# The &kit; Handbook

Neil Stevens

    neil@qualityassistant.com

1999 2000 2001 2002 Neil Stevens
&FDLNotice;
2002-04-08
1.30.00

&kit; is an &AOL; chat program for &kde;.

KDE kdenetwork Kit chat IM AIM

## Introduction

The documentation for &kit; was incomplete when &kde; was installed on this computer.

If you need help, please check The &kde; Website for updates, or by submitting your question to The &kde; User Mailing list.

The &kde; Team

## Initial Configuration

When you first start &kit;, you will be asked to configure some basic preferences. A dialog will ask you `Would you like to create a profile?`, to which you can answer Yes or No. Let us assume you answer yes to this question.

The next question you are asked is `Would you like to go to &AOL; and create a new account?`. If you already have an &AOL; Instant Messenger (AIM) account, you should press the No button.

## Preferences

About the Preferences dialog

### User Information

Here you can add your password, and customize how you appear to other users.

Screen Name

  Here you can enter your screen name or nickname.

Password

  Enter your password here. &kit; needs this to connect to the server. The password is not echoed as you type it, and is not visible afterwards.

Save Password

  If you enable this option, &kit; will remember your password for you between sessions, so you don't have to type it. Your password is not saved anywhere in a human readable form, however saving passwords is always at your discretion. If you are using a publicly accessible computer, or you share your user account with another family member, you probably should not save the password.

  If you disable this option, &kit; will ask you for the password any time it is needed, for example when connecting to the server.

User Information

  Here you can enter any information you want people to see when they look you up in the buddy list.

### Buddy Lists

Buddies are people you talk to on &AOL;. You probably want &kit; to keep a watch for these people, so you know when they are connected, and can send a message to them.

You can also set up groups, for example Work buddies and Home buddies. All buddies must be in a group, and every group must have one item at least. When you create a group it'll prompt you for a buddy to add to it.

Choose the Add and type the name of the group you are setting up into the dialog box that appears. You can press Clear to start over in the dialog, Cancel if you change your mind about adding a group and wish to exit, or more likely, OK to close the dialog and add your group.

If you want to remove a group, select it in the list, and press Remove. You can change the name of the group with Rename.

Once you have a group, you need to populate it with buddies. This works in the same way as adding groups.

Select the group you wish to add a buddy to in the Groups list, and press the Add button in the Group Members list. Type in the name of the buddy you wish to add in the resulting dialog. Again you can Clear, Cancel or accept (with OK your change.)

### Permissions

It is a fact of life on the Internet that not everyone is worth talking to. In this page you can set up lists of who has permission to talk to you, and who does not.

The default setting is to allow any incoming conversations, with Permit All selected. You could also choose to disallow anyone from starting a conversation with you, by selecting Deny All. In this case, you will have to initiate all conversations.

A slightly less tough setting is to Add people you don't mind talking with to your Permit List, and select Use Permit List. In this case, anyone in the list will be able to chat with you, but others will not.

An even more permissive choice is to Add people who you definitely don't want to talk with to your Deny List, and choose Use Deny List. In this case, anyone will be able to chat with you except for the people specifically added to the list. This is a good setting if you are being bothered by someone, you simply won't see their attempts to talk anymore. It is the equivalent of a kill-file on Usenet, or `ignore` on IRC.

Whichever you choose, you can Add and Remove nicknames from your lists at any time.

### Away Messages

If someone tries to talk to you, or looks up your information, and you have set yourself Away, they will see a short message. You can use this, for example, to let others know when you intend to be back, or alternate means of contacting you urgently

You can have several messages preconfigured. You might for example set up a message with the Name Lunch containing the text Out for lunch, back at 1 PM CST, and another message named Bed that says It's late, I'm going to bed now, see you tomorrow.

To add the Lunch message above, you would press Add and type `Lunch` in the dialog, then OK to save it. Now you can select Lunch in the Name list, and type your text in the Message field.

You can rename messages with the Rename button and remove them with the Remove button.

Now when you set yourself away, you can choose one of your preconfigured messages, instead of having to type the reason every time.

### Main Window

This is where you can customize the behavior of the main window, where you have your buddy list.

You can choose which of the available columns of information to display from these:

Idle Time

  The time since this person last sent a message (to anyone). This may be an indication that they are not at their computer, or not watching.

