Chatting with other people is an important part of the Active Worlds experience. When you first enter a world you might notice that other avatars don't have names above their heads. But as soon as they start talking, you will see their names. When other people talk, what they say will also appear above their heads. Eventually, the above-head messages might disappear or be replaced, but the names remain. You can always go back and read what people said by viewing the Chat History. The Chat History window can also display messages from people who are behind you or off to the side.

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, and pressing ENTER sends your message. Then you'll see your message appear in the Chat History window.

To mute other people:

When people are speaking and you don’t want to hear any more of their messages, you can mute them. To mute someone, 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 window by changing the border between the main view window and the Chat History window. Just position the cursor over the border between the windows until you see an up-down arrow, then drag the border to the desired position.

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

The Chat History window also 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".