in the application toolbar, or choose View > Chat.
The VideoPort Chat tool allows you to send instant messages to any of your contacts any time, as long as the contact is online. For example, you can use it to make sure that your party is ready to start a videoconference, or to send and receive text notes during a conference, or to quickly exchange text messages without having to start a videoconference at all. Chat window is also used by the VideoPort System to send you important alerts and notifications, which will be displayed in the System Chat tab. Please note that you cannot respond to the System generated text messages.
To open the Chat window, click on the Chat button in the application toolbar, or choose View > Chat.
To start chatting with somebody open Chat window and click on the Send message to … button then choose your contact’s name from the list. This should open a Tab with contact’s name on it and you may type your message in the input field at the lower portion of the Chat window. To send your message click the Send chat 
button, or just hit the Enter key on your keyboard.
To start typing text on a new line in the input field use Ctrl + Enter key combination on your keyboard.
Both incoming and outgoing chat messages are displayed in the View area of the Chat window right above the input field.
Alternatively you can start Chat with your contact from the Address Book. Open your Address Book, choose the Online Users tab, right click on the contact you wish to chat with, and select Chat option.
In Group Conference, you can Chat either with selected participants, called a rivate chat, or with the whole group, called a common chat. To start a private chat, click on the Chat 
button below the video window of that participant. To share message with all group conference participants choose Common chat tab and send your message. All current conference participants will be able to see it.
To format the text of your outgoing message to bold, italic or underline, or to change its font color or size, use corresponding buttons located above the input field. To erase your text from the input field, click on the Clear Text 
button.
If your Chat window is closed, the VideoPort application will alert you of an incoming message with a blinking yellow envelop icon in the system tray. A preview incoming message is shown in a small pop-up message window in the system tray area.
Be default each incoming message is accompanied by a short chiming sound. To turn audible Chat Alert feature on or off, click on the Chat alert on/off button 
at the top of the Chat window.
Please note that chat contents are not automatically stored on your
computer. When you closing or logging out of the VideoPort application,
all your Chat correspondence gets deleted. To save contents of
a specific Chat tab, click on the Save Chat
button in the top left corner of the
Chat window. Similarly you can print contents of a specific
Chat tab by clicking on the Print chat 
button in the top
left corner of the Chat window.
To erase all contents of a specific Chat tab, click on the Clear chat 
button in the top left corner of the Chat window.
This option allows exchanging files while in a standard conference.
To start a File Transfer, click on the corresponding toolbar button 
, or choose View > File Transfer.
To add a file to a sending queue, click on the Add File button 
on the top left of the File Transfer window, then choose the file in the Windows dialog box and click OK. Note that you may choose several files using the Shift and/or Ctrl keys on your keyboard. Click on the Send Files button when you are ready to start the transmission. The chosen files will appear in the File Transfer list with a turning hourglass, and their status will be Waiting until the transfer begins (see screenshot above).
Your counterpart will receive a notification and may choose to accept or refuse reception of the file. If your counterpart accepts, the file transfer will start, the status will change to Transferring, with the transfer progress indicated as a bar diagram and a percentage, as shown below. While the transfer is in progress, both sides will see the file transfer status. When the transfer of a file is completed, the status will show as Sent. If your counterpart does not accept any or all of the files, you will get a message and you may then decide to cancel the transfer and try again later.
If your counterpart wants to transfer files to you, a blinking yellow document symbol in the system tray will alert you, and the file transfer window will come up. You will see the list of files to be transferred with their Waiting status, and you may click the 
button to accept or the 
button to reject the transfer of each file individually.
After you have accepted the transfer, the status will change to Receiving, and you will see the progress bar with a percentage of the transmitted data.
Once the file transfer has finished, you can save the received files to a location of your choice on your computer using the Save screen, as shown below.
Note: In order to avoid system resource overuse, you have to complete transfer of all pending files (or reject them) and close the Fileshare window before starting other VideoPort collaboration features.
