Starting at version 0.83 TiK includes a button bar by default.
Below you will find a terse explanation about the button bar
along with its features (some not very obvious).

On the left end of the button bar there is a small text field.
This is the 'header' box, and basically will appaend its
contents to the beginning of your im and not clear itself
upon send. This is intended for one conversation html tags.
For example, putting <font size="16" face="utopia"> in the
header box will append that to the beginning of all the IM's
you send, and, thus, will make your conversation text be 16
points and with the font 'Utopia.'

On the right end is the complementary 'footer' text field.
Intended for putting in the closing tags ( </font>, etc )
at the end of your IM, this box is really unnecessary, as 
TiK already closes any open tags automatically upon send.
This field may be removed at a later time to make way for
more button bar features.

To the immediate right of the header box are the standard
font style buttons, Bold, Italic, and Underline, respectively.
Upon being pressed they place the appropriate html tag at the
_end_ of your IM. You cannot select text and have it bold it.
Pressing the button again pastes in the closing html tag.
Since ctrl+b and ctrl+u are already bound to other functions
(one space back and clear line, respectively), we had to
bind alt+function to the button bar. Pressing alt+b, for
instance, invokes the Bold button. All button presses are
reset to their original state upon IM send.

To the right of the underline button there is a font button
and font slider. The font button places in an html tag at
the end of the IM, <font size="fsize">, where fsize is the
position of the slider. This means that the slider must be
set before pressing the font button. It can either be moved
with the mouse (drag it as necessary, left click somewhere
to increment it 1 space in that direction, or middle click
where you want the slider to set it there) or by using the
keyboard. Alt+period and Alt+comma are mapped (because 
above them are the symbols < and >, thus making it seem
appropriate :) ). An example of font size usage would be
typing, pressing and holding alt+period until the slider
is in the desired position, and then pressing alt+f to
paste in the font tag. Pressing alt+period or comma
increments the size by 4 places.

After the font size scale is the new color button. This
used to be located on the footer bar but seems much more
appropriate here.
