If you've used Zoom or similar platforms before, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Messenger video chat interface should come pretty naturally to you, but if you need any help navigating the various features, this help article is for you!

How to Video Chat with Someone

In order to video chat with another user on TinglyTube, you and them will both need to be using PCs (as video chat is only supported on PC at this time, mobile support is coming soon) and they'll also need to be online or idle (otherwise you won't be able to send them a video chat request).

Click on the "Chat" tab on the Messenger bar which will launch your 'buddylist', this list displays all of your friends that are online currently or idle, then locate the user that you want to video chat with and click on them.



But if you're not friends with them (hence they won't show up in your buddylist) then go to their profile, once there click the speech bubble icon as shown below.



When you do either of these, a chat window will then pop up to where you'll see their username at the top, and 3 (three) icons to the far right of their name, the first icon will be a  icon, click it!



This will send the user a video chat request to which they can accept or deny (by not accepting it), while that happens, the video chat interface will open in a window on top of your current browser window, here you can enter the name you'd like to be identified as in the call, this can be your username or any other name you'd like to use, you can also configure your camera/microphone from this screen as well, as well as see whether or not your microphone is working properly (there should be a green dot at the bottom of the box on your screen).



Navigating the Video Chat Interface

Once you've entered your name, and the user you've called has hopefully joined, you'll see a dark toolbar hovering at the bottom of the window, let's go over what each button does:

1. Mute - Click this button to mute or unmute your microphone. You can click the small arrow pointing up to the top right of it to configure your microphone's settings.
2. Video - Click this button to turn your camera/video feed on or off. You can click the small arrow pointing up to the top right of it to configure your camera's settings.
   
3. Screenshare - Click this button to share your computer screen, this can be useful for having a movie night with your TT bestie (Salò anyone?) or sharing some spicy memes.
   
4. Open Chat - Click this button to open/show the video chat's text chat (Yep, there's a separate chat within the video chat interface! coolio!)
5. Raise Hand - Click this button to raise/un-raise your hand, there's probably not much of a use for this in video calls between friends, but because video chatting is powered by a separate service (Jitsi Meet) we can't remove it.
   
6. View Participants - Click this button to see a list of all of the participants within the video call.
   
7. Toggle Tile View - Click this button to toggle a tile view of everyone in the video call.
   
8. More Options - Click this button to access a menu of a variety of other settings and options.
   
9. End Call - This one's pretty self-explanatory :)
   

Phew, that's a lot of buttons! But the really cool thing is that because Jitsi Meet is meant to be an alternative to Zoom, you can also invite others to your video call as well (they can even use their phone to dial in and enter an access code!) all of this can be done from the more options menu and the box that pops up when you first enter the video call.

Wrapping it All Up

We hope that this help article has helped you become at master a video chatting/calling with Messenger (as well as Jitsi Meet), but if you still need help with anything, don't hesitate to let us know via our Support/Feedback form, we love hearing from, listening to, and helping you! You can also leave a comment below and we'll back to you as soon as we can :)