This option allows you to show your conference party a slide-show presentation consisting of different image files. You can, for example, convert a Microsoft Power Point presentation into images and then add these images to your VideoPort slide show.
Slide-show collaboration is supported in standard (one-to-one) and group conferences.
You can use the Slide Show window even when the VideoPort main screen is minimized or while you are not in a conference. This allows you to prepare your slide show before you start conferencing with your counterparts. You can certainly add image files to the VideoPort slide show while already in conference.
To open Slide Show, click on the corresponding toolbar button 
, or choose View > Slide Show.
Click on the New icon 
to create a new slide list, or click on the Open icon 
to open a previously saved slide file. When you are done preparing your slide show, you can click on the Save icon 
to save this slide-show file for later use.
Use the Add slide(s) 
and Delete slide(s) 
icons to add slides to or delete them from your slide show. Use the Move up 
and Move down 
buttons to change the order of the slides in your slide list, which is shown in the slide list pane underneath the Move up and Move down buttons.
To start a slide-show session, simply create a list of slides by selecting slides in the slide list pane. These slides will show in the preview pane to the left of the main slide-show window, right underneath the slide list pane. Then click the Start session button. Your conference party will receive a notification and may choose to accept or refuse the start of the slide-show session.
The slide shown in the main screen of the slide-show window is the one shared with your counterpart. Send the slides in list order by clicking on the Next slide button 
. You may also double-click on any other slide in the preview pane to send that particular slide to the other participant. A single click on any of the slides shows a preview in the preview pane.
While in session, you can edit your slide list. You can add and delete slides, change their order and move slides up or down using the toolbar at the top of the slide-show window or the context menu after a mouse right-click.
If a picture is too large or too small for the slide-show screen, check the option "Fit to window", and it will resize to fit the screen.
Only one slide-show session can be active at any time. You will need to finish the current slide-show session by clicking the Stop session button before you can start a new slide-show session.
Note: VideoPort Slide Show does not allow the receiving party to save the files demonstrated by the presenter – only their "play list" - which prevents unauthorized acquisition of the presented information If the presenter is willing to share the slide show content, he or she can send the actual Slide Show file/s via Fileshare.
Note: Currently, Whiteboard collaboration is supported only for standard (one-to-one) conferences.
The Whiteboard allows conference participants to clip pictures, draw objects and type text to be shared between the participants of the video conference. You can add and delete Whiteboard pages, draw shapes, type text and emphasize items using various drawing tools.
You can insert or copy and paste images and text from other programs,, windows, and areas of your desktop to the Whiteboard. Then, you can use the Whiteboard tools to illustrate the objects further. Both conference participants can work on one document simultaneously from their remote locations.
The VideoPort Whiteboard features a multi-page capacity and extended formatting tools. Control over the Slideshow tools can be shared by both participants, or locked by one of the sides in conference.
Please note that you can prepare a Whiteboard document (add Power Point slides or copy text from a Word document) while offline and use it later in conference.
To open Whiteboard window, click on the 
button on the toolbar, or choose View > Whiteboard.
On the top of the window, you can see buttons that allow you to start a new Whiteboard file, to open an existing (previously saved) Whiteboard file, save your current file or print the Whiteboard contents.
The Tool Palette on the left side of the window shows the available tools as icon buttons. You can mouse-over any of those buttons to see a small text explaining the tool. The following tools are available: Select, Delete selected, Send to back, Bring to front, Insert text, Highlighter, Arrow, Straight line, Polyline, Freehand line, Stroked rectangle, Stroked ellipse, Filled rectangle, Filled ellipse, Insert image, Remote pointer and three different tools to capture an image (click on the little down arrow to select the tool to use): Capture screen area, Capture window and Get image from digital source.
The color palette on the bottom left part of the screen allows you to choose from various colors when drawing shapes.
