# &app; Manual V&manrevision;

## Introduction

&app; is a GNOME application for connecting to AOL's ICQ® instant messaging service or any other ICQ server. &app; is an alternative to the original ICQ application by ICQ Inc. and strives for compatibility with it. Currently, it is based on the ICQ v5 protocol (following specifications by Matthew Smith), which is equivalent to the protocol used in the ICQ99b application.

The ICQ instant messaging service is free for all users. It allows you to keep in touch with people around the world via messages which they receive immediately if they're online. This is very similar to the traditional "pager" device. &app; notifies you when your friends go online and allows you to communicate with them, via text messages, chats and by sending files.

To run &app;, select &app; from the Internet submenu of the Main Menu, or type `gnomeicu` on the command line.

This document describes version &appversion; of &app;.

## Starting up

This section details the first steps you need to take to use GnomeICU.

Each ICQ user has a Universal Internet Number, or UIN, that is unique to that user only. The UIN is used to identify themselves and link other information, such as nickname and e-mail address to themselves. To communicate with other ICQ users, you need to register and receive an ICQ UIN.

This section refers to AOL's official ICQ service. If you intend to use a standalone ICQ server, e.g. one provided by your company for internal communications, the procedure may differ.

To sign-up for a UIN you will be presented with a wizard that will walk you through the steps. You will have the choice of creating a new UIN or using an existing one that you know the password for.

Now you are ready to use all features of ICQ. To learn how to use them, read the next sections.

## GnomeICU basics

### The Main Window

The main window of GnomeICU is the hub of activity. All incoming communications, status and your online contacts will be shown here.

### Glossary

- Contact List In the Main window, you see a list of people (or "contacts") which is called a "Contact List". Those are usually people you know and wish to remain in contact with. This list is also called a 'Buddy List' in similar instant messaging applications.

- Status When a user is not connected to ICQ, his/her status is Offline. When a user is connected to ICQ, his/her status is one of the following:

  - Online You may contact the user.

  - Free For Chat

  - Away The user is currently away from the computer),

  - Not Available The user may be away from the computer for a long time.

  - Occupied

  - Do Not Disturb

  - Invisible

  The icon beside each name show the person's status. The Contact List contains an Online tab, which contains only contacts which are connected and are in a state that is not Invisible. The All Contacts tab contains every contact on your list.

  Two special groups exist in the All Contacts tab.

  - Waiting for authorization Contacts who you have asked to add to your list. These users have not authorized you to do so yet. These users will remain in this list indefinitly until they authorize you to add them.

  - New Users Contacts who write to you in your current session but you do not have on your list. These contacts are not remembered if you close &app;.

- Invisible user By setting your status to Invisible, others would not know you went online until you send them an event (e.g. a message, a chat request etc.). If you see a user with an Invisible status, that means the other user in Invisible mode and either has contacted you or has you in his/her Visible List.

### The Notification Icon

&app; uses the Notification Area which is an applet that is part of the Gnome Desktop. A Notification Area can be added to any panel.

#### Notification Icon - Two Forms

The Notification Icon in &app; alerts the user to new messages and allows a change of status.

The Notification Icon which is shown above allows basic control of &app;. It displays the current state of &app; and becomes animated when a message is waiting. It also will tell you the number of users currently online in your contact list.

Clicking this icon in the Notification Area will show and hide the Main Window respectivly.

#### Notification Tooltips

Try moving your mouse cursor over the &app; Notification Icon for a few seconds to receive quick information about the status (without clicking or opening any windows). As soon as you move the mouse cursor away from the applet, the "tooltip" dispappers.

### The Panel Applet

&app; no longer supports the panel applet. It is depreciated as of version 0.99.

### Menus

The menu bar, located at the top of the Main Window, contains the following menus:

Account

- This menu contains:

  - Add Contact this command brings up the Add Contact dialog, which allows a user to add a contact to their contact list.

  - Manage Groups this command brings up the Manage Groups dialog, showing a list of groups that are available in your contact list. You can add a new group, rename an old group or remove a group

  - Change Account Info this command brings up the My Information dialog, which allows you to add and change your personal information in the ICQ user directory.

  - Exit this command exits &app; and removes the icon in the notification area.

Tools

- This menu contains:

  - Ignore List this command brings up the ignore list dialog, which allows users to add contacts to their ignore list. You will not recieve messages from these users.

  - Visible List this command brings up the visible list dialog, which allows users to add contacts to their visible list. Users on this list will be able to view your status even when you are in invisible mode.

  - Invisible List this command brings up the invisible list dialog, which allows users to add contacts to their invisible list. Users on this list will always see the user as invisible.

  - Online Notify List this command brings up the online notify list dialog, which allows users to add contacts to their online notify list.

