The administrator can control different aspects of the program. The first thing is how the name suggestion should work. You can set "Suggested Name" to four different settings:

• Username ->The usernames of the users will be shown in the name suggestion dialog
• Name -> The name of the user will be shown
• Both -> Both the username and the name will be shown
• None -> Name suggestion will disabled

The next thing that can be set is "Send notify Email". If this is set to true, the user who receives the message gets an email notifying him he received an email. The user can use the personal settings tab to disable these mails entirely (this only works if the UserMeta plugin has been installed the right way).
The third setting is "Let users send messages to users". If this is set to true, users can send each other messages. If it is set to false, users can only send messages to administrators and administrators can send emails to anyone.
The last settings are for setting the inbox sizes. If you want all users to have the same inbox size, just change the value of the Default Size. If you want to change the sizes individually for administrators and users set the radio box to Yes. Then you can set the inbox size for each usertype.

The user can only access one setting, disabling the messaging system for himself, and only if the administrator enables this function. To do this, install the UserMeta plugin. Enable the plugin and open the user.xml file in the following folder "plugins/system/usermeta/". Now insert the following piece of code after the last param tag but before the end of the params tag:

 
<param name="messaging" type="radio" default="1" label="Use messaging system" 
description="Use messaging system">
   <option value="0">No</option>
   <option value="1">Yes</option>
</param>
<param name="messaging_mail" type="radio" default="1" 
label="Receive an email when you receive a new message" description="Send Email">
   <option value="0">No</option>
   <option value="1">Yes</option>
</param>
 

Using this component should be quite easy. Clicking on Inbox will bring you to the Inbox, and to send a message, you have to click on New Message. To view a message in the Inbox, click on that message. It should now appear on the container under the message box. To send a same message to multiple users, separate the users with a comma and a space (", "). To see your sent messages, click on the "Sent Mails" button. All messages you have sent that have not been deleted by the recipient will be shown. If there are more problems, you can post your question on the support forum (it is necessary to log in to post on the forum).

BBcode (BulletinBoard Code) is a secure way to allow formatting in messages. Here is the code and the effect:

Wanted effect		BBcode		Sample result
Bold text		[b]Text[/b]		Text
Italic text		[i]Text[/i]		Text
Underlined text		[u]Text[/u]		Text
Link		[url]http://www.joomla.org/[/url]		http://www.joomla.org/
Costumized link		[url=http://www.joomla.org/]Joomla[/url]		Joomla
Image		[img]http://www.joomla.org/...Thumbnail.png[/img]
Quote		[quote]Quoted text[/quote]		To quote: Quoted text
Code		[code]Code sample[/code]		Code sample
Text with a different size		[size=24]Textsize = 24px[/size]		Textsize = 24px
Text with a different color		[color=red]Red text[/color] or [color=#FF0000]Red text[/color]		Red text

The component now also supports emoticons:

Symbol		Result
O:)
:)
:(
;)
:P
B)
:D
:[
:O
:'(
:\
*JOKINGLY*
:!
*STOP*
@}->--
*THUMBS UP*
*DRINK*
*HELP*
%)
*OK*
*SORRY*
*BRAVO*
*LOL*
*NO*
*CRAZY*
*YAHOO*
*YES*
*WALL*
*WRITE*
*SCRATCH*

To uninstall the program, click on the "Install/Uninstall" button in the extensions menu. Go to the "Component" tab and click the radio button of the Messaging extension. Now click on the "Uninstall" button. The program is uninstalled.

Warning!! Doing this will delete all messages. If you don't want to lose all messages, read the following chapter.

Backing up the data of the component

If you want to install a new version of the component without losing all messages, you have to use the Messaging Backup component. You download it in the download section of this site. Install it as a normal program on Joomla. Then go to Components->Messaging Backup. Click on the export button. It should now show a confirmation that the messages have been saved to a file. You can remove the old version of the component and install the new one now. When you've done this, go to Components->Messaging Backup again. Now click on the import button. The file which saved the backup data on the server will be deleted now to protect your privacy and the messages will be put back in the database. Enjoy the new version of the component!!!

Note that the bloc below is not a demo of the component (coming soon), it's for comments!