TeamTalk Help  Version 5.5.0.4993
TeamTalk User Interface Guide

This section gives an introduction to the features available in the TeamTalk application. To be able to use the features explained in this tutorial you need to be connected to a server and have joined a channel. If you don't want to set up your own server you can press F2 to get a list of official TeamTalk servers.

Here is an overview of the list of features which are being described in this section:

Main Window

The TeamTalk application consists of a menubar, a toolbar, a channels view in the left side with volume controls below and a tab control with four tabs to the right. Between the channels view and the tab control is a so-called splitter which can be used to change the size of the channels view and tab control.

The following screenshot is included to help explain the TeamTalk application's user interface.

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TeamTalk main window

Menu Bar

In the top of the application are six menu-items: Client, Me, Users, Channels, Server and Help. The Client-menu is for configuring the TeamTalk application and connecting to servers. The Me-menu gives access to options which should be set for the local user (meaning you), like e.g. changing your nickname or status. The Users-menu is used for interacting with other users, like e.g. changing their sound volume or sending them text-messages. The Channels-menu is used for controlling channels, like e.g. creating new channels or updating existing ones. The Server-menu is for changing or viewing the server's options and finally the Help-menu is for assistance.

Toolbar

The toolbar simply provides easy access to common tasks which are also available though the menu items.

Channels View

The channels view is in the left side of the application above the volume controls. Once you have connected to a server you will see channels and users appearing here.

The channels will appear as folder icons and the computer icon in the top is also a channel, namely the root channel, where you will first appear when you connect to a server.

The user impersonating you will appear with bold text, so in the screenshot below Bjoern is me. The blue box surrounding the user-icon means that I'm currently transmitting video, so the other users in the channel can see Bjoern in the Video-tab.

The user Ida is also transmitting video but the blinking red line on her name means that the reception from her is very poor (video data is being lost). The user Randi has a green line over her name which means that she's currently transmitting audio, i.e. other users in the channel are hearing her talking. The blackboard behind Randi's user-icon means that she sharing a desktop application which can be seen in the Desktops-tab.

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Channels and users to the left

Notice that Bjoern in the above screenshot has a red star. This means the user is administrator of the server. The user Randi has a yellow star which means she is operator of the channel and can thereby kick people out of the channel and modify the channel's settings. People who are operators are usually the users who created the channel.

The channels view only shows users in channels. To be able to see all users on the server it's possible to use the Online Users Dialog.

Volume Controls

The volume controls are placed below the channels view. The first slider with a speaker to the left of it controls the master volume. Changing this increases or decreases the volume for all users. If you only want to change the volume of one person you can select this person and press Ctrl+Left arrow to lower volume and Ctrl+Right arrow to increase the volume. These two keyboard shortcuts are placed in the Advanced-menu.

The slider below the master volume with a microphone to the left controls your microphone's gain level, i.e. amplifying your volume so you become louder to other users.

To the right of master volume is progressbar with a wave to the left of it. This progressbar shows how much sound your microphone is picking up.

If voice activation is enabled the there will be a slider below the progressbar which sets the voice activation level. When using the voice activation slider to set the voice activation level ensure that it is not active all the time, since it can be annoying for other users. When voice activation becomes active the user in the channels view impersonating you will become green.

Chat Tab

The Chat-tab is used for text chatting with the people in your channel. A screenshot is shown there:

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Chat-tab in main window

The Chat-tab also maintains a list of events which occurred in your channel, like e.g. when a new user joins or leaves the channel. To send a text message to all users in your channel simply type in the line to the left of the Send-button. If the server supports channel commands it's also possible to send commands to the server using channel text messages.

Video Tab

The Video-tab contains a grid of all the users who are currently transmitting video to the channel. The users who are transmitting video will have a blue frame around their user icon in the channels view as can be seen in the following screenshot:

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Video-tab in main window

The button with the '-' sign in the Video-tab can be used to remove users from the grid so you will no longer receive video data from that user.

Pressing the button with the '+' sign will add the user to the grid again.

The button with the two frames, one above the other, is for detaching a user from the grid so the user will be shown in a separate window.

The last button the Video-tab is for starting and stopping your video camera. If you want other users to also see video sent from you press the video camera in the toolbar to the right of the voice activation icon.

Desktops Tab

The Desktops-tab contains a grid of shared desktop applications. Here is a screenshot of a shared desktop application:

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Desktop-tab in main window

Moving your mouse over the desktop window will show who owns the desktop. Press and hold the mouse to scroll the window if it's bigger than the Desktops tab. Check out the Desktop Share section on how to share a desktop application.

