Chatting with other people is an important part of the Active Worlds experience. When you enter a world, after the scene loads you may see avatars around you representing other people who are near you in the same world. Depending on the world's settings, you might also notice that avatars have names above their heads when you get close to them, or after that person has said something while they are in your chat range. When other people talk, in most worlds, what they say will generally also appear above their avatar's head. Eventually, the above-head messages might disappear or be replaced, but the names will remain. You can either read what people say as it appears above their heads, or in the Chat History frame which also displays messages from people who are behind you or off to the side, as long as they are within your chat range. The Chat History will also display whispers, and messages from parts of the system such as the Immigration Officer or the Building Inspector, and console messages.

To talk to other people:

To talk to other people, all you have to do is type your message. What you type appears in the Message box, also known as the Chat Entry box, which is located just below the Chat History. After typing your chat message, pressing the Enter key sends your message. Then you'll see your message appear in the Chat History window, and other people that you are within chat range of will see it also.

To mute other people:

If someone is speaking that you would rather not see any more chat messages from, you can mute them. To mute someone, right click on that person's avatar and select Mute from the avatar pop-up menu. You can un-mute them again later by repeating the same procedure.

Chat Window

You can resize the chat window by changing the border between the main 3D-view window and the Chat History frame. Just position the cursor over the border between the 3D-window and the chat window until you see an up-down arrow, then hold down your primary mouse button and drag the border to the desired position.

You can also use the scroll-up and scroll-down buttons next to the chat history to look at messages that have scrolled off of the screen. These buttons move the text in the window up or down one line at a time. You can also click either above or below the 'slider bar' divider between the scroll buttons to move the text up or down one 'page' at a time.

The Chat History window displays any error messages you may get while building, for instance if you try to build too many objects in one place, or change someone else's property. These errors are given to you as a message from the all-powerful "Building Inspector".