Sharetops allows users to connect and keep in touch via the desktop friend system. To contact other users you must firstly invite them as a friend. Once a user is on your friends list you can see when they are online, message them, send them links and view their status.

Your friends list is accessible via the “Friends” option on the Sharetops main menu. Selecting this option will open up your friend’s window, as shown below:

The Friends window is broken into 3 tabs:

• Online – Displays a list of friends that are currently online
• Offline- Displays a list of friends that are currently offline
• Pending – Displays a list of friends that you are awaiting friend confirmations from

The status and date the friend was added are displayed at the side of each friends name. A remove friend button is also displayed on the far right (scroll the window right to access it). By clicking on the different columns you can sort by user name, user status and date added.

Immediately to the left of your friends name is a message button. Clicking this button will open up a chat window allowing you to send messages directly to your friend even when they are offline. To the right of the message button is the profile button, clicking this will display your friend’s profile

There are two ways to add new friends:

• Desktop Invitation – When you visit another user’s desktop the Sharetops menu will display an option called “Add to Friends”. When you add a friend to your friends list they will initially appear under the “Pending” tab in the Friends dialog. Once the user has confirmed you as a friend, they will be moved to the online or offline tab depending upon their online status. Note that friend requests can be sent to users that are offline
• Direct Invitation – Direct add allows you to add a friend by providing either their user name or email address. If the user is not on the system then an email will be sent out to them asking them to create an account on Sharetops. To add a friend using Direct Add, open up the Friends dialog and click the “Add Friend” button. A dialog will open up asking you to enter either the user name or the email address of the friend that you would like to add.

To accept a friend request simply click the yellow smiley button at the side of the senders name to confirm them as a friend.

Sharetops has a built in messaging system that lets you communicate with your friends. To send messages to a friend simply click on the “Send message” icon next to their name in the friend list. This will open up the following message window

To send a message simply type your message into the message box then press Enter. You can add carriage returns to separate lines of text by pressing shift + Enter. Any messages that you send to offline friends will be saved and sent to them when they appear online again

As well as sending text it’s also possible to send links from your Sharetop or other Sharetops that you visit. To send a link to a friend, open up the Friend window by selecting Friends from the Sharetops main menu. Select a friend that you would like to send a link to. Now hover over the link you want to send and click the central “Send To Friend” button. A chat window will open showing the link you sent to your friend

Note that when you receive an attachment (link) from a friend a red message will appear saying “Attachment: Click here to see”. Click the grey area to expand the attachment box, this will show the attachment that was sent to you. If you click on the attachment then you will be asked if you want to add the attachment to your desktop