The two lock icons at the bottom allow one party to prevent the other from being able to change the content of the whiteboard page (draw or insert images and text) or add/delete whiteboard pages. This control can be exchanged between the two parties at conference.
Please note that when you select the Insert text tool, there will be 2 additional buttons at the lower end of the tool palette, which offer you various Font options for your text, as well as, a Transparent fond background – see screenshot to the left.
After opening a new Whiteboard page, you can use the various tools to edit the content of that page. In the example below, we have taken a snapshot of our computer screen (pink "My Computer" image) using the Capture screen area tool and placed it onto the page. Then we have drawn a stroked rectangle and a filled ellipse in different colors, and added a text line.
When you have finished your page and would like to add another page with more elements, you may click on the Add page 
button in the lower right corner of the window to add a new page, where you can place your new elements. In the screenshot below, we have added a second page with some more shapes and text.
Please note the page control display and buttons at the bottom right of the Whiteboard window. These buttons allow you to navigate between the pages of your Whiteboard file: First, Previous, Next and Last page. The display shows the current page number and the total number of pages, i.e. 2/2 means "page no. 2 of 2 in total".
To save your Whiteboard file, click the button on the top of the window, and a standard Windows dialog box will pop up to allow you to save your file for later use.
In order to start a Whiteboard session, you have to be in a conference with another user. Open the Whiteboard window and prepare your content, open a previously prepared Whiteboard file or just be ready to make any on-the-spot content for your counterpart. When you are ready to start the Whiteboard session, click the Start session button.
Your conference counterpart will receive a pop-up window, and may accept or reject the Whiteboard session. If he or she accepts, the Whiteboard session will start, the Start session button will be grayed out and the Stop session button will be available to stop the session at any time.
The status bar will show "In conference" and "In session", and both sides will be able to work on the Whiteboard pages.
One of the users can choose to lock the controls of the whiteboard manipulation by clicking on the 
(Lock contents) button – which will prevent the other user from adding or modifying the content on the page (entering text, inserting images, drawings ,etc) or 
(Lock controls) – which will prevent the other side from making any changes to the whiteboard document, including adding new pages and moving from one page to another. The current state of the page and content controls is indicated in the status bar, as shown below.
You can transfer control to the other side by unlocking the controls. The other side can then lock the controls, and the status bar will display as shown below.
Each user has a Remote pointer feature available. After clicking on the Remote pointer tool on the toolbar, a remote pointer in the form of a pointing hand will show in the Whiteboard. Using the mouse (or other pointing device), each user can move his or her remote pointer. The two remote pointers have different colors to make them distinguishable – see screenshot below.
When you are done with your Whiteboard session, click the Stop session button. After ending the conference an application pop-up screen will ask you if you would like to save the Whiteboard document on your desktop. The other side will also receive a notification that the Whiteboard session was ended by another user and will e offered to save the Whiteboard document. You may then choose to continue your VideoPort conference or stop it also.
Screen Sharing function allows conference participants to show their computer screen in conference.
Screen sharing collaboration is supported in standard (one-to-one) and group conferences.
Screen sharing session could be started in conference by pressing respective button
on the toolbar of main program window or selecting View Screen Sharing from program menu.
If your computer has several screens, screen selection dialog will appear where you should select screen you wish to show to your parties.
In video call, screen sharing session will start only if your party agrees with it.
In group conferences, screen sharing will start immediately and all participants
will have a possibility to connect to it.
User that casts his screen is marked in conference participant list with following
icon 
.
When the screen sharing will begin, the main program window will be minimized.
Only one screen sharing session can be active at any time. You or other user needs to finish the current screen sharing session by clicking the Stop session button before he/she can start a new screen sharing session.
In the corner of screen that is shared, window is displayed to remind
about ongoing screen sharing session.
You can end session by pressing "Stop" button in this window.
When viewing someone's screen you can use "Fit width" checkbox to scale the image.
Note: Sharing of the screen is available only if screen sharing components were installed with program.