User Manual

Main User Interface Principles and Controls

Login Process

When you start Mixero the following window appears:

If you have only one Twitter account, just log in with your username and password using the Log In button on the right (instructions on logging in with more than one account or with your Facebook account are in the relevant section below).

Main Window

There are 3 panels in the Mixero Main Window (figure 4):

• The left panel shows the current selected timeline (of a user, group, channel, etc.)
• The panel in the middle shows your avatar (or several avatars in case you have multiple accounts), some controls and - which is the most important part - the current ActiveList.
• The right panel has two tabs: Contacts and Channels



Figure 4

You can hide the left and the right panels using the button. After hiding the panels the application will look exactly as on the figure 5.

Figure 5

When the left panel is closed, it opens automatically when needed to show timeline. You can open the left panel using the menu shown on figure 6.

Figure 6

Using the area shown on figure 7 you can move the application window around the screen. What is more, all application windows in any scale can dock to any screen edge.

Figure 7

You can resize the Mixero window using the icon on the right panel shown on figure 8 (if the right panel is closed, you can find the icon on the central panel).

Figure 8

External Windows

You can open content from the left panel in a separate window using the button in the upper right corner, near the Close Panel button . When you click the button the application looks like that:

You can resize and move all external windows.

All open windows can dock to each other and to the main window as shown on the picture below:

You can place every such window always on top using the button in the upper right corner.

Left Panel

The left panel (or the Timeline Panel) shows timelines from different sources (users, groups, or channels). Here is how the left panel looks:

The main part of the left panel shows the timeline of a selected item.

The messages you have already read are a bit pale compared to unread ones.

Every separate message is presented like this:

Every message has the following elements:

• Message author's avatar
• Text of the message
• Message author's nickname
• Message date
• Source (e.g. an application) which generated the message
• Every @username in the message is marked as link to the user's profile
• Every hashtag in the message is marked as link, click on which opens a search timeline for the hashtag in the left panel
• Every link in the message is highlighted as well

Point to a message with your mouse and you will see a pop-up context menu which has the following buttons:

• Reply
• Reply to All (all usernames will appear in the field TO)
• Retweet
• Send Direct Message to the author
• Other actions menu (e.g. Add to favorites, Translate, Block & Spam buttons are there) you may see below:
  

At the bottom of the left panel there is a control for sending messages (which is described further).

The upper part of the left panel may have the following buttons:

• Refresh button refreshes current timeline
• Filter button applies a filter to current timeline (read more in the Filtering section below)
• Show/Hide replies button shows and hides all replies of the user to other users within current timeline
• Show unread only button shows and hides only unread messages within current timeline
• Mark all as read button marks all messages within current timeline as read

The upper part of the left panel has the following tabs:

• opens the timeline generated from all direct messages between you and another user
• opens a window with the user profile:

The user profile window has the following elements:

• User avatar
• The button which shows full-size user avatar
• User name
• Real name
• Bio
• Following, Followers counts
• Web
• Location
• The button which refreshes user profile
• The Follow/Unfollow button
• At the bottom there is a list of groups. You can easily add/remove the user's groups there.

Follow Conversation Button

Some messages in the left panel can have the button under the user avatar:

The button means the message is a reply to another message. Click on the button shows the initial message and then expands the whole thread:

Work with Contacts Panel

Click the Contacts tab in the right panel to open the Contacts panel, which is shown below:

The Contacts panel shows all the users you follow. All users are grouped and separated by group titles just like one shown below:

Every group title (except the Ungrouped heading) includes the name of the group and number of its members, and the following buttons:

• button shows and hides the contents of the group
• button adds groups to ActiveList
• button adds user to the group
• button changes group settings (read more in the Groups section below)
• button deletes the group

Point to a user in the Contacts panel and you will see the following controls:

• button send a direct message to the user
• button removes the user from the group or from the contact list (unfollows)
• button opens the grouping dialog (read more in the Groups section below)
• means there is a filter applied to the user (read more in the Filtering section further)

The upper part of the Contacts panel has the following elements:

• button adds the user to your contact list
• interactive users search field in the contact list:

When you type a text in the field, only the contacts whose names contain the text will appear in the main area of the Contact panel:

Work with ActiveList

Mixero team thinks the ActiveList is the most important feature of Mixero. That is why we place the ActiveList panel in the middle of the application. You may see the typical ActiveList below:

The most important feature of the ActiveList is the dynamic sorting of its elements depending on the time of the last update. The feature allows the items with the most fresh updates move up the ActiveList. The dynamic sorting does not affect current selected item in the ActiveList and does not prevent you from reading its timeline.

To add more elements in your ActiveList follow the instruction below:

• click the user's avatar in the Contacts panel
• click the button in the group's title in the Contacts panel
• click the channel's icon in the Channels panel

For the purpose of better identification of the elements in the ActiveList every element is marked like this:

• avatars of individual users has no marks on them
• icon in the left bottom corner of a group's avatar is used to mark a group
• icon in the left bottom corner of a channel's avatar is used to mark channels

The icon in the lower right corner of some avatars means there is a filter applied to the item. Click on the icon enables and disables the filter (read more in the Filtering section further).

Current selected element of the ActiveList, the timeline of which is shown in the left panel, is highlighted as shown below:

Point to any ActiveList item and you will see the following additional buttons:

• removes the item from the ActiveList (it is not Unfollow though)
• sends a direct message to the user (is not available for groups and channels)

Upper Block of Controls

The upper part of the central panel is shown below (in case you use several accounts, please, proceed to the relevant section below):

Let's see what all the elements do:

• The biggest detail here is your avatar
• Mixero logo icon enables the Avatars Mode mode (which is described further)
• opens application's options
• minimizes the application window
• maximizes the application window
• closes the main window (not closing the program)
• notifies you have new replies. When new replies appear the icon looks like this
• notifies you have new direct messages. When new direct messages appear the icon looks like this
• appears only when you point to the avatar. Updates the status of the logged in user.
• appears only when you point to the avatar. Sends direct messages.
• opens the left panel menu shown below:
  
• opens the right panel menu shown below:
• click on the button opens the left pane with a timeline with the messages from your ActiveList items. We think this is one of the most important buttons in the application ;-)
• opens the home timeline in the left panel
• opens the search window in the left panel

Working with Contexts

Please refer to the first section for the definition of Context. Contexts in Mixero are managed by the control at the bottom of the central panel:

This control shows you current context. Click the array on the right to see the following menu:

If you have not added any new context yet, the menu will contain only the default context (which you can delete only after you have created one new context).

Click the Add option to add new context. After you entered the name for the context and clicked the OK button, the new context appears in the contexts menu and automatically becomes you current context, while the ActiveList clears. Now you can add new items (users, groups, channels) to the ActiveList for the newly created context. Every time you need a new context follow the easy instruction to create one.

When you finished with new contexts creation, only one click in the Contexts menu will switch you between the contexts depending on the changed environment. Change of context changes your ActiveList contents accordingly. You may see an example of Contexts list below:

To be continued