If you have an existing ICQ account, you can set up SoftVelocity Discussions to automatically login to your ICQ account whenever you use SoftVelocity Discussions. This will allow you to communicate with ICQ users from within SoftVelocity Discussions. You can also see when ICQ users are online and they can see when you are online.

1. Setting up your SoftVelocity Discussions preferences to use ICQ
2. Adding ICQ contacts to your SoftVelocity Discussions friends list
3. Limitations of ICQ in SoftVelocity Discussions

1. Setting up your SoftVelocity Discussions preferences to use ICQ
   Before you can communicate with ICQ users you must first specify both your existing ICQ account number and password in your SoftVelocity Discussions preferences.
   • In the Windows Client, right click on the SoftVelocity Discussions icon by the clock and choose Setup->Preferences->Miscellaneous.
   • In a web browser click on the Preferences link on the left hand side of the screen and scroll down to the ICQ section.

2. Adding ICQ contacts to your SoftVelocity Discussions friends list
   Adding ICQ contacts to your SoftVelocity Discussions friends list is the same as adding any email address to your friends list, except that the email address you enter is IcqNumber@icq. For example you would use 123@icq to add a icq number 123 as a SoftVelocity Discussions friend.
   • In the Windows Client, in the main window in the Friends section, click on the "Add Friend" button and choose "By specifying User Name or Email Address".
   • In a web browser, in the Friends window, click on the "Change" link and add a new entry at the bottom of the window.
   Enter anything you want in the "Display Name" box and enter IcqNumber@icq in the user name/email address box. Whenever you receive a message from that ICQ user in future, it From field in the message will use this display name.

3. Limitations of ICQ in SoftVelocity Discussions
   In the current version of SoftVelocity Discussions you can not send or receive attachments from icq users. Private conversations/ICQ chat mode is not supported either. ICQ is an unreliable protocol and on some days their servers do not function correctly. This can result in messages sent to other icq users via an ICQ server (which happens when the other user is offline) not being delivered even though the ICQ server will acknowledge it has received the message. This behavior is not specific to SoftVelocity Discussions and will occur between other ICQ client programs too. If you want to be sure your SoftVelocity Discussions message has been delivered to an ICQ user, look at the copy of the sent message that SoftVelocity Discussions records. If it says it was delivered to the ICQ client then it has been delivered properly. If it says it was delivered to the ICQ server, then it might have worked.