You can set up standard messages for two situations:

•	When you start a new match, a message to send your opponent. Many people use this message to say where they are ("Greetings from California") as a courtesy to their opponent.
•	When you decline a match invitation. This is a courtesy to the person who invited you to play a match.

Enter defaults for these two messages in the Chat section of the Preferences window.

Name substitution

You can use the special string "&name" in either of these two messages and MacFIBS will substitute the player's name automatically. For example, it you set your new match message to "Hi &name! Greetings from California", when you start a new match with a player named joe, the message will be "Hi joe! Greetings from California!"

The same substitution applies to the decline message, a typical message might be "Sorry &name, I can't play right now. Thanks for the invitation."

Note: You can only use "&name" in the automatic messages you create in the Chat section of the Preferences window. If you put &name directly in a chat message as you type it, MacFIBS will just send "&name". If you want to use a player's name in a message, just type that player's name.