Naka 205 The answer to this, and whatever you might be told to the contrary, is WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY!!! ......And I'm not in the least religious but I don't like the tone of your thingy which I haven't got on my key board or your $sign
If you can get a dialogue box to pop up when you click chat you are lucky. If it doesn't say host unavailable before you have clicked send then things are looking reasonably good. If you have managed to send the message and it is staring at you from the top of the box, then a large glass of sparkling wine is in order!
What ..... you want more ... ok if the other chap sees the message that is good and if he replies and you get a dialogue going rush out and buy real champagne and rush back before he dissappears!!!!
Ok ... this last bit depends on the other host seeing your message. He may well be nowhere near his computer and he may not come to check it for a couple of hours if he is not asleep or down the pub. The average limewire user has learned to take the chat feature with a large pinch of salt and many have it switched it off. The only reason I leave it on is that it seems to be more likely that people can browse my share if it is switched on. In nearly a year of using Limewire I think I have managed a 2 way chat on three occasions. I have probably managed to get the dialogue box up less than 20!
I think part of the problem has to do with available bandwith but is a lousy feature and does need to be improved .. not so we can all have long chats which can be done on iChat or MSN, but there are messages that hosts do need to send each other, and as this is the only way, I wish it could be made toy work properly.