Help

  1. Do I need an account to play?
  2. How do I register?
  3. Can I play if I'm behind a firewall?
  4. How can I change the font?
  5. Where do I go for help?
  6. I can't see any rooms, help!
  7. The How to play link doesn't work
  8. How do I send a private message?
  9. How do I host or create a table?
  10. Someone said something about opening the Java Console, eh?
  11. Things are screwed up, now what?
  12. The chat doesn't always scroll by itself.
  13. What "smileys" are supported?

1. Do I need an account to play?

No. You can log in as a guest at any time simply by entering a nickname of your choosing. If the particular nickname that you have chosen is already taken then you will be informed of this and will have to choose another.

2. How do I register?

To register as a new user, select the Register new User option, enter a Nickname that you want users to recognise you by and a password. You can enter an email address if you like but you aren't forced to if you prefer to remain anonymous.

3. Can I play if I'm behind a firewall?

Unfortunately you won't be able to play from behind a firewall unless your adminstrator has enabled traffic on port 5688.

4. How can I change the font?

You can change the chat font by clicking the Preferences... link at the bottom of the window. You can't change the font for other items like the player or room lists. However, the web site administrator can change the font for all users so if you find it hard to read to try sending him or her an email to see if it can be changed. All the colours are also configurable on a site by site basis. If you want this same control you can download the application version and edit a configuration file, the details of which are currently secret...

5. Where do I go for help?

The software was written by people in their spare time as part of the GGZ Gaming Zone project . However if you are not currently on the GGZ site it is likely that you are playing on a server hosted by someone else who has created a separate online gaming community. It's usually best to contact the web site where you found this first.

6. I can't see any rooms, help!

The server has probably been upgraded and so you need a new version of the software at your end. This is what you need to do:

  1. Look for the Java coffee cup in your system tray. It looks like this Java System Tray Icon
  2. Right click on it and you should get a popup menu. Select Open Control Panel.
    Java Popup Menu
  3. A new window will appear (see below) - click Delete Files... - don't worry, it won't delete anything important.
    Java Control Panel
  4. Close all of your browser windows (the coffee cup should disappear)
  5. Open your browser and try again.

If you don't use your browser to log in, you need to download a new version of the client - see the main page

7. The How to play link doesn't work

This is most likely because you are using a popup blocker. Some popup blockers allow you to hold down the CTRL key when you click on a link to temporarily bypass the popup blocker. If this does not work then you may need to disable the popup blocker for this site. However, you should log off first since the applet is likely to be reloaded by the browser when you do this.

8.How do I send a private message?

Select a player in the player list and click the Private message button.

If you are feeling adventurous, you can also type /msg nickname some message in the chat field. Once the recipient replies a window will open that allows you to have a private conversation that noone else can see.

If you just want to get someone's attention you can type /beep nickname to make their computer beep. You can also do this with the mouse by selecting a player and clicking the Beep button.

9.How do I host or create a table?

Just click the New Game button above the chat area. A window will appear that lets you create a table on which you can either play alone against the computer or with others. If you reserve seats, then only those players that you reserve seats for will be able to join. When you click OK the table will be created.

10.Someone said something about opening the Java Console, eh?

You probably got booted from the table or something else undesirable, right? OK, here's how you open the console.

  1. Look for the Java coffee cup in your system tray. It looks like this Java System Tray Icon
  2. Right click on it and you should get a popup menu. Select Open Console.
    Java Popup Menu
  3. A window will appear with loads of text in it, click Copy.
  4. Open an email and paste into it.
  5. Address the email to helg@ggzgamingzone.org and send it.

This will help us track down the source of the error and fix it.

11.Things are screwed up, now what?

The best thing to do is to shut down your browser and then start again. You don't need to restart your computer but you do need to make sure that the Java coffee cup disappears from the system tray (the icon that you right-clicked on to open the console). When there are no Java icons left then you know that you've shut it all down and can then open your browser again.

12.The chat doesn't always scroll by itself.

This is done on purpose so that you can scroll up to read the chat history. When the scroll bar is not right at the bottom, the chat area doesn't automatically scroll. If you want it to start scrolling again, just move the slider all the way to the bottom again.

13.What "smileys" are supported?

More formally known as emoticons, these are the ones that GGZ understands.

Smile :) Smile
Wink ;) Wink
Unhappy :( Unhappy
Grin :D Grin
Evil Grin :@ Evil Grin
Tongue :P :p Tongue
Suprised :O Surprised
Kiss :x :X Kiss