  - Preferences this command brings up the &app; Preferences dialog, which allows users to modify &app; configuration settings.

Help

- This menu contains:

  - Contents shows this manual.

  - &app; Home opens the default web browser to the &app; home page on the Internet.

  - &app; Updates opens the default web browser to the &app; download page on the Internet.

  - About shows general information about &app;, such as the authors' names and the application version number.

## ICQ Operations

### Sending a Message

To send a message over ICQ, either double-click on a contact or right-click on a contact and select Message.... The Send Message dialog shown in fig_message appears. Type a message and click the Send button to send the message.

You can press Ctrl Enter to quickly send the message. Pressing Esc will close the window.

#### Send Message Dialog

The Send Message Dialog in GnomeICU allows you to communicate with contacts in a chat-like fashion.

### Sending a File

To send a file over ICQ, right-click on a contact and select File Request.... The Send File dialog shown in fig_sendfile appears. Add Files... to add each file you wish to send to the contact. To remove files from the list, select the files you do not wish to send and click on Remove files. Finally, if necessary, enter a reason for sending the file.

Click the Send button to send the files. The files are sent in the order of their appearance in the list, and the File Transfer dialog box displays the progress of the transfer.

#### Send File Dialog

The Send File dialog in &app; allows you to transfer files with contacts.

### Sending a URL

You can use this functionality to send an URL (Universal Resource Locator - another name for a web site address) to other users. It's the preferred way of sending URLs, since the receiving user could easily see the URL in one click (in most ICQ applications).

To send a URL, right-click on a contact and select URL.... The Send URL dialog shown in fig_sendurl appears. Type in or paste the URL, and if necessary add a description. Click the Send button to send the URL.

#### Send URL Dialog

The Send URL Dialog in GnomeICU allows you to send links and a description to your contacts.

### Sending a Contact List

To share members of your contact list with another member of your list, right-click on a contact and select Contact List.... The Send Contact List dialog shown in fig_sendcontactlist appears. To add a contact to this list drag them from your Main Contact Window to the Send Contact List dialog.

Remove User... will remove the selected contact from the list. User's Info will display the highlighted users detailed information.

Click the Send button to send the show contacts. The Close button will cancel this message.

#### Send Contact List Dialog

The Send Contact List dialog in &app; allows you to share contacts among friends.

## Adding a Contact

To add a contact to your contact list, select Add Contact from the Account menu. The Add A Contact dialog, shown in fig_addcontactdruid appears.

### Add Contact Dialog

The Add Contact Dialog in &app; allows you to search the ICQ system for friends.

To add a contact, enter information about the user in at least one field (e.g. the UIN). After entering this information, click the Find button. A list of all the contacts which fit your search criteria are shown. Select the contact which you want to add to your list. Click the Add button to add the contact to your list.

### Narrowing Down Your Search

The best way to locate an ICQ user is by his/her UIN. The UIN is unique and is guaranteed to return only one search result. Alternatively, you may give as many details as you know to narrow down the search (it is likely you'll get many results for common names).

## Customizing GnomeICU

To access the Preferences dialog, select Preferences from the Tools menu. The Preferences dialog, shown in appears.

### Add Contact Dialog

The &app; Preferences Dialog allows you to customize &app;.

The GnomeICU Preferences Dialog has been split so that multiple IM services can be configured. In the screen shot above, the user is modifying the global behaviour of &app;.

To modify the options for ICQ simply click on the ICQ logo icon and you will be presented with a new set of tabs. As new IM services are added new icons will become available to customize in the left pane.

### &app; Global Preferences

The tabs in the &app; Global Preferences are explained in this section.

- Connections

- Sounds/Events

- Status

- User Interface

- Themes

#### Connections

- Connect to server on startup - When checked &app; will attempt to go online as soon as the program is started without any user input.

- Automatically reconnect on forced disconnection - When checked &app; will try to reconnect to the server if it is disconnected.

- Automatically accept file transfers - When checked &app; will accept files from contacts without any user prompting.

  ##### Automatically accept file transfers

  Be very careful when setting this option as you will receive all files from users automatically. This can lead to security problems.

#### Sounds/Events

- Enable Sounds - When checked &app; will use sounds to alert you to new events.

- Enable sounds only when online - When checked this allows you to disable sounds notification when not in the "Online" status (e.g. Occupied status). This prevents sounds from disturbing you or others when you're not available to receive messages.

- Enable beeps - When checked this makes &app; produce short beeps from the built-in speaker of your computer. This might be useful on computers without a real sound device, or if you do not wish to disturb others with sounds.

- Go To GNOME Sound Preferences - This button allows you to configure the sounds played for each event in &app;.

- Run Program on Events - This allows you to run an external program upon receiving various events, such as receiving a message.

