Starting GnomeICU opens the Main window, shown in Figure 1.
Contact List — In the Main window, you see a list of people (or "contacts") which is called a "Contact List". Those are usually people you know and wish to remain in contact with (also called 'buddy list' in similar instant messaging applications).
Status — When a user is not connected to ICQ, his/her status is Offline. When a user is connected to ICQ, his/her status is one of the following: Online (which means you may contact the user), Free For Chat, Away (which means the user is currently away from the computer), N/A (which means the user is about to be away from the computer for a long time), Occupied, Do Not Disturb and Invisible.
The icons besides each name show the person's status. The Contact List contains an Online tab, which contains only online contacts, an Offline tab which contains only offline contacts and an optional Not In List tab, which contains users which sent you messages and are not in your contact list.
Invisible user — By setting your status to Invisible, others would not know you went online until you send them an event (e.g. a message, a chat request etc.). If you see a user with an Invisible status, that means the other user in Invisible mode and either has contacted you or has you in his/her Visible List.
Most ICQ operations can be performed by right-clicking a contact and picking an item from the popup menu, shown in Figure 2.
Performing ICQ operations with the keyboard only: You can perform most ICQ operations with the keyboard by selecting a contact from the list with the Up and Down buttons, and then pressing Alt-Space to open the popup menu and selecting a menu item with the Up and Down keys.
To add a contact to your list, see the Section called Adding a Contact.
To send a message over ICQ, see the Section called Sending a Message
To send a file over ICQ, see the Section called Sending a File.
To send a URL over ICQ, see the Section called Sending a URL.
To chat with someone over ICQ, see the Section called Chatting.
GnomeICU comes with a panel applet, shown in Figure 3. This panel applet shows your current status and the number of users currently online in your contact list. Clicking this panel applet brings up the main window if it is hidden, or hides if it is visible.
When a message is received, the panel applet's icon changes from the regular status icon to an icon representing the type of message received (see Figure 4). The number besides it now shows how many messages are unread.
Applet tooltips: Try moving your mouse cursor over the GnomeICU panel applet for few seconds to receive quick information about the status (without clicking or opening any windows). As soon as you move the mouse cursor away from the applet, the "tooltip" dispappers. In regular mode, you could see the list of people in your contact list which are currently online.
The menu bar, located at the top of the Main Window, contains the following menus:
This menu contains:
Add Contact — this command brings up the Add Contact dialog, which allows a user to add a contact to their contact list.
Connection History — this command brings up the Connection History dialog, showing a list of network transactions which occured during the ICQ session. It is not the regular Message History and contains information which is not useful to the average user.
Preferences... — this command brings up the Preferences dialog, which allows you to configure GnomeICU.
Change User Info — this command brings up the User Information dialog, which allows you to add and change your personal information in the ICQ user directory.
Hide Main Window — this command hides the main window. Clicking the panel applet brings the main window back again.
Exit — this command exits the program and removes the GnomeICU applet from the GNOME panel.
This menu contains:
Ignore List — this command brings up the ignore list dialog, which allows users to add contacts to their ignore list.
Visible List — this command brings up the visible list dialog, which allows users to add contacts to their visible list.
Invisible List — this command brings up the invisible list dialog, which allows users to add contacts to their invisible list.
Online Notify List — this command brings up the online notify list dialog, which allows users to add contacts to their online notify list.
This menu contains:
GnomeICU Documentation — shows this manual.
About — shows general information about GnomeICU, such as the authors' names and the application version number.