Contact Management

All about Contact Management, how to get your various contacts in your various agents ALL in myJabber! Someone says, "Hey Add me to your AIM" (or whatever), this is the step by step. Remember that most of these options can also be reached by right clicking on the contacts name in the Roster.

Figure 1 Contacts

The way to the contact manager is through the myJabber Menu Item. Most of these should just make sense to all but we will briefly cover them.
Add Contact: This opens the add contact dialog allowing you to add your buddies to your Roster (Key Board short cut is Ctrl+A)
Delete Contact: This will remove the selected contact from your roster (careful with this one, it's permanent!)
Block Contact: You can block pesky contacts that won't leave you be, (like the boss, that brown nose in accounting or Canadian Business partners)

UnBlocking Contacts: To unblock  the contact you originally had blocked right click on the contact you had blocked and click unblock contact()
Search:  With this nifty Tool you can search your local user Data Base or the "Main" Database at jabber.net. (this is dependant on what data bases the system admin or the situation allows)
Properties:  This opens a screen very much like the add contact dialog that allows you to change SOME aspects of the contact's information:
Message: This will open a blank message dialog to the selected user.  A message can be sent whether or not the user is on line.
Chat:: This opens a blank Chat dialog to the selected contact (Key board shortcut is F3)
Send File: This opens the Send File dialog to the selected contact. This button is here for future use at this time we do not have file transfer.
V-Card: This brings up the contact's Virtual Business Card. This contains Information on the contact:
Last Seen: This will give you a dialog containing when the user was last logged into the same server as you.
Add Contact Group: This allows you to build groups in your roster that will help you sort the contacts into their respective groups, Aim, ICQ, Work Buddies, Family, etc...

Note: because of their nature, Chat and Messaging have their own section, HERE

Figure 2 Add myJabber User

 

 

The Add Contact dialog is quite simple to use, intuitive and straight forward...OK OK...Lets look it over
Gateway:  This screen defaults to myJabber user.  The subsequent entry boxes will change to reflect the choice made.
User ID (UID): This is the contacts user screen name. The modern myJabber server will even allow for spaces in the name.

Nick Name: This is one of the neat parts in myJabber, lets say your contact has a nauseating Screen Name like "Office Fun Guy" and you would really rather list him as "Spineless Weasel in Marketing". Go right ahead...I guess you could put his or her real name there... but what fun would that be?

Reason: This is the reason that you have sent this communication in the first place. The default, "Subscription Request" has served me quite well, but you may edit this to anything you like.

 

Figure 2.1 Add Transport Contact:

The Add Contact dialog is quite simple to use, intuitive and straight forward...OK OK...Lets look it over
Gateway:  This is the transport you wish to add the contact to, in the example to the left I have Chosen the AIM Transport from the drop down menu. The subsequent entry boxes will change to reflect the choice made.
Aim ID: This is the contacts AIM Screen Name. The modern Jabber server will even allow for spaces in the name.
Nick Name: This is one of the neat parts in myJabber, lets say your contact has a nauseating Screen Name like "Office Fun Guy" and you would really rather list him as "Spineless Weasel in Marketing". Go right ahead...I guess you could put his or her real name there... but what fun would that be?
Reason: This is the reason that you have sent this communication in the first place., The default, " Subscription Request"   has served me quite well, but you may edit this to anything you like.
Contact Groups: A check mark here on the right will place this new contact in the proper Roster area, AIM Users in this case, of course, this particular block of instruction assumes that you have already fully configured your chat client to your liking and have built all the Contact Groups you need. If not then the construction of these groups will be covered fully  in a few moments in the section called (of all things) Add Contact Group.

Other Contacts (Aim, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo)
This is a  just a little bit of additional information on using the various Gateways available though the myJabber client. I'm going to break them up a bit because they behave a bit differently. First off, adding any contact is all done the same way, as described in the Adding Contacts section, it's their behavior the we will look at.

AIM and ICQ do nothing really strange, add them, get them in the right group and you're finished.
MSN and Yahoo act pretty much the same way EXCEPT in one instance, When you decide to stop using the MSN or Yahoo clients, and add the gateway to the myJabber client manually. MSN and Yahoo store your contact list in their own databases, when you add the gateway manually, the servers will FORCE FEED the contact list to you. This will make a real mess in your roster and you will have to clean it up via the Contact Properties  dialog.
 

Figure 3 Delete Contact:

So why would you Want to delete a contact? Lots of reasons! That person is no longer speaking to you through any medium, you are no longer speaking to that person through any medium,  you nor anyone else has heard from that person in at least ten whole years,  you were transferred to the Cleveland Office and no one in Podunk will speak to you at all now or (more reasonable) you were part of a special project group and now that it's done, you can't wait to get those engineers out of your roster.

Figure 4 Block Contact

Yes Blocking works in myJabber, works quite well in fact. If I had clicked that "Yes" Steve would have to call me to get in touch with me... well that's not QUITE true... but you get the idea.

