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.


	Setting up initial configuration
	Calling other people
	Accepting incoming calls
	Leaving a conference
	Hosting a conference
	Switching views in the main window
	Using Speeddials
	Starting application sharing
	Starting the whiteboard
	Starting Chat
	Sending and receiving files
	Configuring SunForum options
	Control video in the conference
	Control audio in the conference
	Starting a call - Advanced Options
	Resetting SunForum Configuration Options
	Stopping Sunforum

Setting up initial configuration

When you start SunForum for the first time, you see a dialog box asking for information about you as a SunForum user. This information is used by SunForum to allow you to call other people and receive incoming calls, or to identify you at a directory server.

You will need to fill in this information before you can use SunForum. You can change this information later if
necessary, by selecting the Change My Information... command on the Call menu.

The "My Information" dialog contains the following fields:

First Name, Last Name Specify the name that will be displayed to identify you to other people in a conference.

E-mail Address Specify your e-mail address.

Telephone number Specify the telephone number used to contact you as a SunForum user.

City, Country Specify your location.

Comments Specify any other information you want to describe how you use SunForum. This information is used by NetMeeting users to narrow down the list of names they see when querying a directory server.

Category Specify how you use SunForum. This information is used by users to narrow down the list of names they see when querying a directory server.

At startup, log on to the directory server If you want SunForum to automatically log on to a directory server when it starts, select this option and type the name of the directory server you want to log on to in the "Server Name" field.
The next time you start SunForum, it will log on to the directory server you specified.

Do not list my name when logged on to the directory server If you do not wish to be visible to other users when logging on at a directory server, select this option.
The next time you log on to a directory server, your details will not be displayed to other people logged on to the server. However, anyone who knows your e-mail address can still call you using the directory server.
If you are currently logged on and visible when you select this option, SunForum automatically updates your entry at the directory server and makes you invisible.

After you have filled in this information and clicked OK, SunForum starts the Configuration Wizard. This takes you through the steps of setting up your audio and video devices for use with SunForum. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete this setup.

You can run the Configuration Wizard again later if necessary (for example if you change your audio or video hardware, or if you have a problem with your audio or video). To do this, select Configuration Wizard from the Tools menu.

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 Place 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: namebase.com/bob@acme.com

As a gatekeeper alias (for example a telephone number) if you are registered with a gatekeeper

This dialog also includes a group of "advanced options", which you can use to control the way the call is set up for example when using an H.323 gateway or a conference server). In most cases, you will not need to change the settings of these options. You can use the Show Advanced Options button to display the settings of these options, or the Hide Advanced Options button to hide these options if they are already displayed on the screen. For more information on setting advanced options, see Starting a Call - Advanced Options.

If the other person is already in a conference, a message box appears to warn you about this, so that you can cancel joining the conference if necessary. You can override the display of this message box so that you will always join the conference without being prompted, by checking the "Automatically join existing calls" option: see Configuring SunForum Options.

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, history list, speeddial, or Call menu list. The Call menu list stores the 10 most recently called addresses for convenience.

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. You can override the display of this message box in one of two ways:

You can block off all incoming calls by selecting the "Do Not Disturb" option on the Call menu. In this case, the other person sees a message box informing them that you did not accept the call (as though you saw the message box and rejected the call). You do not see any notification of the call, but it is listed in the log of incoming calls (see History) as "Ignored".
You can automatically accept all incoming calls by checking the "Automatically accept incoming calls" option: see Configuring SunForum 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. A message box appears when you choose Hang Up to remind you of this, so that you can cancel leaving the conference if necessary.

Hosting a conference

If you are using conferencing to provide a service for others to use, you can create a local conference without calling any other users. For example, you may want to set up your desktop in advance of a regular scheduled conference, so that the appropriate applications are shared and the other users will be able to access them as soon as they join the conference.

To create a local conference, choose the Host Conference command on the Call menu. Other users can then join and leave the conference as required.

