Navigation:  Contacts > Instant Messaging > Creating Sessions

Once you are connected to the Instant Messaging servers on the internet, you can talk with your contacts by creating an instant session in orchidmedia.  You can select one or more contacts to talk by selecting their Contact cards from the Contacts View, and selecting the Actions | Send IM Menu action from the menu bar for the Contacts Activity.

 

 

When you select the Actions | Send IM Menu action, the software displays an instant session window with the selected contacts, ready for you to send an instant message.

 

 

 

The Instant Session Window divides into 3 areas.

 

1. The Session Messages area is used to display your Session messages received and sent between contacts. Each message displays the time of the message, and who the message came from.

 

2. The Message area is used to type a new message to send to the contacts shown in session.

 

3. The Contacts in Session area shows the current contacts in the session, and their current status (4).  The contact is available to receive messages from you, when the contact status shows a Green bubble and the words (in Session).  The Status will change, if the person changes their status from available to one of the other states defined in Getting Connected.

 

5. Invite and Remove - You can invite contacts with Instant messaging accounts to join the session using the Invite button, and you can remove contacts from the session using the remove button.  When you remove a contact from a session, the person will still be able to talk to other contacts in the current session, but you will no longer receive messages from the person for the current session.  (See Inviting Contacts to talk).

 

6. Text Formatting - You can customize the size, color, font and style of your message using the text formatting buttons indicated by (6).

 

7. Send - click on the Send button, when you are ready to send a message, press the Return key on the keyboard.

 

8. Close - click on the Close Session button to Close the instant session window, and disconnect yourself from the contacts in the session.