DocsCalling

Contacts and calls

People you have recorded with, online status, status message, calling like a phone, missed calls, the Calls list and end-to-end encrypted messages.

Contacts#

Everyone you have been in a session with shows up in the Contacts area on the home screen. When you add someone to your list:

• they stay on the home screen with their profile photo and name,
• if they are online, a green dot lights up on the corner of their photo and their status message is shown,
• you can call them into your session with one click.

Right-clicking a contact opens a menu:

Visibility is mutual#

You see that someone is online only if they have added you too. One-sided adding protects privacy: a stranger can’t find out when you are online just by adding you to their list.

If you turn off Let my contacts see when I am online and call me in Settings › Preferences, nobody sees you online and nobody can call you; since it’s mutual, you don’t see anyone online either.

Status message#

In the Your status box at the top right of the home screen, you can write a short message of up to 80 characters, like on WhatsApp: “Free to record this week”, “In the studio”. Your message appears under your name for your contacts. It is also in Settings, as Status.

Calling someone#

Press the phone button next to the contact, or Call into session in the right-click menu. If you don’t have a session open, Mixapod starts one for you first.

On your screen, an Outgoing call window opens: the other person’s portrait, first Calling… and then Ringing…, a quiet ringback sound and a Cancel button.

On the other side, an Incoming invite window opens, like a phone: your photo, your name, your status message and a quiet, unobtrusive chime. Join (Enter) or Decline (Esc).

• When the other person presses Join, they go straight into your session and both windows close on their own.
• If they press Decline, your window shows it.
• If there is no answer within 60 seconds, the call ends: you see No answer, and the other person gets a missed call.

If your contact is offline#

When you call a contact who is offline, the invite waits up to 10 minutes; your window says Will see it when Mixapod opens. If the person opens Mixapod within that time, the invite pops up for them. If you leave the session, the invite is canceled.

Missed calls#

When you can’t answer a call, it becomes a missed call, just like on a phone:

• if the Mixapod window isn’t in front, a Windows notification shows who called,
• it is added to the Calls list in the sidebar; missed calls you haven’t seen yet are highlighted.

If your computer was off while someone called your Mixapod number, you get the missed call notification when you open Mixapod (within 24 hours).

Calls list#

The Calls list below Settings in the sidebar shows incoming, outgoing and missed calls: the 8 most recent calls are on screen, and the last 50 calls are saved.

• To call back, press the small phone button on the row.
• Empty the list with Clear.

Messages#

With Messages in the sidebar you can write to a Mixapod number, like a text message. If the other person is offline, the message waits at the server and reaches them when they open Mixapod (for up to 30 days).

• For a new message press +; type the number or pick one of your contacts whose number is known. The message button on a contact card and Send a message in the right-click menu open the chat too.
• Enter sends, Shift+Enter starts a new line.
• The mark next to a message you sent shows how it is doing: a clock while sending, one tick when it reached the server and will be delivered once they open Mixapod, two ticks when it is on their computer.
• What you write while offline goes out by itself once you are connected. A message that couldn’t be sent shows why, with Try again.
• A short tone plays when a message comes in, and the number of unread messages is shown next to Messages in the sidebar; if Mixapod isn’t in front, a Windows notification appears too. The tone stays quiet while recording; turn it off in Settings › Preferences › Message sound.

Requests#

The first message from a number that isn’t in your contacts lands in the Requests tab. Open the chat to Add to contacts or Block; replying also moves the chat out of Requests. Messages from a number you blocked don’t reach you, just like its calls.

Sending files#

In a chat, send a file with the paper clip or by dragging it onto the chat (up to 2 GB per file).

• The other person gets the file’s name and size as a message; if they are offline, they see it when they open Mixapod.
• The file itself never goes through the server: when they press Download while you both have Mixapod open, it comes straight from your computer over an encrypted connection. If you are offline at that moment, the download waits and starts by itself when you open Mixapod.
• The downloaded file goes to Downloads\Mixapod and is checked to have arrived complete. If the connection drops, it continues from where it stopped.
• If you move or delete a file you sent, it can no longer be downloaded.

Appointments#

In a chat, the calendar button next to the message field sends an appointment: a title, date, time, length and an optional note.

• The other person sees it as a card: Accept or Decline. The answer shows on your card too.
• Add to calendar opens the appointment in the computer’s calendar app (Outlook, Windows Calendar), which also reminds you 10 minutes before.
• 10 minutes before an accepted appointment, Mixapod notifies both sides and plays a short tone (no sound while recording). As the time comes near, the card shows a Call button.
• Appointments are end-to-end encrypted like messages. Someone on an older Mixapod version sees the appointment as a plain message with its date and time.

End-to-end encrypted#

A message is sealed on your computer with the other person’s key and can only be opened on their computer. The server holds and passes on the sealed envelope and can’t read what is inside.

The End-to-end encrypted button at the top of the chat shows a 30-digit safety number. If the other person sees the same number, nobody has swapped the keys in between. If you have been in a session together, the keys are also compared over the session link and it says Keys verified in a session you were in together.

If the other person reinstalls Mixapod or moves their number to another computer, the chat shows a safety number changed note.