Getting Started with SunForum

With SunForum, you can participate in conferences with anyone, anywhere on the Internet or your corporate intranet. This section describes the basic steps to get you started.


Calling other people
Accepting incoming calls
Leaving a conference
Switching views in the main window
Starting application sharing
Starting the whiteboard
Starting Chat
Sending and receiving files
Configuring options

Calling Other People

To call another user, click on the Call button on the SunForum Configuration Manager, or choose Place Call on the Call menu.

When the Start Call dialog appears, enter the other person's address and click OK. The other person's address can be specified in three ways:

As the numeric IP address of their computer - for example, 123.456.78.90
As the symbolic name of their computer - for example mymachine.do.main.com (note that this requires your system to have DNS: see your system administrator for more information on configuring DNS)
By specifying a directory server and the other person's email address separated by a "/" character - for example: ils.four11.com/bob@acme.com

If the other person does not respond, the most likely reason is that they are not currently running a conferencing program.

You can also call people from a directory list, address book or history list.

If you want to keep a note of the called address for future use, ensure the "Add to address book" checkbox is selected before clicking OK. Then, in the future, the address will appear as an entry in the address book for faster access. The ten most recently added addresses are also listed on the Call menu for convenience.

You can create a local conference, which others can then join, by choosing Host Conference on the Call menu.

Accepting Incoming Calls

When someone attempts to call you, a message box will appear prompting you to accept or reject the call (unless you have configured SunForum to automatically accept incoming calls as described below).

You can block off all incoming calls by choosing Do Not Disturb from the Call menu.

You can automatically accept all incoming calls by checking the "Automatically accept incoming calls" option: see Configuring My Options.

Leaving a Conference

To leave the conference, click on the Hang Up button on the SunForum toolbar, or choose Hang Up on the Call menu.

Note: When you leave a conference, any people you invited into the conference, and any people who joined the conference by calling you, will be disconnected.

Switching Views

The main window has four different views, which can be selected by pressing one of the view buttons on the left, or by choosing one of the commands on the View menu. The views are

Directory
Address book
History
Current call

Directory

This view shows the list of users at the currently logged-on directory. See Using Directories for further details.

Address Book

The Address Book view shows a list of people whom you have called with the "add to address book" option selected (see Calling Other People, above). To call someone in the address book, double-click on the entry or press the Call button.

Current Call

The Current Call view shows the status of the conference, listing the names of the participants, their application sharing status, and whether they are running whiteboard and chat.

When a conference starts, SunForum automatically selects this view.

History

The History view shows a log of incoming calls. For each call, you can see when it was received, who it was from (for calls via a directory server), and whether you accepted or rejected it. To return a call, double-click on the entry or press the Call button.

Starting Application Sharing

To start sharing an application, press the Share button, and click on the application to share. When another conference participant shares an application, the window appears automatically on your desktop.

See also: Application Sharing

Starting the Whiteboard

To start the whiteboard, press the whiteboard button on the SunForum, or choose the Whiteboard command on the Tools menu.

The whiteboard window appears and is automatically started on the other conference participants' systems. (Equally, if somebody else in the conference starts whiteboard, it will start automatically on your system.) You can then freely exchange ideas in the form of text and graphical images.

See also: SunForum Whiteboard

Starting Chat

To start chat, press the chat button on the SunForum toolbar, or choose Chat on the Tools menu. The chat window appears. You can then exchange text messages with other conference participants running chat.

See also: SunForum Chat

Sending and Receiving Files

To send a file to everyone in the conference, press the Send File button on the toolbar, or select Send File from the Tools menu. Select a file from the file dialog, and click OK.

See also: File Transfer

Configuring SunForum options

SunForum has a number of options which can be configured. To access them, select Options from the Tools menu. Changes are saved on a per-user basis, and will take effect the next time you start SunForum.

Desktop scrolling enabled With this option on, you will be able to scroll around shared windows which are larger than your computer desktop.
Automatically join existing calls With this option on, you will not be prompted to confirm a call to a user who is already in an existing conference.
Automatically accept incoming calls With this option on, you will not be prompted to accept or reject incoming calls. Instead, all incoming calls are automatically accepted.
Use Approximate Font Matching With this option on, non-identical fonts may be matched for application sharing. This means that text output in shared applications may not be the same on all systems in the conference. However, because the full font information does not have to be transmitted, application sharing may be faster with this option on; it is therefore recommended if you are using a slow network connection (for example, a modem or the Internet).
Store Received Files in: This option specifies where received files should be stored. See the separate section on File Transfer for more information.

Copyright 1997 - 1998 Data Connection Ltd.

Copyright 1998 Sun Microsystems, Inc