Files Tab

If the server allows, users can upload and download files to and from a channel. When you join a channel you can see the files which are currently available in the Files-tab as shown in this screenshot:

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Files-tab in main window

Only users who have a user account on the server can upload files. Anyone can download files in a channel. Only the owner of a file, an administrator or an operator of a channel can delete a file. Instead of using the upload and download button in the Files-tab one can also drag/drop files from Windows' Explorer.

Client-Menu

The Client-menu is used for connecting to TeamTalk servers and configuring the TeamTalk application.

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Client-menu of main window

Each of the menu items in the Client menu are described here:

Connect Dialog

In the Connect dialog you can specify the TeamTalk server you want to connect to. It also maintains a list of publicly available TeamTalk servers you can connect to. An example of public TeamTalk servers are shown in the screenshot below. The public servers will be shown in green.

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Connect to server dialog

If you manually want to connect to a TeamTalk server then the person who is running the server must provide the information for the fields Host IP-address, TCP port and UDP port along with a user account containing both username and password. If the server is hosted on an encrypted connection then the Encrypted server option must be checked.

Authentication

Most TeamTalk server owners set up their own usernames and passwords for users. Some TeamTalk server also support publicly available login systems provided by BearWare.dk and Facebook.

Learn more about setting up user accounts by read the section on configuring TeamTalk servers or the section about User Accounts.

Join or create specific channel

To join a specific channel once you have logged on to the server can be done by filling out Channel and Password fields. Once you have filled out all the information you have been provided you can save the server to the Server List by filling the Entry name field and afterwards click Save. Finally click Connect to connect to the server.

Generate .tt File

If you want others to connect to the same TeamTalk server as you, you can press Generate .tt File so you'll generate a file you can email to the users who should also connect to the server. More information about the Generate .tt File Dialog is available here.

Preferences Dialog

The Preferences dialog is used for configuring the TeamTalk application. Users should at least run through the General and Sound System-tabs to ensure everything is configured properly.

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Preferences Dialog

Please read section TeamTalk Preferences for a guide on how to configure TeamTalk.

Record Conversations to Disk

Conversations with others users, both audio and text messages, can be stored to disk using the Record Conversations to Disk dialog in Client-menu or by pressing the recorder button in the toolbar.

The record conversations dialog looks as follows:

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Record Conversations to Disk dialog

Each of the items in the dialog are explained here:

Me-Menu

The menu items in the menu group Me are options you want to perform on yourself. The possible options are shown here.

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Me-menu items

Each of the menu items in the Me-menu are described here:

Enable Push To Talk Dialog

Using Push To Talk is a good way to ensure people do not overlap each other when they are talking and to avoid echos from speakers. To set up a hotkey simply hold down the keys you want to use as your key combination and release them all again. The Push To Talk dialog will show the keys you're holding down like here.

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Push To Talk Dialog

Using Ctrl is a good choice for a Push To Talk key. Note that using regular keys can make Windows beep unlike when using non-modifier keys like Ctrl, Alt, Shift. Therefore Ctrl or Alt or Shift is recommended.

Enable Desktop Sharing Dialog

The window of an application on your desktop can be shared with other users in the same channel. This can be used for doing a presentation in an eLearning scenario.

The Desktop Sharing dialog is shown here:

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Desktop Sharing Dialog

To be able to share a desktop window requires the user-right User can transmit desktop sessions.

Each of the items in the dialog are explained here:

Users-Menu

The menu items in the Users-menu are used for changing the settings of other users and interacting with them. The Users-menu is shown here:

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Users-menu items

Each of the menu items in the Users menu are described here. A user has to be selected in the channels view for the Users menu items to be active.

Channel Operators

A channel operator is typically a channel owner, i.e. the user who initially created the channel. As channel operator one can kick people out of the channel and make changes to the channel's properties.

Being channel operator is similar to having the user-right User can create/modify all channels but instead of "all channels" the user can only make changes to the channels which the user is operator of.

When creating a channel one can also set an Operator password so others can become channel-operators by entering this password.

In the User Accounts Dialog it's possible to set up users to automatically become channel operators.

To control a channel of type classroom one has to be channel-operator to control who is allowed to transmit to the channel.

Subscriptions-Menu

Subscriptions are used for ignoring certain data or events from a user. If e.g. you do not want to receive text messages from a certain user you can tell the server that you want to unsubscribe text messages from that user.

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Subscriptions-menu items

Each of the menu items in the Subscriptions-menu are described here.

If there's certain subscriptions you always want to have disabled by default you can set these in the Connection-tab of the Preferences dialog.

Advanced-Menu

This main purpose of the Advanced-menu is to provide keyboard shortcuts to common tasks.

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Advanced-menu items

Each of the menu items in the Advanced-menu are described here.

