You’ve got lots of ways (well, 4) to start chatting with any of your Yahoo! contacts.

1. From the # Online link next to Contacts (for example: 2 Online)

On the left side of your Mail page, find Contacts. To the right of Contacts, you should see a number – for example, 2 Online. This tells you that two of your contacts are currently online. Click there to see who they are. To start chatting, just click on a name in the list. A Conversation Tab opens up in both your Mail window and theirs. That’s it – let the conversation begin!

2. From the Compose button’s new pull-down menu (or keyboard-shortcut “c”!)

Click the down-arrow at the right end of the Compose button and select Chat (or, be even quicker (and slicker) and simply type “c”). Then, in the conversation tab that opens, enter the Yahoo! contact with whom you want to start chatting – and you’re off!

3. While Composing an email

If a contact is online when you start typing their email address, Address AutoComplete lists their name twice: once for you to auto-complete the “To:” line (and write an email), and then one more time under the heading “Online. Chat now!” To start a chat with them instead of writing an email, just click their name under “Online. Chat now!”

If you’re in the middle of writing an email and then decide you’d rather be chatting, just click Chat on the toolbar to convert what you’ve written so far into the first volley of a chat conversation.

What if a contact comes online while you’re writing them an email? Yahoo! Mail flashes an alert in the Calendar Strip at the bottom of your Mail window to tell you they’re available. Interested? If so, click Chat Now to start chatting with them.

Note: If the message you’ve written so far is less than 2K (about 100 words), Yahoo! Mail converts it into your first comment of the chat. If it’s more than 2k, you’ll get a “Text Limit Exceeded” message. In this dialog, you can either edit (shorten) the text to make it fit into a chat, or click Cancel, I’ll Stay with Email.

4. From within the Contacts tab

Click Contacts on the left side of your Mail page, and you’ll open a list of all your contacts. The ones that use either Yahoo! Mail or Yahoo! Messenger will have a smiley-face icon next to them. If the face is gray and asleep, the contact is offline. But if the face is yellow and smiling, they’re online and available to chat! To get going, click once on their name in the list. Their details appear in the pane to the right. Now, click the smiley-face icon there, and presto! A conversation tab opens for you to start chatting away.