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

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 and whether they are using a conferencing product that supports audio and video. To view more information about a conference participant, right-click with the mouse on his or her name, and choose "Properties". This gives you details of the person's email address, IP address, and computer name.

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.

Using Speeddials

Speeddials are a convenient way of storing addresses and exchanging them with other conferencing users. You can use speeddials in the following ways.

Create a speeddial to send to other people so that they can call you easily. To do this:

Select Call, Create SpeedDial.
If you want other people to call you through a directory server, select Directory. If you want them to call you directly, select Network.
Press Fill my details. Your address will appear in the Address field.
Select Save in home directory and press OK.

A speeddial file is created in your home directory. If you selected Network as the calling method, the speeddial will have the name "myname.cnf" (where myname is your user name). If you selected Directory it will have the name "directory_myname.cnf" (where directory is the name of the directory you are logged on to, and myname is your user name). You can send this to other people, who can then use it to call you (see below).

Call someone using a speeddial they have sent you. If another user has sent you a speeddial, you can use it to call him or her as follows:

Save the speeddial file you have been sent in a directory on your computer.
Start File Manager.
Navigate to the directory in which you saved the speeddial.
Double-click on the speeddial.

SunForum will start (if it is not already running) and call the other person.

Alternatively, you can invoke the speeddial from the command line. Start SunForum using the following command:

sunforum -speeddial speeddial_file_name

Replace speeddial_file_name with the full pathname of the speeddial file to use.

SunForum will start (if it is not already running) and call the other person.

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.

Controlling Video

If you have a camera attached to your computer for use with SunForum, and you are in a conference where other people are using conferencing products that support video, you can see other conference participants in windows on your screen, and they can see you. The video support may be either multipoint (you can see one other person at a time), depending on the conferencing products being used. For more information, see Working With Other Conferencing Products.

The following windows provide the video display:

My Video Shows you as you appear in a window on another person's screen.

User Name Shows another person in a multipoint conference. There is a separate window for each person in the conference who is actively sending video to you in a multipoint conference.

At the bottom of each of these windows, a text message indicates the current status of the video window while a button allows one to control the video as follows:

If the video status is "Sending", the Pause button is shown. Click on this button to pause the video display. When you pause the display, a "freeze frame" image of the person appears in the window and the status message becomes "Paused".

If the video status is "Paused", the Play button is shown. Click on this button to activate the video display. When you activage the display, video is restarted and the status message becomes "Sending".

You can choose which of these windows are displayed on your screen: choose the Video option on the Tools menu, and click on an entry for the window you want to display or stop displaying. For a multipoint call, the windows for other people in the call are listed under Display Others. Alternatively, you can close a displayed window by clicking on the Close button for the window.

For more information on how to control video display, see SunForum Audio and Video.

Controlling Audio

If you are in a conference where other people are using conferencing products that support audio, you can talk and listen to other conference participants. The audio support may be either multipoint (you can hear and talk to everyone in the conference at the same time, as in a telephone conference call) or point-to-point (you can hear and talk to one other person at a time, as in a standard telephone call), depending on the conferencing products being used. For more information, see Working With Other Conferencing Products.

The Audio panel at the top of the main window indicates whether audio is being used, as follows:

If your voice is being played to other people, a tick appears in the checkbox to the left of the Microphone icon. Click on the checkbox to stop other users hearing your voice.

If other people's voices are being played on your system, a tick appears in the checkbox to the left of the the Speaker icon. Click on the checkbox to stop listening to other users.

For more information on how to control audio, see SunForum Audio and Video.

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.

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.

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.

Configuring SunForum options

SunForum has a number of options which can be configured. You access them from the Options menu. Changes are saved on a per-user basis, and will take effect the next time you start SunForum. The option choices are the following:

	Call Settings	Select this item to bring up the Call Settings dialog. This dialog is used to configure options for making and answering calls.
	Tool Settings	Select this item to bring up the Tool Settings dialog. This dialog is used to configure general options for the SunForum Tools.
	Audio/Video Settings	Select this item to bring up the Audio/Video Settings dialog. This dialog is used to configure Audio/Video calling parameters.
	Audio/Video Device Settings	Select this item to bring up the Audio/Video Settings dialog. This dialog is used to configure the Audio and Video devices to be use by SunForum.

