Whats the proper way to send client comands

I have a flash jabber client that integrates video conferencing.

The situation requires sending a message from one client to the other saying effectively “open the video window”. Currently I do it by typeing a tild as the first character of a normal message, which the client sees and opens the window.

I suspect there’‘s a mechanism where the command can be sent not as a normal message shown to the user, but I’'ve not found it amongst the JEPS.

Any ideas?