Channels-Menu

The menu items in the Channels menu become available when you select a channel in the channels view. All the channel options are shown here:

menu_channels.png
Channels-menu items

Each of the menu items in the Channels menu are described here.

Create Channel Dialog

To chat with other users in TeamTalk one has to either create a channel or join an existing channel. A new channel can be created by pressing F7 and the following dialog will show up:

dlg_createchan.png
Create Channel Dialog

Each of the fields in the create channel dialog are described here:

Classroom Channel Type

If there's many people in a channel it's often nescessary for someone to control who is talking. The classroom channel type can be used for controlling which users are allowed to transmit audio, video and media files to a channel.

If a channel is configured as a classroom then the channels view will look something like this:

main_classroom.png
Classroom channel from channel-operator's perspective

The checkboxes in front of each user are used to control who can transmit to the channel. In the above screenshot Ida and Liv are e.g. allowed to transmit video from webcams. The user Randi is allowed to transmit shared desktop but cannot transmit video since she is not checked.

As can be seen on the screenshot there's also checkboxes to the right of the channel name Room 11B. These checkboxes can be used as a shortcut for allowing everyone to transmit. So voice and media files can be transmitted by anyone in the channel.

For a non-operator of the classroom channel the view of the Room 11B channel will look like this:

main_classroom_nop.png
Classroom channel for non-operator's perspective

A non-operator cannot modify any of the transmission settings. They will have to ask the channel-operator to toggle the checkboxes for transmission.

Stream Media File to Channel Dialog

In the Channels-menu there's an option to stream media files to others users in the same channel. For fast access the play icon in the toolbar can also be used.

Here's an example of streaming a media file with video content to a channel:

dlg_streammedia.png
Stream Media File to Channel

The users receiving the media stream can use the volume dialog in Users-menu to control the volume level of the media file. If it's media file containing video content then the video can be seen in the video-tab.

Server-Menu

The Server-menu is mainly intended for server administrators to administrate users who have access to the server. The Server-menu contains the items shown here:

menu_server.png
Server-menu items

Each of the menu items in the Server-menu are described here.

User Accounts Dialog

For users to log on to a TeamTalk server they must have a user account. Only users of user-type Administrator can create/modify user accounts. When the TeamTalk server is configured initially an administrator account can be set up so further user accounts can be created using this user accounts dialog.

Note that a special account with the username "facebook" can be used to allow Facebook logins. More on this in Facebook Login section.

Here is shown the User Accounts-dialog.

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User Accounts Dialog

The Active Users list contains all the user accounts on the server.

The remaining items are explained in the following sections.

Modify User Account

Basic Account Properties

User Rights

Channel Operator

Codec Limitations

Abuse Prevention

Facebook Login

By specifying the username "facebook" will force the clients using this user account to log in using their Facebook account. The TeamTalk server will then authenticate that the login is valid using Facebook's login service. Section TeamTalk Server with Facebook Login explains what is required for a TeamTalk server to handle Facebook logins.

When a Facebook user is logged into the TeamTalk server then their username will appear as their Facebook user ID followed by @facebook.com. Here's an example:

dlg_userinfo.png
User Information Dialog

If you want one Facebook user to have special user-rights on the TeamTalk server then you can create a user account with the Facebook user's account name. In the above example the username for the account would be "10155659119756192@facebook.com".

The dialog picture in section User Accounts shows 10155.nosp@m.6591.nosp@m.19756.nosp@m.192@.nosp@m.faceb.nosp@m.ook..nosp@m.com as an active user account.

Note that by not allowing users to change nickname (when creating a Facebook user account) will cause their Facebook profile name to appear as their nickname on the TeamTalk server.

Banned Users Dialog

The Banned Users dialog shows the users who are currently blocked by the server. Here is an example of users which have been banned on a server.

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Banned Users Dialog

To remove a ban on a user simply move the user from the left list to the right list using the button with the greater than sign.

New bans based on username or IP-address can be added manually using the Add-button. Wildcards can be used for IP-address, e.g. 192.168.0.*.

Online Users Dialog

The channels view only shows the users in channels but to see all users on the server you can use the Online Users dialog.

Open the Online Users dialog by pressing Server-menu and then Online Users.

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Online Users Dialog

The dialog also has quick menu options for kicking and banning users, as well as text messaging users.

Server Properties Dialog

The Server Properties-dialog shows what rights users who are logged on to the server has. An example is shown here where user has user-right User can update server properties:

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Server Properties Dialog

Each of the fields in the Server Properties-dialog are described here:

Help-Menu

The menu items under Help are used for getting information about the TeamTalk application.

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Help-menu items

Each of the menu items in the Help menu are described here: