RetroHexChat has one desktop. The chat lives on it, and so does every page of the site. A page opens as a set of windows over the chat, one for each of its sections, laid out in a cascade with the page's first window in front; the help, a public archive, an invitation and the Connect window open as one window each. Moving between them never reloads the page — the chat keeps running behind whatever you are reading.
Finding the Pages
- The desktop icons — Before you sign in, every page has an icon of its own on the desktop: Welcome, How It Works, Features, Games and the rest, then About, README.txt and the Trash. Double-click one to open it. Once you have an account, the pages are in the About this site folder instead.
- Start ▸ Navigate — The same pages from the Start menu.
- The taskbar — An open page has one taskbar button that lists its windows. Pick one to bring it forward; click the chat's button to go back to the conversation.
The Home
Before you sign in, the home page is the chat itself: #lobby, live, with nothing in front of it. The home's own windows — what RetroHexChat is, the problem it solves, how it works — open from the Welcome icon, from Start ▸ Navigate ▸ Home, or when you go back to the home from another page; Create an account in the first of them opens the Connect window.
Addresses
- Each page window has its own address, so the browser's Back and Forward move between the pages you opened, and a bookmark or a shared link opens the same page over the chat.
- A channel's address is /c/ followed by its name — /c/lobby for #lobby — and the address bar shows it while that channel is in front. Copy it to invite somebody; it opens the channel for them, read-only until they sign in.
- A private conversation never gets an address: who you talk to privately is not something a link should carry.
- Bringing one of a page's windows forward gives the address bar that page's address. Closing a page's last window takes you back to the chat, at the address of the conversation in front.
See Also
Desktop & Windows · Start Menu · Watching Without an Account · Connect Window
