[Lua][Qeustion]Help with my chat program

Hello, I already know that my chat program works, and has no errors, but I do not like were I have to wait to send a message for someone to reply first, someone on a CC server I play said you needed to do something like.

os.pullEvent

and I admit, I am not the good with some Lua in CC, like os, but here's my chat programs code. All i really want to know is were to put it, and what to put, because Im not good with os. thanks.

function top()
  term.clear()
  term.setCursorPos(1,1)
  term.setTextColor(colors.purple)
  print("Welcome to Chatv")
  term.setTextColor(colors.gray)
  print("====================================================")
end
function detectDevice(DeviceName)
DeviceSide="none"
for k,v in pairs(redstone.getSides()) do
if peripheral.getType(v)==DeviceName then
   DeviceSide = v
   break
end
end
  return(DeviceSide)
end
top()
ModemSide=detectDevice("modem")
rednet.open(ModemSide)
term.setTextColor(colors.green)
write("Username: ")
term.setTextColor(colors.white)
local user = read()
term.clear()
term.setCursorPos(1,1)
top()
while true do
  term.setTextColor(colors.lime)
  write("Message: ")
  term.setTextColor(colors.white)
  local a = read()
  rednet.broadcast(user.. ": " ..a)
  id, msg = rednet.receive()
  print(id.. ": is sending a message")
  print(msg)
end

You have 2 options really, either, you could to some extent recode read(), so that it will also accept a rednet_message event and print it out. OR, you could trick around some with parallel API. both working, I personally would have taken the first, more "legit" route. Plus I have no experience with parallel. Though, that being said, I think parallel is abit easier to use, though I also think the first route is safer, since then its your program from the bottom sort of say.

I'm not too good with this stuff, but I think I might be able to help. Instead of someone having to reply, just have a "Reload" option, where it would reload the program and load the new messages. Or you could have a while loop reloading the program every so often so that it could load the new messages.

chadd, he wants to read and reveive at the same time. and no timeframe or something, instant.

Doyle3694, on 05 December 2012 - 04:30 AM said:

You have 2 options really, either, you could to some extent recode read(), so that it will also accept a rednet_message event and print it out. OR, you could trick around some with parallel API. both working, I personally would have taken the first, more "legit" route. Plus I have no experience with parallel. Though, that being said, I think parallel is abit easier to use, though I also think the first route is safer, since then its your program from the bottom sort of say.

So I would just do

local a = read() id, msg = rednet.receive()

then just leave the rest as is?