history.
Advanced Features
Kchat can be left open when you play a game. You will still be able to talk and hear the people that you could see when you commenced the game, but you won't see any new people join Kchat. (This is due to technical restraints of the server.) If the game you play does not give background applications processor time (and most don't), Kchat will be unable to acknowledge other people in Kchat, and they will think you have left. When you quit the game, however, Kchat will start to see new people coming in again. If you wish to start chatting at this point, select "Recheck for Players".
Listing Competitors
When you play a game, Kali keeps track of whom you're playing against by remembering their IP number, as well as a few statistics. Currently, 16 people are remembered. When someone new comes along, the person who hasn't been talked to in the longest time gets replaced by the newcomer. Along with the IP number is remembered the last time we received a packet from them, the first time we received a packet, and the number of packets received. In Kchat, selecting "Display Competitors" will give this information, sorted by most recently talked to. This display tends to be a little bland, and most of the time you will be using the cross-reference command.
When displaying the "First Time" field, the larger the time displayed, the longer ago was the first communication. So if you joined a game with several people, it's likely that the person first talked to was the host and this information can sometimes be useful. The number in parenthesis is a smaller increment of time to help distinguish close calls.
Cross-Referencing Competitors *Does not work in Kchat 1.0b8*
The IP number of your competitor is pretty useless by itself. By telling Kchat to cross-reference, it will download the complete list of players from the server and compare IP numbers to its internal list of your competitors. The result is a printout of whom you're playing against, with IP listed next to account name and serial number.
There exist countless uses for this tool. As well as the obvious advantage of being able to see who your opponents really are, it's useful to check, for example, if everyone is registered before starting a long game.
As soon as someone leaves the server, the cross-reference will no longer work of course, so it can be wise to perform it around the commencement of the game. (For games like Descent, which don't allow you to switch applications, this is of course impossible.)
Because data from the server can be partially lost in transit, sometimes the cross-referenced list will be incomplete. If you suspect this, just try it again.
Please note that while Kchat is performing a cross-reference, you cannot ask the server for a player list.