#### Status

- Auto Away - When checked &app; automatically sets your status to "Away" after the specified number of minutes.

- Away Message - You are able to specify eight default messages that are selectable when you change status. The first seven messages are filled with common away messages but you are able to change all of them as you wish.

#### User Interface

- Automatically popup message windows - When checked this makes incoming message windows appear and take focus right when the message is received. Otherwise, the message window will only popup when you click the blinking icon in the notification area or in the contact list.

- Do not close message window when sending a message - When checked this makes &app; leave message windows on the screen. This is helpful if you are having a very fast conversation with someone that has many messages. You can toggle this option in a message window.

- Character set to use when there is no encoding info - This allows you to decide which Character set to use if the message does not suggest which one to use. Set this to your local setting. The default should be fine for most users.

#### Themes

- &app; Icon Themes - This selection box allows you to select the icon theme you wish to use with &app;.

  ##### Getting New Icon Themes

  You can find a rich set of icon themes at &app;'s website. This is pure eye candy.

- &app; Emoticon Themes - This selection box allows you to select the style of emoticon's you wish to use in &app;'s. To turn off emoticons select the "None" option.

### ICQ Preferences

In the ICQ Preferences there is currently only one tab for User Interface which allows you to select the text colours for different states. This helps you to quickly identify what state that a contact on your list is in.

Click on the Close button to close the dialog. Any changes you made are saved automatically.

## My Information

To change your details in the ICQ user directory, select Change Account Info... from the Account menu. The My Information dialog, shown in fig_userinfo appears

### Userinfo Dialog

The User Info Dialog in &app; allows you to change your public information.

This dialog allows you to tell other users more about yourself. Keep in mind those personal details are publicly available from the ICQ user directory, and therefore anyone could read them prior to contacting you.

The properties in the General tab are:

- ICQ Number Displays the user's UIN. Not editable.

- Nickname This field allows you to change your nickname on ICQ.

- First Name This field allows you to specify your first name.

- Last Name This field allows you to specify your last name.

- Gender This field allows you to specify your gender.

- Age This field allows you to specify your age.

- Require Auth This checkbox allows you to decide whether other people need your authorization to add you to their ICQ contact lists.

  The demand of authorization depends on the ICQ client the other person uses. Some clients don't implement the feature and can add users regardless of 'Require Auth'.

- Birthday This field allows you to specify your birth date.

The properties in the Internet tab are:

- IP Displays the user's IP address. Not editable.

- Port Displays the TCP port being used. Not editable.

- Email, Other Email, Old Email: This field allows you to enter various e-mail addresses you have.

- Hide Email This checkbox specifies whether the e-mail addresses are visible to other people.

The Location tab allows you to edit various details relating to your location, such as your phone number, country and timezone.

Apply reasonable caution when revealing private details such as addresses and phone numbers.

The properties in the About tab are:

- Home Page This field allows to to specify your home page URL.

- About This field allows you to add additional information about yourself. It may span many lines.

Click on the Save button to apply the changes and close the dialog. Click on the Refresh button to fetch your information from the server. Click the Cancel button to close the dialog without applying the changes you have made.

## Known Bugs and Limitations

- No multi-party chat. You cannot participate in chats with more than two users.

- File transfer is buggy.

- Impossible to change "Work" details in the user information.

- Impossible to view another user's birthday details.

- Cannot send files/chat requests when behind a NAT (many users who are behind a "firewall").

### Where did all the settings go?

If you are looking for a more advanced setting that used to be in &app; then chances are that it has been moved to a Gconf key. Your distribution should have a Gconf2 editor GUI that you can use to modify the keys. They should be found under: /apps/gnomeicu/.

## Authors

GnomeICU was written by Jeremy Wise (jwise@pathwaynet.com), David Tabachnikov (captain@isdn.net.il) and countless other volunteers.

To find more information about GnomeICU, please visit the GnomeICU web site.

Please send all comments, suggestions, and bug reports to the GNOME bug tracking database. (Instructions for submitting bug reports can be found on-line.) If you are using GNOME 1.2 or later, you can also use Bug Report Tool (`bug-buddy`), available in the Utilities submenu of Main Menu, for submitting bug reports.

This manual was written by Thomas Canty tommydal@ihug.com.au and Ilya Konstantinov gnomeicu-docs@future.galanet.net. Bringing the documentation up to the Gnome 2.x level was Christopher Ness nesscg@mcmaster.ca.

Please send all comments and suggestions regarding this manual to the GNOME Documentation Project by sending an email to docs@gnome.org. You can also add your comments online by using the GNOME Documentation Status Table.

## License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as an appendix to the GNOME Users Guide. You may also obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to

        Free Software Foundation, Inc.
        59 Temple Place - Suite 330
        Boston, MA 02111-1307
        USA