Leopard’s keyboard-centric approach to switching spaces has been a bit of an annoyance to me at times and I’ve always liked Xfce’s (and probably other X11 window managers) method of switching virtual desktops by moving the mouse, so I came up with a similar solution that makes it possible to switch spaces with just the mouse. Warp is activated just by moving the cursor to the edge of the screen by default, but there are also options for an activation delay and modifier keys in order to minimize accidental switching. Personally, I find it easier to move my mouse to the edge of the screen while holding the command key rather than reaching for a key combination.

Warp is free, but donations are welcomed and appreciated!

Chax 2.1 is now complete, with unified contact list goodness. As a reminder, you can reopen the unified contact list by selecting “All Contacts” from the Window menu.

Two new hidden options from Chax 1.5 are also back, BlockAOLSystemMessage and DisableFocusRing. BlockAOLSystemMessage ignores all incoming messages from AOL’s aolsystemmsg notification service. DisableFocusRing disables the blue focus ring around the input line in chat windows. To enable these options, enter this command into the Terminal and restart iChat:

defaults write com.ksuther.chax BlockAOLSystemMessage -bool YES

Substitute NO with YES to disable the option.

Changes from Chax 2.0:

• (New) Unified contact list displays all contacts from all connected accounts
• (New) Contact list pops to the front after a short delay when dragging a file onto a contact
• (New) Options to control auto-away and auto-away delay
• (New) Automatically go away when the screensaver activates
• (New) Auto-accept for file transfers, AV chats and screen sharing
• (New) Option to warn before quitting iChat when there are open message windows
• (New) Option to display message sender names in the Dock icon
• (New) Reimplemented hidden BlockAOLSystemMessage default
• (New) Reimplemented hidden DisableFocusRing default
• (Bug) Fixed encoding problem with status changes in message windows
• (Bug) Export icon in the activity monitor now shows a text document
• (Bug) Fixed issue where Growl notifications and the activity log would display some available statuses incorrectly

Changes from Chax 2.1b1:

• (Bug) Unified contact list now reopens when the iChat dock icon is clicked and no windows are open
• (Bug) Fixed error sending files with auto-accept enabled
• (Bug) Unified contact list will reopen as the default contact list if it was the last open list

Auto-accept for file transfers is back in this version, along with auto-accept for AV chats and screen sharing. There is also more fine-grained control for auto-accept, allowing you to accept files or AV requests only from specific contacts or on specific accounts. Other features returned from Chax 1.5 are auto-away controls, a quit warning, and the ability to go away when the screensaver activates.

Also new is the inclusion of a unified contact list, which displays all contacts from all logged-in accounts. It will appear automatically at startup on first run, but it can also be shown from the Window menu. You can’t yet add or remove contacts from this list, but it will immediately reflect changes made to the original contact lists.

I’m still getting a few reports of people unable to get Chax to work on their upgraded 10.5 installs, although the new installer with Chax 2.0 solved most issues. If you’re still having trouble getting Chax to work, ensure that you’ve removed any old versions of Chax from ~/Library/InputManagers. Anyone still experiencing trouble should take a look at Allan Odgaard’s write-up on setting permissions correctly so that Input Managers will load.

Changes from Chax 2.0:

• (New) Unified contact list displays all contacts from all connected accounts
• (New) Contact list pops to the front after a short delay when dragging a file onto a contact
• (New) Options to control auto-away and auto-away delay
• (New) Automatically go away when the screensaver activates
• (New) Auto-accept for file transfers, AV chats and screen sharing
• (New) Option to warn before quitting iChat when there are open message windows
• (New) Reimplemented hidden BlockAOLSystemMessage default
• (New) Option to display message sender names in the Dock icon
• (Bug) Fixed encoding problem with status changes in message windows
• (Bug) Export icon in the activity monitor now shows a text document

Update: An additional feature readded to this version is the ability to show message senders in the Dock icon.