How do I find my way around the one-to-one chat area?

The one-to-one chat area lets you engage in private conversations with your contacts. You can keep as many conversations going as you like, with each being between just you and one other person.

For a general overview of what you will see and how it will look, please take a look at our visual overview of chat area.

Read on for an introduction to what you will see in the one-to-one chat area and how it works.

First contact
When you first enter the one-to-one area from elsewhere in the site, you will be presented with a welcome message in the conversation panel (located in the top half of the area).

To begin a conversation, select the username of the contact with whom you wish to chat from within the legend panel.

You can switch between one-to-one conversations as you please by simply selecting the username of the contact you want to chat to from the legend panel. All convesations are retained, so you can easily switch from one to another and back again.

Say what?
As with the general chat, the top half of the chat area is the conversation panel - this is where you can see what is being said. This is automatically updated every few seconds, or immediately after you say something.

The one-to-one conversations are retained, so if you come back to a conversation after a day or even a week you can pick up where you left off.

The legend
Below the conversation panel and to the right is the legend panel. This lists the contacts of yours who are online that the time.

Your contacts' usernames are colour-coded. Those in a light-purple on a white background you have not started a conversation with, those in bold purple on a white background you have started a conversation with and the one in bold white on a purple background you are currently chatting with.

When one of your contacts adds something to a conversation that you are not viewing, a small purple speech bubble will appear next to their username to indicate to you that something new has been added to the conversation.

A link to the respective profile is present for each username listed.

Now you see me, now you don't
A checkbox is also present for each username in the legend. Ticking one or more checkboxes and then selecting the Hide button will remove the selected contacts from the list. This can provde to be very useful if you have many contacts online at one time.

Selecting the View all link just below the legend will reveal the hidden contacts. For your convenience, the recently unhidden contacts will still be ticked allowing you to easily untick one or two and rehide the rest.

Hear my voice!
Below the conversation panel and to the left is a box into which you can enter what you want to say. Select the Send button to add your bit to the conversation.

If you're having any problem with any aspect of the chat area, please take a look at our chat troubleshooter for answers to common problems and pitfalls.