Microsoft Office

To engage in a detailed exchange of ideas with other members of a workspace, it’s best to use a Groove Discussion Tool. A typical discussion includes a main topic with one or more responses, and responses to responses. Unlike a chat, which displays a running stream of responses in a flat view, a discussion lets you see the entire “thread” of a conversation in a hierarchical structure.

A hierarchical discussion is most appropriate for any content for which it’s important to maintain an historical record, and to present the exchange of ideas in a format that makes it easy for all readers to understand who said what.

Using rich-text features in the text chat editor

Unlike a message or a chat, a hierarchical discussion rarely contains time-sensitive content. Rather, a discussion provides an opportunity for a group of workspace members to introduce an idea, and then build and develop it over time.

Using rich-text features in the text chat editor
The text chat editor supports rich text features, such as text formatting, hyperlinks, and graphic images. These features are available only while you’re typing in the text-entry field. You cannot edit a chat entry once it appears in the chat display window. Right-click in the chat text-entry field to see formatting options or select options in the toolbar.

Using ink chat features
Right-click in the text-entry field to see menu options for switching between basic text mode and ink mode. Ink mode lets you draw chat entries by dragging with the mouse, and provides options for styling and editing these entries.

Note Changing the chat editing mode automatically deletes any content you currently have in the chat text-entry field.

The right click menu (and toolbar options in a Chat window or Chat workspace) correspond to the current editing mode. If you have Text mode selected, you see the standard editing options you see in all rich-text tools in Groove. If you have Ink mode selected, you see the following editing options:

Pen. Draw with the pen in the text-entry field.
Erase. Erase a drawn object (or part of a drawn object) by dragging.
Zap. Erase an entire drawn object at once by dragging.
Lasso. Select and edit a drawn object. To select the object, drag a circle around the object. You can then move or resize the drawn object just as you would in a Sketchpad tool. You can also change the color and thickness of the drawn object by selecting from the Select Color and Ink Thickness tools.
Select Color. Select a new color for a selected drawn object or for subsequent drawn objects.
Ink Thickness. Select a different thickness for a selected drawn object or for subsequent drawn objects.