Manage filters

Filters selectively monitor chat rooms messages and do a specific action if the filter criteria are met. For example, you can create a filter to show a notification whenever a specific user sends a message to a specific chat room. Chat History cannot be enabled for filters.

What do you want to do?

What are filters?

Create filters

To create a filter from the Preferences dialog box

To create a filter

Change filters

To view and edit filter settings

To view and edit Ego filter settings

Delete or deactivate filters

To make a filter unavailable

To enable a filter

To delete a filter

Regular expression filters

Examples

To create a regular expression filter

What are filters?

Filters consist of a set of rules that you apply to messages to determine their behavior. Messages that match the specified criteria are posted to the special type of filter chat room. Filters appear at the bottom of My Chat on the main window of Group Chat. A symbol next to the name indicates that it is a filter.

The Ego and Sent filters are created automatically by Group Chat.

• Ego filter: Set up, by default, to filter any messages that contain your name in the text area, so that you are aware of any messages posted that contain your name.

• Sent filter: Keeps a record of all messages that you send during a session.

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Create filters

You can create filters to monitor specific chat rooms, users, or content. You can create a completely new filter, or you can create a new filter based on an existing one.

To create a filter from the Preferences dialog box

1. On the File menu, click Preferences, and then click Group Chat Settings.

2. On the left navigation bar, click Filters.

3. To create a new filter, click Add, and then do one of the following:

   • To create a new filter that uses the default ego filter settings, click the Create new ego filter link.

   • To create a new filter that uses the default sent filter settings, click the Create new sent-chat filter link.

   • To create a new filter that is a copy of another filter, select a filter in the list, and then click Copy.

4. In the Name box, type a name for the filter.

5. In the Match messages in drop-down list, select the filter criteria:

6. If you select Any chat room, you can select from a list of choices in the From drop-down list.

7. If you select Specified chat rooms or IM, click Add to specify which chat rooms or IM contacts to select. You can select multiple items by pressing the SHIFT key.

8. To filter for text, select Where message text contains, and then enter the text. The filter will match words. To match on text phrases, include quotation marks around the text. For example, "new Group Chat features."

9. Click OK.

You can also create a new filter by clicking the New Filter button, or by first selecting a chat room from My Chat. Creating a filter this way is the same as clicking Filters in the left navigation bar of the Preferences dialog box, and then clicking Add.

To create a filter

• Click the New Filter button.

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Change filters

You can view and change the settings on filters.

To view and edit filter settings

1. In My Chat, right-click the filter, and then click Filter.

2. Make any changes to the chat room, user, or word filters, and then click OK.

To view and edit Ego filter settings

1. In My Chat List, right-click the Ego filter, and then click Filter.

2. To change the chat rooms to filter, in the list, click a value. The default is Any chat room.

3. To change the users to filter on, in the From list, click a value. The default is Anyone.

4. To change the text to filter on, select the Where message text contains check box. By default, this check box is selected, and the default values are your SIP URI (someone@example.com), first name, and last name. You can add values such as nicknames or your alias.

5. By default, the filter matches whole words, but it is not case-sensitive. To match case, select the Match case check box.

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Delete or deactivate filters

To stop using a filter, you can either make it unavailable or delete it from the system.

To make a filter unavailable

• In My Chat, right-click the filter, and then click Turn Off Filter. The filter is unavailable, but it remains in My Chat.

To enable a filter

• In My Chat, right-click the filter, and then click Enable Filter.

To delete a filter

• In My Chat, right-click the filter, and then click Delete Filter.

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Regular expression filters

Regular expressions are strings that are used to describe or match sets of strings, according to certain syntax rules. These strings can be used as search queries for filters by typing them in as you would a regular search query.

The following table describes the syntax and behavior of some of the regular expressions.

Characters	Description
()	Groups sequences of characters. Matches must include the entire character sequence.
[]	Matches any one of the characters in the brackets.
[^]	Matches any character that is not in the brackets.
[firstChar –lastChar]	Matches any characters in a range of characters.
(n)	Specifies exactly n matches.
(n,m)	Specifies at least n, but no more than m, matches. For example, the string color(0,1)r searches for a 0 or 1 instance of the letter "o" or "1" instance of the letter 'o' and matches either color or color.
x|y	Matches either x or y. For example, 'z|food' matches "z" or "food". '(z|)ood' matches "zood" or "food". This is the logical OR operator.
*	Matches zero or more occurrences of a character.
+	Matches one or more occurrences of a character.
\d	Matches a digit (any numeral from 0 through 9).
\D	Matches anything that is not a digit, such as @,#,$, or an alphabetic character.
\w	Matches any alphanumeric character. This is equivalent to [a-zA-Z_0-9]
\W	Matches any non-numeric character. This can include special characters: /<>?:':"[]{}\| and so on.

Examples

• The following regular expression matches the strings "Fall 2007", "Fall 07", and "Fall '07". Fall (2007|07|'07)

• The following regular expression matches any digits preceded by CSC1. CSC101, CSC150, and CSC180 are possible matches. CSC1\d+

• The following regular expression matches the strings "Chapter 3", "Chapter 4", and "Chapter 5". Chapter [3-5]

To create a regular expression filter

1. In My Chat, click the New Filter button.

2. Type a name for the filter, specify the chat room, and then specify the chat rooms and users on which you want to filter.

3. Select the Where message text contains and Use regular expression check boxes.

4. In the Where message text contains box, type the regular expression, and then click OK.

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