             USING THE FORUM USTATUS AND SEND COMMANDS

                     Practice Forum Help File

                        by Mike Schoenbach

                   Last updated:  May 17, 1989.

Many of your CompuServe friends and acquaintances are often
online in your favorite CompuServe Forum(s) at the same times you
are.  For this reason, it's usually very convenient to find out who
else is currently online in the Forum.  At times, you may see a
friend of yours who you want to get a message to right away.  Other
times, perhaps, you will see some Forum members who you'd like to
invite to the Forum's conference area so you can get to know them
better.  CompuServe offers two very convenient commands to
facilitate this type of "real-time" communication between Forum
members:  USTATUS and SEND.

The USTATUS command (which stands for User STATUS) allows you to
view a listing of users that are currently online in the Forum with
you.  By entering the UST command (the common abbreviation for
USTATUS) at any Forum '!' command prompt, CompuServe will display a
listing similar to the following:

     User  User ID        Nod  Area   Name
     ----  -------------  ---  -----  -------------------
        1  76703,4363     LIS  SysOp  Mike Schoenbach
        2  73270,232      GNC  Mes    John Doe
        3  76403,1012     WPM  Mes    Susan Duncan
        4  72241,2232     MFL  Mes    Roger Diamond
        5  70207,15       MAU  Rm 4   Lisa P. Feldberg
        6  75000,23       WPM  Lib    Joe Salomi
        7  74026,121      DAO  Rm 4   Dick Brady
        8  76703,1        NYY  Group  Richard Wallstein
        9  76320,323      SPC  Group  Keith Connolly
       10  70023,1214     KCO  Lib    David Garcia 
 
As you can see from the above example, the display is divided up
into five columns:

USER    -   A temporary number assigned to you for your current
session only.

USER ID -   CompuServe User ID number.

NOD     -   Three letter node (access point) identification.

AREA    -   Area of the Forum the member is currently using:
               Mes   -  Messages
               Lib   -  Libraries
               Rm #  -  Conference Room #
               Group -  Conference Group
               SysOp -  Sysop maintenance area (accessible only
                        to Forum Sysops)

NAME    -   Member's name or handle (note that names larger than 19
            characters long are truncated in the UST listing)

All members appearing in the UST listing are ALSO CURRENTLY ONLINE
USING THE FORUM.

You can use the Forum SEND command to send a one line (73
character) message to any member who is online in the Forum with
you.

                The format of the SEND command is:

                      SEN user# message text.

                             Example:

                SEN 3 Hi Susan!  How have you been?

 Susan (User 3) will receive the following message on her screen:

       ;;[1] Mike Schoenbach - Hi Susan!  How have you been?

The double semi-colon indicates that the message Susan received is
a SEND.  The number in brackets represents the SENDER's temporary
USER number (NOTE: *NOT* User ID number).  The name appearing after
the USER number is the name of the SENDER.  The text appearing to
the right of the dash is the text of the SEND line.

         To respond to Mike Schoenbach, Susan would enter:

      SEN 1 I'm doing fine, Mike.  What have you been up to?

Many great conversations and friendships have started this way!

Questions about either the UST or SEND command can be posted in
Message Section 9 of the Free Practice Forum (GO PRACTICE).

IMPORTANT NOTE:  The SEND command is *DISABLED* (not accepted as a
valid command) in the Practice Forum.