 We have found the major question that arises from this feature is not what it does, everyone understands that, it's HOW to UNDO IT! If you inadvertently block someone you did not mean to block, it CAN be undone. (Don't Panic) This operation has to be done in  the Tools/Options/Contact Blocking screen. See this section for more details on unblocking a Contact.

Figure 4.1 Unblocking Contact

To unblock  the contact you originally had blocked right click on the contact you had blocked and click unblock contact()

Figure 5 Search

Search is one of the features that makes myJabber and it's family of clients so powerful in the corporate environment. An internal server, setup to only serve a local Intranet, can have it's own Private Database containing employee contact information, both personal and business data putting all coworkers within easy reach of each other. Of course the downside is you have to Actually ENTER information into a V-Card in order to show up in the Database. (That's the first step in the myJabber Account setup Wizard after log on.)

Search is amazingly simple to use, using any of five known search criteria's to find  the person you are looking for. The very top option, "Transport" is used to set the database you wish to search. In this case, the local User Directory at myJabber.net. The entry "A" got me 103 results, with Amy Connors showing up in there at number three. A right click on the name and I get a short menu with three Items.
Add User: This allows you to add the selected contact though the Add Contact Utility
Message: This Will open a blank Message dialog. to the selected user.
V-Card: This will show you the users V-Card (virtual business card)  If you Click this and DON'T get a result, most likely it means the user never filled their V-Card out.
 

Figure 6 Properties

This somewhat familiar dialog (Add Contact) is the Contact properties dialog. This allows you to make one or two  changes to the Contact's Roster entry.
User ID (UID): this is the server designation for the contact, you can not change this except to delete the contact
Nick Name: This is a changeable entry. This can be anything you like
Status: This shows the Contact's status on the server, this is data reflected directly from the server and can not be changed.
Contact Groups: This is a changeable entry. You can move the contact from one group to another right here.

Hint: If you leave  the check in the group you moved the contact from, they will appear in both groups.
After any changes are made, click to save the change and exit the dialog

Message and Chat are covered Here

Figure 7 Send File:

This is the myJabber "Send File" dialog. (This can also be reached by right clicking the contact in the Roster)
Client to Client in the server or indeed the jabber network overall is very well done.
Unmarked: This is your "target" contact. The pull down arrow in the right hand side of the box will allow you to choose the contact from the roster.
Nick Name: This is the listed nick name for the "target contact"
File name: This is the Windows path to the file you wish to send. The handy "browse" button at the end of the box makes it easy to search though your hard drive for what you wish to send.
URL: This is where file transfers can get tricky, If you are connected to the WEB via a dialup connection or even broadband (Cable or DSL) and your machine "HAS" the modem connected directly to it, this URL will reflect your public IP address and the name of the file you are sending.
Example: http://207.244.0.98:port/yourfile.zip. This address would successfully work, however you will note in the example image given here, the URL is a Class A IP address (Private and none routable) This is due to that fact that here in my home office I am behind a NAT firewall. This complicates the task to a degree. I have written a section for "Advanced Users" on how this will have to be done on our Proxy Page and will expand some on the FAQ page

Figure 8 V-Card:

This is the dialog that shows up when you request the Contact's V-Card

I feel the options here should be self explanatory to anyone. The five different tabs reflect the information contained on each.

If you display the V-Card for another person the Update button does not show because you cannot update another person's V-Card.

Figure 9 Last Seen

To check when the last time your friend was seen on your server, right click on their name go, to client request and last seen.  You will notice a small envelope will appear in the lower left corner of your myJabber screen.  The information is now on your message screen. To view click the blue arrow it will expand your main myJabber screen to show the message board where you can read the last seen as well as any messages that have been sent to you via your contacts in myJabber. Example of the full screen below.  To return the screen to a condensed version again just click on the blue arrow and it will return your screen to normal size

Add Contact Group

Shown is the Add Contact Group dialog. It's use is best explained with a couple of examples:
Example 1: Your manager at work has informed you that you will be involved in a special project group along with several other coworkers spread though out the company. You are instructed to stay in contact and be available to these coworkers though out the duration of the project. Given a list of these folks and their contact information, you add them to your roster. Because you are an organized kind of person you decide to create a group just for them. Right click on the contact, (or highlighting and choosing "Add Contact Group" from the contacts menu), you fill an appropriate name for  the group and click . That's it! Group created! Each subsequent contact can be assigned to the new group as they are added, or known contacts can have their properties edited and moved into the group that way.

Note: The transport that the contact is using makes no difference when assigning them to a group, you could have members of all known gateways in a single group.

Example 2: The project is finished and you want to remove the group from your roster. This is simple, using the properties of the contacts, just move all of the contacts from the group, back to the group they should be in, or just delete them. After the group is empty it will just "go away" the next time you start the client.