This section will inform you how to use Gtk+Licq with the default settings. You can make Gtk+Licq behave different from this, more about that in the Customization section.
If this is the first time you use licq you must register a icq-user, this is done by using the registration wizard which should appear on the screen automaticly. When this is done you simply add your friends to your contactlist.
The main window is where you select to who you want to send a message, or which users message you want to read. If you left-click on a name in the contact list a menu will appear, in this menu you can choose to do things related to that user. The most common things to do with a user is to send a message of some kind or view a message that the user have sent. To send a message you select the kind of message you like to send in the Send submenu. And to read a incoming message you just select the View Event menuitem. You can also send a message or view a message by double clicking on that user. This will bring up the send or view window for that user. What window will appear depends on if you have a unread message from that user. If you do, the view window will appear.
Incoming messages are indicated by a message, url, file, chat or contactlist icon. The message statusbar will also tell you how many new messages you have, it will also inform you about system messages. A shortcut to read incoming messages is to double-click on the message statusbar.
For the users that doesn't like to use the mouse to select users there is a quick search feature. Just type the beginning of the alias and that user will be selected. When you press Return or Enter the send or view window for that user will popup. To see what user that is selected I suggest you enable the 'Select active user' in the Contactlist options. If you make a typo you can just press Escape to cancel what you have typed and start over.
Another important thing you do in the main window is to set your own status. This is done by left-clicking on the statusbar (that shows your current status) and selecting the desired status. Some of those choices will bring up a autoresponse window, where you can set a message to inform about your reason for being in this status. This window have some default messages, those may be altered to in the Status options. A shortcut here is to double-click on the statusbar, this will automaticly set you in your previous status.
The applet shows a status icon, and the number of unread messages you have (if the size allow it). If you left click on the applet you get a menu from which you can change status, show/hide the main window and some other nice stuff. If you have unread messages the status icon will show the message icon for the first unread message you have, you can double click on that to view the message. When you don't have any unread messages the status icon will show your current status, if you double click on that you will show/hide the main window.
When you start Gtk+Licq for the fist time this should appear automaticly. The first page are showing a welcome message that's explaining how to use the wizard, please read it. The second page are for doing the actual registration. Here you have a choice to make register a new user or register a existing user.
To register a new user you just give a password, then you have to type it again in the Verify field just to be sure you have typed the intended password and not made a typo.
To register a existing user you check the checkbox for that, then you fill in the uin and password. You cant fill in the verify field since we didn't find it nessesary.
On the third page you just have to press finish to perform what you have asked for. Now if everything goes well, I recommend that you write the uin and password down. That way you can register a existing user if something should happen. Then I also suggest that you edit your personal info and save that on the server, this is to make it easier for other people to find you.
This section covers the management of users in your contactlist.
There are more than one way to add a user, you select Add user in the User functions submenu if you know the users uin. But the preferred way is to search for the user by selecting Search for user in the User functions submenu. Other persons may also send you contacts from their contactlist for you to add, but that is covered in the Receiving contacts section.
To remove a user from the contact list you left-click on the user. Then you choose Remove user and From Contactlist. If your current group are 'All users' the From Current Group choice will remove the user from the contact list too.
This is done in some easy steps, first you select the method you want to use to perform the search. In other words, if you know the users uin or email you fill in that en press Finish. If you don't have that information you select the whitepages search and press Next. Then you fill in the information you know and press Finish.
When the search is complete you just select the users you are interested in and press the 'Add user' button to add the users to your contact list. If the user you are looking for aren't on the list you may have got to many matches to the search, in that case you must be more specific. To try again it's just to press 'Back'.
You may get authorization requests from users if you have 'Authorization required' enabled in the Security section in the Options dialog. To authorize a user you can just press the Authorize user button in the window where you read the message. If you don't like to do that you can left click on the user and send a Authorization that way. The third way to do this is to select Authorize user in the User functions submenu and fill in the users uin and press ok.
The send window lets you send different kind of messages, how this different messages are sent may be different for different kinds of messages. The most basic ones are the plain Message and the Url message.
When a send widow is opened the message type will be set to the normal message type. The only thing you need to do to send a normal message is fill in the text and press send.
To send an url you select the url message type, then you fill in a message (optional) and the url in the text field marked URL. Then you just press send, and the message will be on its way.
You can also send an url by draging it from netscape (or another browser that supports drag and drop) and drop it on the recipient in the contactlist. The send window will then open with the url type selected, and the url field will contain the url. The only thing you need to do is then to write a message (optional) and press send.
To send a chat request you select the chat message type, and write a message telling the reason for the chat session. Then it's just to press send. This time the window will not disappear like it normally do, it will disappear when the recipient accepts the chat and then a chat window will appear.
The recipient may not like to chat with you for some reason and he will then send you a refusage message. In this case you get a dialog informing you about that.
