• Chat Screen Basics
• Chat History
• Chat Styles
• Switch Between Chat Screens

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Starting a chat
To start a chat, highlight a buddy in the buddy list and select "Chat" from the menu. This will open up a new chat screen.

Typing a message
To type a message to your buddy, start typing with the text field at the bottom of the chat screen. When you are done typing the message, hit "Enter" or select "Send" from the menu to send the message.

* On JiveTalk for BlackBerry builds for BlackBerry OS 4.1.0.309 or earlier, typing in the chat edit field opens up a new edit screen. This is a work around for an underlying OS bug that prevents the regular chat screen from working properly.

Inserting emoticons
When typing a message, you can insert emoticons (smileys) by typing in the text representation of the emoticon. Alternatively, you can select the "Emoticons..." menu option and select the emoticon from the popup list.

Viewing chat contents
Incoming messages and your outgoing messages are added to the chat screen in chronological order. Use the trackwheel or trackball to scroll up/down to view the chat contents.

Clear the Chat
To clear the contents of a chat, from the chat screen, select "Clear Chat" from the menu. This will clear the chat scrollback.

End the Chat
Select "End Chat" from the menu to end the chat and close the chat window. If you have other chats open, you will be taken to the next open chat screen, otherwise you will be taken to the buddy list after you have ended the chat.

Copy Chat Contents
To copy a section of a chat, select "Select Text..." from the menu. A text-only screen will be displayed containing the contents of the chat, use the regular BlackBerry Copy command to highlight and copy any portion of the chat text.

Hyperlinks
Web page URLs inside chat contents are automatically hyperlinked, click on the link or "Get Link" from the menu will automatically launch the BlackBerry browser with the selected URL.

Email address, PINs (OS 4.2 only), and phone numbers inside chat contents are automatically hyperlinked. You can directly send an email or PIN message, or start a phone call to the selected link by clicking on the selected item, select "Copy" to copy the link, or select "Add to Address Book" to add the selected item to your BlackBerry address book.

* In order to use the phone/PIN/email feature, you may have to modify the application security to grant JiveTalk access to your BlackBerry's phone or messaging application.


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By default, all chat contents in JiveTalk are logged and stored locally on your BlackBerry device.

Enable/Disable Chat History
Use the "Enable Chat Logging" box in Preferences to enable or disable chat history logging for all future chats.

View Chat History
Select "View Chat History" from either the buddy list or the chat screen to view the entire chat history for chats between you and the buddy.

Clear Chat History
Select "Clear Chat History" from the buddy list, or select "Clear" from the chat history screen to delete the chat history with the buddy. Deletes cannot be undone.

Email Chat History
You can email the chat history with a buddy by selecting "Email" meni item on the chat history screen. You can specify the email address to send the chat to. The email will be sent from your default BlackBerry email address (for OS 4.2, you can select a different email address to send from).

Storage considerations
When chat logging is enabled, the chat contents are stored locally on your BlackBerry device. Since the device has limited storage room, you should check the available space on your device by going to Options - Status. Clear chats periodically to free up more space.


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You can customize the visual display of the chat screen and the layout of messages by changing the chat style for the application.

To change the chat style, go to Preferences and select one of the options in the "Chat Styles" list.


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When you have multiple chat screens open, it is desirable to be able to quickly switch to a different chat. JiveTalk for BlackBerry give you several options for navigating between chat screens.

1. Go back to the buddy list and go to the desired chat.

2. Use the chat screen icons at the top right corner of the chat screen to go to the desired chat.

Use the trackwheel or trackball to scroll up and highlight the chat icons, then scroll left/right (alt-scroll on the trackwheel) to highlight the desired chat screen, hit the "Enter" or "Space" key, or select "Open" from the menu to go to that chat.

3. Use double enter: from the chat edit field, type the "Enter" key twice (without any text in the field) to quickly toggle to the next chat screen. If there is a new message in another chat screen, hitting double enter will automatically take you to the new message.

4. Use double-alt quick switch by number: type the "Alt" key twice to active quick switch. When quick switch is activated, you will see a "#" icon on the titlebar. In quick switch mode, type in the number of the chat screen to quickly switch to that screen. Your first 10 open chat screens are numbered from 1 - 9, then 0.

5. Use double-alt quick switch for last chat: in quick switch mode (see above), the default choice highlighted in the chat icons will be your previous chat screen. Simply press "Enter" or "Space" will then take you to the previous chat. In other words, the alt-alt-space or alt-alt-enter key combinations will always take you to your previous chat. This functions much like a "last channel" feature on a television remote control.


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