Program Java

You may want to take a look at the java.net package. If you don't know how to write a standalone program you will allso want to take a look at the javax.swing package. Search up some tutorials to help you. The oracle website has many tutorials that will help you get started.

you are a final year student and you don't know how to start working on a stand-alone chat program?
hmmm ... seems a bit dodgy to me, but still...

there are several ways you can go: RMI, JNDI (for example) .. RMI does have a bit of a problem though, it's quite likely to be blocked by a firewall.

as for the "stand-alone" part, use Swing, as sirlink99 suggests. the Oracle tutorial on Swing indeed is pretty good, even though I wouldn't recommend looking to long at the "hey, here's how to use the NetBeans editor" part of it.

Also you can go with socket programming in java.

Search tutorial for it in google.learn it and then go for devlopment.
Also learn Swing for providing GUI if needed.

Thanks

nurib:
DaniWeb Member Rules (which you agreed to when you signed up) include:
"Do provide evidence of having done some work yourself if posting questions from school or work assignments"
http://www.daniweb.com/community/rules

As a final year student you should be capable of doing more than just whining. Post what you have done so far and someone will help you from there.

@OP
In regards to this assignment, are there any restrictions, or explicit ways that your supervisor wants you to create your chat program. Also is the chat program suppose to be realtime (like most instant messaging services) or something like an email system? In the event that it is a instant message'ish' chat program then this may be a good place to start, and look for influence. In order to find that it took a google search of : Chat Program Java. However for a non-continuous or email'ish' type system, then this may be of interest. I would explain the way I would attempt it, however; why do that when there are perfectly fine tutorials on the subject? well hope I helped

I would start by considering how the chat protocol to use, whether it is one you have designed yourself, or an existing one such as XMPP. While an existing protocol is likely to be much more elaborate than one you've worked out yourself, it would have the advantage that most of the design work is done for you, and you could test it against an existing implementation such as Jabber or Pidgin.

Still, a simpler protocol has it's advantages. It really only needs three things:

• some sort of handshake for connecting the two clients
• a way of transferring a message
• a signal to disconnect the session