If you already have a chat session running you can still start a new chat with someone else, it's no difference in this case. But what's new if you already have a chat session running is that you can invite another user to join you in the already existing chat session. To do this you do as before but with the difference that you also select the current chat session instead of 'New Session' in the session option menu.
More about the chat in the chat section.
To send a file to someone you select the file message type, then you fill in a nice message and write the filename in the text entry marked filename. If you don't know the exact name or it's location you can use the file browser to select the file. To use that you press on the browse button. When those fields are filled in you press send, and the you wait for the recipient to accept the file.
As with the chat the recipient can refuse a file, and as before you will get a dialog informing you why.
More about file transfer in the file transfer section.
If you like to send contacts from you contactlist to a friend you select the contact message type. You will the get a view with two lists, in the right list you have all contacts in your contactlist and in the left list that's initially empty you put the contacts you like to send.
To move a contact to the send list you use the buttons between the lists. I don't describe them here, just try and see it's completely harmless.
When you open the view window you have a list of new messages in the top of the window. When the window opens the first unread message is selected and shown. To read another message you simply click on it.
There is nothing complicated with receiving a message, it's just to read it and hopefully it's a nice message from a special friend ;) Some useful things here is the 'Reply' and 'Quote reply' buttons. Both of these buttons is used to send a reply message to the sender of the nice original message. The difference between 'Reply' and 'Quote reply' is that 'Quote reply' will include the original message in the reply as a quote, and 'Reply' doesn't.
Receiving urls quite easy too, the message will be displayed in the message box. The url is shown in the text entry marked 'URL', to open the url you press the 'view url' button that's after that entry. You can change the program that will open the url, by changing that in the message options.
The reply buttons will work the same way as the do with messages.
When you receive a chat request you read the message that tells you the reason for the chat. If you still likes to chat with that person you press on the 'Accept' button, and a chat window will appear.
If you don't like to chat with the person for some reason you press the 'Refuse' button, then you write the reason to refuse the chat in the window that pops up. And when that's done you press refuse.
More about the chat in the chat section.
When you receive a file transfer request, you see some information about the file(s) in the description text. To accept the file transfer you fill in the directory where you want to receive the files (the default is your home directory) then you press accept and the file transfer will start.
More about file transfer in the file transfer section.
In the view contact case you see a list of contact, there is no message to show. If you like to add those contact to your list you just select them and press 'Add user'.
There is some information to get about the users in your contact list, to view it you left-click on a user and select the information category from the Info submenu. You can also edit/view your own information by opening this dialog by selecting one of the info menu entries in the System functions submenu.
This information is the most interesting information about the user, here you have the alias, the name and much more. You can change this information and save it on your hard drive by pressing save. This is quite useful when your friend have chosen cool but useless aliases. If you like to get the original information you press update. Note, that when you press update you will update all info about the user, not just the one you are looking at. If you are editing your personal info and press save you will be asked if you want to save it on the server, and in most cases you want to do that and answer yes to that question.
Well this is just more personal information, you can change and update this information the same way as with the general info.
This is information related to the users work, you can change and update this information the same way as with the general info.
A nice about dialog for the user.
Information of when the user was last seen, doing different things.
Information related to licq.
One very useful feature is the history, here you can read old messages that a you have received or have sent to a user. There are tree different views to the history, one that's only containing incoming messages, one thats only containing outgoing messages and one that shows both. There is a checkbox 'Reverse order' that determines the order of the list. If you think the history is to big you can limit the number of entries shown by setting that in the field for that. You can also choose to only show messages that continues a word of choice by using the filter field, just fill in the field and press enter.
The menu bar, located at the top of the Main Window, contains the following menus:
System functions
This menu contains:
View System Messages —View new system messages
Popup all messages —Open all new messages.
General info —Open the general info window for the owner
More info —Open the more info window for the owner
Work info —Open the work info window for the owner
About —Open the about window for the owner
Last seen —Open the last seen info window for the user.
Licq —Open the licq info window for the user, containing misc licq related info.
History —Open the history for system messages.
Change password —Change the password used for logging in on the icq servers
Change random chat group — more info about this here
Debug Level
This menu contains: View System Messages , Status Info , Unknown Packets , Errors , Warnings , Packets These are used to select the debug info you like to see.
Set All and Clear all They are used to select and deselect the other options.
User functions
This menu contains:
Add user —Add a new user
Search for user —Open the search window
Authorize user —Send an authorization to a user
Random chat —Open the random chat window
Edit groups —Open the groups editor
Redraw user window —Refresh the contactlist
Save all users —Save the current information for all users
Register user —Opens the registration wizard, so you can register a new/old user.
Status
This menu may be used to change your current status.
Set Auto Response —Lets you set your away message.
Save options —Save the options
Show network window —Open a window and let you monitor all network traffic
Use minimode —Toggle minimode.
Show offline —If you want to see offline users in the contact list
Options —Open the options window.
Plugin Manager —Opens the plugin manager
Next Server —Try to connect to the next server in the server list.
About —Show a really cool about dialog.
Exit —Exit Gtk+Licq.