How do I chat with someone in my community?

If you have a chat client that uses XMPP, such as Spark or Adium, you can easily start a chat with other chat users. You can chat with those who are your community connections and people who are listed on community pages that list content and activity in the community.

Note: People must be logged in to the community as well as to chat in order to appear in your chat bar.

Starting chat from the chat bar

In the lower-right corner of a community page, notice that you have two options for viewing users who are online and available for chat. Connections shows a list of users you are following, and This page shows a list of users who are represented on the current page.

To start a chat from the chat bar:

Choose whether you want to chat with one of your connections or with someone whose name appears on the page.
- To chat with a user you are following, click Connections.
- To chat with a user who is represented on the current page, click This page.
Click the name of the person you want to chat with.
Your chat client will open and begin a chat with the person you selected.

Starting chat from a user's profile

In a user's profile, click the Chat button.
Your chat client will open and begin a chat with the person you selected.

Starting chat by hovering a user's name

Mouse over a user's name or avatar, then click Chat.
Your chat client will open and begin a chat with the person you selected.

Troubleshooting tips if your chat doesn't work

The following guidelines can help you when you're having trouble setting up chat.

You must be logged in to your chat client in order to start a chat session with another user in your community.
Make sure your browser is setup to associate your chat client with the XMPP protocol. This varies from browser to browser, so refer to the help for your particular browser.
You may need to setup your system to use your chat client for responding to the XMPP protocol. This varies between operating systems, so refer to the help for your operating system.
Some browsers, including Chrome, will respond poorly if you try to start a chat using the chat bar while editing content. For example, the browser might attempt to navigate you away from the page where you're editing content to another page. Work around this by waiting until you've published your content before starting a chat.