The chat runs on a Windows-style desktop. The whole chat surface — conversations, tabs, messages, user list and input — lives in one window over a taskbar. The menus hang under that window's own title bar and its status bar runs along its bottom edge, the way a Windows 98 program carried its own; the desktop itself has no chrome.
The Chat Window
- Pinned — The chat window cannot be closed; it only minimizes or restores.
- Opens windowed — The chat opens centred, taking most of the desktop but never all of it, so the taskbar and anything else open stay in sight. Maximize (or double-clicking the title bar) fills the screen; you can also drag it by the title bar and resize it from any edge or corner.
- Minimize — Sends the chat to its taskbar button; click the button to bring it back.
- Named after your conversation — The title bar reads #channel[yournick] for a channel and theirnick:yournick for a private message, followed by your identity state and the member count. The taskbar button and the browser tab carry the same name, so you can tell your chat tabs apart at a glance.
Taskbar
- Every open window gets a taskbar button. Clicking a button focuses or restores its window; clicking the focused window's button minimizes it.
- Right-click a taskbar button for window commands (Restore, Minimize, Maximize, Close), or right-click an empty spot on the taskbar to arrange every open window at once: Cascade, Tile Horizontally or Vertically, and Minimize All.
- The tray at the right end of the taskbar shows a clock.
Desktop App Folders
On a desktop viewport, the wallpaper shows folder icons: About this site, with every page of the site, then the main app groups — View, Tools, Automation, P2P, Games, Account, Language and Help. Admin and System appear there only for admins. Windows and Navigate stay in the Start menu. Double-click a folder icon to open a Windows-style folder window with icons for that group. A single click only selects the desktop icon.
Inside the chat, those folder icons launch the same windows, actions and links as the Start menu. On Landing, Connect, Help and Showcase, Language and Help stay available; the other desktop app folders show a dialog explaining that you need to connect before those desktop apps can run.
A folder can hold folders of its own: Retro Games and Arcade hold one per category of game. Each opens a window of its own, where every game shows with a screenshot, and gets a taskbar button like any other window.
Start Menu
The Start button opens the same base menu on every screen, grouped into View, Tools, Automation, P2P, Games, Account, Windows, Navigate, Language and Help, with Disconnect at the bottom. Entries you cannot use right now are grayed out rather than hidden. Admin and System are shown only in the chat when you are an admin.
On a Phone
On a narrow screen the desktop shows one window at a time: the current window fills the screen like a phone app. Its menu bar shrinks to a row of icons — one per menu, tapping one opens it — and the Start button and taskbar stay put; tap a taskbar button to switch between your open windows. The same happens on a wide screen if you drag the window narrower than its menus need. Windows can't be dragged, resized, minimized or maximized on a phone; you just open, switch and close them. Dialogs and forms fill the screen too, so they always fit.
Layout Persistence
The window layout — position, size, maximized state — is remembered while the page is open, so moving between screens keeps it. Reloading starts from the default layout again.