This beta includes few additional bug fixes as well as new options to undim the screen as well as stop the screen saver when receiving a message.

Changes from 2.1.2 Beta 1:

• (New) Options to undim the screen when receiving a message or AV invitation
• (Bug) Showing groups now restores properly for the unified contact list
• (Bug) Improved German localization
• (Bug) Viewing logs on a specific person will now properly reload logs
• (Bug) Exporting logs as text will now save status changes
• (Bug) Exporting log as text now gives a default name

Download Chax 2.1.2 Beta 2

Here’s a new beta with a couple of small improvements and bug fixes. There are still two outstanding bugs that a limited number of people are encountering: some incoming messages not appearing properly when auto-accept is enabled, and crashes when waking from sleep. I’ve been having trouble reproducing these issues myself, despite having consistent reports on reproducing the problems. I still hope to fix these two problems in the future.

The unified contact list behavior has been changed slightly in order to better suit differences in usage. There is now an option to either explicitly use the unified list. If this option is not checked, selecting “Buddy List…” from the iChat menu extra and clicking on the iChat dock icon will not automatically display the unified contact list. Be sure to check this option if you generally use only the unified contact list. The synchronization issues between the unified contact list and individual accounts should be fixed in this release.

The syntax for enabling the option to strip the background color from outgoing messages is the following Terminal command: defaults write com.ksuther.chax StripOutgoingBackgroundColor -bool YES. Swap YES or NO to disable the option. You may need to restart iChat for changes to take effect.

Changes from Chax 2.1.1:

• (New) Quick Look support for inline image transfers (available by right-clicking an image)
• (New) Contact lists can now be sorted by user handle (View menu -> Sort Buddies -> By Handle)
• (New) New default to strip background color of outgoing messages (StripOutgoingBackgroundColor)
• (New) Russian localization (thanks to Denis Avdeev)
• (Change) The unified contact list can now be set as the primary contact list in the Chax preferences
• (Bug) Unified contact list should now stay in sync properly with all accounts
• (Bug) Auto-replies to ICQ users are now properly stripped
• (Bug) Name notifications in the Dock now truncate better
• (Bug) Selecting “All Contacts” from the Window menu now toggles unified contact list visibility
• (Bug) Can now make all accounts invisible at once with the unified contact list

Download Chax 2.1.2 Beta 1

A few additional bug fixes from the last beta. Most significantly, auto-accepting text chats will no longer result in incoming messages popping up in front of existing chats.

Changes from Chax 2.1.1 Beta 1:

• (New) Menu item to mute all iChat alert sounds in the Audio menu
• (Bug) New messages no longer immediately pop to the front when auto-accept is enabled
• (Bug) Clicking Growl status changes now open an existing chat if available
• (Bug) Installer now warns if the installing user is part of the group wheel

Happy New Year!

This beta contains bug fixes mostly related to the unified contact list, but also includes a couple new features.

Changes from Chax 2.1:

• (New) Options to disable the screen saver when receiving a new text message or AV chat
• (New) Options to auto-hide the contact list and message windows when iChat is inactive
• (New) Clicking a Growl status change notification now opens a new message window
• (Bug) Improved search results when searching with the log viewer
• (Bug) Unified contact list now functions when waking from sleep
• (Bug) Fixed a crash that could occur when disabling an account
• (Bug) Moving a contact into a new group now properly updates the unified contact list
• (Bug) Installer will no longer crash when running on Mac OS X 10.4

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.