Zephyr Classes and Instances

Using Zephyr classes and instances, you can send and receive Zephyrgrams which go to more than one recipient. Effectively, the main difference between an instance and a class is the privacy level. Zephyr instances are generally less private and easier to find out about, and people who send Zephyrgrams over them expect that there will probably be people reading them who they do not know about. Zephyr classes are usually more private, and people who send Zephyrgrams over them generally do not want uninvited people to eavesdrop on their conversation by receiving and reading Zephyrgrams on the class.

Zephyr has three parameters that control who will get a Zephyrgram: a class, an instance, and a recipient. When you send a Zephyrgram to a friend, using zwrite username, the class is message, the instance is personal, and the recipient is your friend's username. Different combinations of these parameters are what define different Zephyr classes and instances. You can change these parameters to refer to different classes and instances that you want to receive messages on, and to refer to a class or instance that you want to send a particular Zephyrgram to. Basically, what people call a Zephyr class refers to changing the class parameter to be something other than message. What people call a Zephyr instance, or public instance, refers to changing the instance parameter to something other than personal, while still within the class message. In the next few sections, we will explain how to change the class, instance, and recipient parameters to send and receive Zephyrs to groups of people on different instances and classes.