From Ekiga

Contents 1 Managing Incoming Calls 1.1 Do Not Disturb mode 1.2 Monitoring lines 1.3 Forward 2 Calls History 3 Understanding the statistics 4 Adjusting the audio and video settings 5 Controlling the call 6 Taking a snapshot 7 Watching calls execution using the history windows 8 General History

Managing Incoming Calls

Ekiga supports different policies for incoming calls.

Image:Notifycation.png Per default it displays a notification at the systray which allows you to decide whether you want to refuse or accept the request for an incoming call.

Furthermore Ekiga offers three additional behaviors: Busy mode, Free for Chat and Forward.

Do Not Disturb mode

If this mode is enabled Ekiga refuses all incoming requests and only allows outgoing calls. You are not able to receive any call and do not notice if another user tries to contact you except when looking at the Calls History.

This mode can be enabled by selecting Do Not Discturb in the status selector.

Monitoring lines

The lines of the contacts added to the main buddy list are automatically monitored.

Forward

Ekiga has the ability to forward calls to another host. This allows you to configure Ekiga to forward all incoming calls to a specified URL. Furthermore it is able to forward calls automatically when you do not answer the call after a configurable amount of time or when you are busy.

Call Forwarding can be activated by selecting Call → Forward in the main menu and configured through the preferences window.

You need to specify a SIP URL where to forward calls in the Edit → Preferences → SIP Settings → Forward URL: sip: to be able to activate the option. You can specify a H.323 URL too: Edit → Preferences → H.323 Settings → Forward URL: h323:

Open the preferences window by choosing Edit → Preferences in the main window and select Call Options on the left. You will now see the appropriate section Call Forwarding. It contains three checkboxes for the three cases described above and one textfield for the IP address/hostname of the host the calls shall be forwarded to.

Calls History

The Calls History window can be accessed by selecting the tab Calls History and stores information (date, duration, Remote user's name) about all outgoing and incoming calls.

Double-clicking on a row in the Calls History will call back the selected user or transfer any active call to that user

Understanding the statistics

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To view the statistics while in a call, please point the mouse to the status bar.

• Lost packets: The percentage of lost packets, ie of packets from the remote user that you did not receive. A too high packets loss during the reception can result in voice and/or video distortion and is usually caused by a bad network provider or by settings requiring much bandwidth.
• Late packets: The percentage of late packets, ie of packets from the remote user that you received but too late to be taken into account, while Ekiga is sending and receiving real-time video and audio.
• Round-trip delay: The required time for a packet to arrive at its destination and come back. You can see the Round-Trip delay during a call as a connection quality indicator together with the Lost and Late packets statistics.
• Jitter buffer: The Jitter buffer is the buffer where received sound packets are accumulated. When the buffer is full, then the sound is played. If your network is of bad quality, then you need a big jitter buffer, ie a big delay before sound is played back, because you need more time before being able to play audio back.
• Resolution: The video resolution.

Adjusting the audio and video settings

Your audio and video settings can be adjusted through the control panel while you are in a call. If you want to change the audio input or output devices during a call, simply select the Audio tab in the panel. The brightness, whiteness, color and contrast of your video input device are changed via the Video tab.

Controlling the call

Ekiga supports several actions which can be performed when in a call. These actions enable you to control active sessions.

• Ending a call: The communication to the remote user can be ended by selecting Call → Disconnect.
• Holding a call: You can hold a remote party call by selecting Call → Hold. This effectively pauses Video & Audio transmission. To continue transmission again, select Call → Retrieve Call and Video & Audio Transmission will begin again.
• Mute Audio: This effectively prevents all Audio communication to your respective party.
• Suspend Video: This effectively prevents all Video transmission to your respective party.
• Transferring the remote party: You can transfer the remote user to another H.323 or CALLTO URL by using the appropriate menu entry in the Call menu or by double-clicking on an user in your address book, or in the calls history.

All URLs supported by Ekiga (SIP, H.323, CALLTO and Speed Dials) can be used for call transfer.

Taking a snapshot

While in a call you can take a snapshot of the remote party via Call → Save Current Picture. A PNG-file will be saved in the current directory. The filename consists of three parts: the save_prefix, date and current time. (e.g. Ekiga-snap-2003_06_19-024316.png).

Watching calls execution using the history windows

History windows in Ekiga are comparable to logfiles. They keep chronological track of actions performed by Ekiga and provide additional information to the user.

General History

The General History window keeps track of many operations which are mainly performed in the background. It displays information about audio and video devices, calls, codecs and other details. The latest operations can be found at the bottom, older entries are shown on the top.

You can access this information by opening Tools → Generic History.