User Class

  There are four classes of user that could be displayed here:

  - &AOL; User
  - Trial AIM User
  - Registered AIM User
  - Admin
Warning Level

  It's a percentage. If someone send you a message and you want them to stop, you can warn them. The more someone gets warned the higher the level is. High levels prevent people from talking as much. Warning level goes down over time.

Signon Time

  The time this person connected to the network.

Nickname

  If you see only a number in the buddy list window, enable this, in order to be able to add a nickname.

Next you can choose how your buddies are grouped, in the Show Buddies by section. The choices are to display them based on their Group so all members of a group are shown together, or to display them based on Status, so all people who are set away are together, all those online are together, &etc;.

### Chat Windows

On this page you can customize how chat windows behave.

The first option is if you wish to Log Chats or not. If you enable this, a record of your conversation is saved to a file on your hard drive. This is common practice, and very useful for some conversations, for example, if you are looking up a friendly &kde; developer to ask a question, you might want to record their advice. It is less useful, and potentially embarrassing, for personal conversations, so use with discretion, especially if other people have access to your computer. If enabled, logs are saved to `$`KDEHOME`/share/apps/Kit/your screen name/buddy's screen name in lowercase>.html`

You can also choose whether or not a time is printed next to each message, with the Timestamp Chats option. This is normally very useful, and is on by default. With this option enabled, you can see what time someone left you a message, or tried to open a conversation with you, if you weren't at your computer at the time.

Normally, &kit;, like other &AOL; messaging clients, uses HTML to format the messages. If you are connecting to a non-&AOL; server (for example, ICQ) this is very annoying, since those clients will show the raw HTML instead of formatting the text with it. If you have complaints that people you are chatting with are getting garbage in their clients, you an enable this option, and turn off the HTML.

Finally, you can customize the formatting of your own messages. Used in moderation, this can be fun, but do remember that not everyone has your taste in colors, and cyan text on a blue background is probably not a good idea. Just press the colored button next to the Text Color or Background Color labels to change the color of the text and backgrounds respectively. You can also make the text Bold

### Network

On this page you can customize how &kit; connects to the server.

Keep Connection Alive

  Send a packet now and then to the server, to keep the connection active. Sometimes if you don't do this, the connection will close. If you find yourself being disconnected on a regular basis, try enabling this option.

Automatically Connect on Startup

  Connect to the server immediately when &kit; is started. You may want to disable this option if you are not permanently connected to the Internet. Then you can start &kit; automatically with &kde;, without it trying to connect. If you have a permanent connection, you probably will have this option enabled.

Specify custom server, rather than default (AOL) server

  &kit; may be able to connect to other networks than &AOL;, if they use TOC as their protocol. In the past it was possible to use &kit; to connect to ICQ for example. The default is to leave this option disabled, and connect directly to &AOL;

TOC Server and port

  If you have selected to specify a custom server, enter its address (as an IP number, or hostname) into the first field, and the port to connect to into the second.

Authorization server

  If you have selected to specify a custom server, enter the address of the authorization server to use into the first field, and the port to connect to into the second.

## Profiles

About profiles

## Menu Reference

### The File Menu

File Online

  Connect to the network and mark yourself as online (available to chat.)

File Away...

  Mark yourself as away (not available to chat.)

File Offline

  Disconnect from the network.

File Open Chat

  Open a chat window with a person on your buddy list.

File Change Password...

  Change your password for this service, on the server.

File Search Directory

  Search the directory for a friend.

File Exit

  Exit &kit;

### The Settings Menu

Settings Preferences...

  Open the preferences dialog where you can configure &kit;. See the Preferences section for more information.

Settings Profiles...

  Opens the profiles dialog where you may choose another profile to log in with. See the Profiles section for more information.

### The Help Menu

&help.menu.documentation;

## Credits and Licenses

&kit; copyright 1999-2002 Neil Stevens neil@qualityassistant.com.

Contributors

- Benjamin Meyer - Password Changing

Documentation copyright 2002, Lauri Watts

&underGPL; &underFDL;

## Installation

&install.intro.documentation;

&kit; is also available from its own homepage, http://kitclient.sourceforge.net.

&install.compile.documentation;
&documentation.index;