Any changes that you make take effect immediately, and are saved so that they will be used the next time you start DC-Share. Changes affect only your copy of DC-Share (not any others in the conference).

If you have problems with your DC-Share configuration, you can reset all of these options to
their default settings and start again; see Resetting DC-Share Configuration Options
for more information.

Configuring Call Setting options

SunForum has a number of options that allow the user to customize how SunForum initiates a call or answers a call. You access them by selecting the "Call Settings" item from the Options menu. The option choices are the following: Beep on incoming calls

	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.
	Beep on incoming calls	If this option is selected, you will be notified of an incoming call by an audible beep from your workstation's speaker.
	At call start: Share Clipboard	With this option on, your clipboard will automatically be shared with others in the conference.
	At call start: Send video	With this option on, you automatically transmit your video when the call is started.If this option is not selected, your video is paused by default.
	Periodically refresh directory listing	With this option on, the directory listing will be periodically refreshed at a rate you sepecify the on the slider located in the dialog.

Configuring Tool Setting options

SunForum has a number of general options that allow the user to customize how the SunForum Tools. You access them by selecting the "Tool Settings" item from the Options menu. The option choices are the following:

	Sharing options: Enable esktop scrolling:	If this option is selected, and you are in a conference with another computer that has a desktop larger than yours, you will be able to scroll around the complete shared desktop to view all windows. See Conferencing between Different Sized Desktops for more information. If this option is not selected, you will see only the top left-hand corner of the larger desktop, and will not be able to access windows or parts of windows that do not fit on your display.
	Sharing options: Approximately match fonts:	When two computers in a conference are running different operating systems, they may not have the same fonts available. This means that, when text output in shared applications is transferred between these computers, font information may have to be transferred as well as the text if the target computer does not have the font that was used on the source computer. If this option is selected, SunForum uses a similar font from those available on the target computer if an exact match is not available. This means that text output in shared applications may not have the same appearance on all systems in the conference. However, because the full font information does not have to be transmitted, application sharing may be faster; this option is therefore recommended if you are using a slow network connection (for example, a modem or the Internet). If this option is not selected, font information is transferred with the text if an exact match is not available. This means that text output in shared applications has the same appearance on all systems in the conference. However, application sharing may be slower.
	Load Whiteboard in:	This option specifies whether the Whiteboard operates in T.126 mode or in Proprietary mode. See the separate section on Whiteboard for more information. If the Whiteboard is already running when you change this option, it continues to operate in the existing mode, but you can then start a second copy of the Whiteboard which will operate in the new mode.
	Compatibility mode:	This option specifies whether SunForum operates in standards based T.120 mode or in a mode compatible with NetMeeting version 3. You should only select NetMeeting 3 mode when you intend joining a conference with a machine running NetMeeting 3 (in which case all other instances of SunForum in the conference must also be set to NetMeeting 3 mode). In all other cases (including conferences with earlier versions of NetMeeting) you should select T.120 mode. Note that if you change this setting then you will need to restart SunForum in order for the new setting to take effect.
	Store Received Files in:	This option specifies where received files should be stored. See the separate section on File Transfer for more information.
	Browser name:	This option specifies the browser to be used for viewing the online help and documentation.

Configuring Audio/Video Setting options

SunForum allows the user to customize how SunForum processes Audio and Video. You access them by selecting the "Audio/Video Settings" item from the Options menu. For more information see Setting Audio/Video options

Configuring Audio/Video Setting options

SunForum allows the user to configure the audio and video devices used in conferencing. You access them by selecting the "Audio/Video Device Settings" item from the Options menu. For more information see Setting Audio/Video device options

Starting a Call - Advanced Options

When you are starting a call, you can configure how the call is set up by selecting one or more "advanced
options" in the Start Call dialog box. If these options are not shown in the dialog box, click on the Show Advanced Options button to display them.

