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Chat Room Entry : The chat entry form may take a minute to load into our Guitar Closet chat launch window. It will appear as a grey rectangle until it has loaded. If it doesn't load, see 'If the entry form doesn't load' below. When the form has loaded, enter a chat name. The profile (optional) is information about you: interests, self description, a web address etc. Click the button to the right of your name to enter the chat room. A new window will open. Closing the Guitar Closet chat launch window will disconnect all chat windows that were launched from it. However you may minimize it if you wish. You can select it from your task bar if you need it again. Once you've entered the chat room, you may enlarge its window for better viewing. You won't see what has already been typed by others in the room before you arrived. To talk to the others, type your message in the space at the bottom of the window and hit enter. Your message will appear in the main chat window. To you, your name will not appear in front of your message, though everyone else in the chat room will see it. The names of other guests are listed in the right hand column. Click a guest's name once to read his or her profile (if they have entered one). Click twice to send that guest a private message. A new private chat window will open to you and that person only. If you are the only person in a chat room, hang around a while. As long as the room is open, others on the network will be able to see the name of your room and your name and profile even if they haven't signed into any room yet. Typing something like ' I'm ready to chat. Enter the room and ring me! ' in your profile is likely to initiate a chat with others. If there is no traffic after a while of hanging out, you may want to view other currently active chat rooms from the 'master chat window' (see next section). You can leave your current chat room open while you do this. It's a good idea to enable the 'audio alerts' and 'entrance alerts' items from 'options' in the chat window menu bar, so if the currently open chat window becomes hidden by other windows, you will hear someone entering. They can also then 'ring' you from another menu bar option. Master Chat Window : Below our chat room entry form in the Guitar Closet chat launch window is a second button with the words, 'Click this button to see all active chat rooms.' Clicking this will open a master chat window where you can view all currently open rooms. You will also see another chat entry form there. By highlighting a room name, you can view who is currenly in the room. By highlighting a name in the room you can see their profile (if they entered one). If you see a room you'd like to enter, fill out the master chat window entry form, highlight the room name, and click the 'enter room' button. New rooms constantly open and close as people initiate or close a room. A room may still be listed even if it's been recently closed. Pressing the 'refresh rooms' button will update the currently active rooms. You may at times only see the room you just opened and some empty permanent rooms. It may appear you are all alone but sometimes others are viewing what rooms are active even if they haven't signed into any room yet. Make sure you have a room currently open with your name in it and an inviting profile so others will want to enter and talk to you. There may be many other chat rooms other than just Guitar Closet's chat rooms visible. Guitar Closet chat rooms will be labeled as such: Guitar-Closet.com(chat room name). Visiting often at different times of the day and different days of the week will reveal an ever changing population of chatters and rooms. 'Select A New Chat' Click Box : This item is just below the master chat window button in our Guitar Closet chat launch window. From this click box you can select various chat rooms listed even if they aren't currently visible in the master chat window. Click the arrow to open the list and then click on the desired chat room name to go there. You will be redirecting the Guitar Closet chat launch window to a new url where the selected chat room is located. This will disconnect all currently open chat windows. If you select another of the ' (Guitar-Closet.com Rooms) ', all the above mentioned options will be available to you and the window should be almost identical in appearance except for the window title and name of the room the chat entry form will launch. If you select a room listed below the words ' (Network Rooms Below) ' you will be leaving the Guitar Closet chat launch windows format and you will be subject to the format and options that particular chat room offers. You will also probably have to enlarge the window to see the entire page. You can get more information about chat options and features by clicking Help here or from the chat room or master chat window menu bar. If the entry form doesn't load : You must use a Java-enabled browser for this chat software to work. You should have no difficulties with Netscape Communicator 4.0 (or higher) or Internet Explorer 4.0 (or higher). Be sure your java options are enabled. If you are running an older browser, you might want to download one of the free browsers below and try again. Sometimes under certain conditions a combination of open windows and multiple java applets running together can freeze up a current browser window. Closing unresponsive windows one at a time using Control+Alt+Delete will solve the problem but also may close all open browser windows too. Bookmarking before using chat will help you find where you were. If these solutions don't help and trouble persists, email us at email@guitar-closet.com for help. 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