The Contact List

This window, accessible through the contacts tab, shows your list of "Contacts", or friends, in Active Worlds.

Your contact list is stored by the universe server to allow you access to it from any installation of Active Worlds on any PC connected to the Internet, and it also allows the universe server to implement your privacy settings (e.g. telegram blocking) even when you are not logged in to the system. If you are a new citizen of Active Worlds, your contact list will initially be empty. As you meet people with whom you would like to say in touch, you can add them to your list in one of two ways. You can right click on the person's avatar and select Add to contacts from the avatar pop-up menu, or you can right-click in the Contacts window itself and select Add New Contact.

Once in the contact list, a green checkmark next to their name indicates that they are currently in Active Worlds. The world they are currently in is also shown if they have chosen to make that information available (see privacy.) A right-click on their name brings up a menu that allows you to join them, send them a telegram, or view their home page.

To use the contact list, you must be a registered citizen. Tourists cannot maintain contact lists. Also, you may not add a tourist to your contact list.

You can right click on any name in your contact list to activate the contact list pop-up menu for that specific person:

This menu includes the following options:

There are two levels of privacy settings available. Each option can have a default value, which can be set from the privacy settings dialog. The options set here apply to anyone not on your contact list, and anyone on your contact list for whom you have not set a different option.

When a citizen is added to your contact list, they first inherit your default privacy settings as you have them set in the privacy dialog. From then on, you may override any of the default settings for a particular citizen by right-clicking on their name in the contact list and selecting "Privacy Options" for that citizen from the pop-up menu. Clicking on one of these options will toggle it. You can toggle it back by selecting it again, but once you have explicitly chosen privacy settings for a specific citizen, if you wish to restore the privacy settings for this person to automatically change when you change the defaults you must delete them from your contact list and re-add them, because changing a default will not over-ride explicit privacy settings chosen from the contacts pop-up menu.

Choosing to turn a privacy setting on or off from the contact list pop-up menu will disable the selected privacy setting's default for that person.

The following privacy options are available from the contact list pop-up menu:

  • Hide my online/offline/AFK status - this toggles whether or not other people who have placed you on their contact list will see the "green checkmark" next to your name indicating you are currently online. If you hide your status from a user, all they will ever see next to your name is a question mark regardless of whether or not you are currently online. Also, users to whom you are exposing your online status will see an "AFK" indicator next to your name whenever you enter AFK mode.

  • Hide my current world - By default, citizens will see the name of your current world printed next to your name in their contact list, if they have you on their contact list. This option allows you to keep which world you are in from being displayed in people's contact lists.

  • Block telegrams - This enables the "telegram blocking" feature. Contacts with this option set checkmarked will not be able to send you any telegrams. When they attempt to send you a telegram, they will be immediately informed that you are not accepting telegrams from them, even if you are not online at the time.

  • Block join requests - This option sets your browser to automatically reject join requests from the person it's specified for.

  • Block file transfers - This option sets your browser to automatically reject file transfer requests from that contact.

  • Mute on sight - Setting this option for a contact will cause your browser to automatically mute that person whenever you see them.

You may have up to 500 citizens on your contact list at the same time.