Join a named meeting

If you specified the address of a conference server in the Address field, and you know the name of the conference you want to join at that server, click on the checkbox to choose this option, and type the conference name in the edit box. If you do not specify a conference name and there are two or more conferences in progress at the server, SunForum will prompt you with a list of conference names so that you can select the correct one.

Use H.323 gateway

If you are calling through an H.323 gateway, click on the checkbox to choose this option, and type the gateway name in the edit box. In this case, the name you specify in the Address field should be an identifier understood by that gateway (not necessarily a full address).

Note: When you start a call to another person, SunForum normally provides multipoint audio/video support if the other person is using a conferencing product that supports it. If the other person's conferencing product provides only point-to-point audio/video support, SunForum sets up the conference in point-to-point mode.

In some cases you may want to override this behavior and start the conference explicitly in point-to-point mode. You must do this if you are starting the conference by calling someone who has multipoint support, but other people who will be joining the conference later have only point-to-point support. For more information, see Setting Audio/Video Options.

Resetting SunForum Configuration Options

If you are having problems with your SunFOrum configuration, you may want to reset all the configuration options to their default values. To do this:

Make sure that SunForum is not running; see Stopping SunForum for more information.
Type the following command at the UNIX command prompt:

/opt/SUNWdat/config/reset-user-config

Restart SunForum.

Stopping SunForum

To stop SunForum, choose the Exit command on the Call menu.

If Run In Background has been selected in the Call menu, then the main window is removed but the SunForum process remains running, continually monitoring for incoming calls. When a call is received the main window is automatically redisplayed and the conference proceeds as normal.

In order to shut down SunForum completely, ensure that Run In Background is unselected in the Call menu
before choosing the Exit command.

	First Name, Last Name	Specify the name that will be displayed to identify you to other people in a conference.
	E-mail Address	Specify your e-mail address.
	Telephone number	Specify the telephone number used to contact you as a SunForum user.
	City, Country	Specify your location.
	Comments	Specify any other information you want to describe how you use SunForum. This information is used by NetMeeting users to narrow down the list of names they see when querying a directory server.
	Category	Specify how you use SunForum. This information is used by users to narrow down the list of names they see when querying a directory server.
	At startup, log on to the directory server	If you want SunForum to automatically log on to a directory server when it starts, select this option and type the name of the directory server you want to log on to in the "Server Name" field. The next time you start SunForum, it will log on to the directory server you specified.
	Do not list my name when logged on to the directory server	If you do not wish to be visible to other users when logging on at a directory server, select this option. The next time you log on to a directory server, your details will not be displayed to other people logged on to the server. However, anyone who knows your e-mail address can still call you using the directory server. If you are currently logged on and visible when you select this option, SunForum automatically updates your entry at the directory server and makes you invisible.

	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: namebase.com/bob@acme.com
	As a gatekeeper alias (for example a telephone number) if you are registered with a gatekeeper

My Video	Shows you as you appear in a window on another person's screen.
*User Name*	Shows another person in a multipoint conference. There is a separate window for each person in the conference who is actively sending video to you in a multipoint conference.

	If the video status is "Sending", the Pause button is shown. Click on this button to pause the video display. When you pause the display, a "freeze frame" image of the person appears in the window and the status message becomes "Paused".
	If the video status is "Paused", the Play button is shown. Click on this button to activate the video display. When you activage the display, video is restarted and the status message becomes "Sending".

	If your voice is being played to other people, a tick appears in the checkbox to the left of the Microphone icon. Click on the checkbox to stop other users hearing your voice.
	If other people's voices are being played on your system, a tick appears in the checkbox to the left of the the Speaker icon. Click on the checkbox to stop listening to other users.