Not much has changed from beta four, except I'm making this beta a public download. Please let me know if you find any problems. Beta five will run until April 20th.

Changes from beta 4:

  • Chax badge in the menus can be disabled in the preferences
  • Text input field now resizes properly when using tabs
  • Tab window doesn't come to the front when receiving a new message
  • New option for command-[ and ] to switch tabs
  • Improved tab resizing when there are multiple tabs open
  • Two new hidden defaults: BlockAOLSystemMessage and DisableFocusRing. BlockAOLSystemMessage does exactly what it sounds like it does and disable focus ring disables the blue focus ring around the text input line in messages. Enable these options with this terminal command:

    defaults write com.ksuther.chax BlockAOLSystemMessage -bool YES (replace BlockAOLSystemMessage with DisableFocusRing to disable the focus ring).

Known Issues:

  • Add Buddy from the Buddies menu doesn't work properly (fixed for next version)
  • Tabs are too big in some cases (fixed for next version)
  • Possible crash when pasting large amounts of text into a chat (fixed for next version)

5 comments:

rich ruminations » Chax 1.4 public beta now available at 2006-03-16 17:06:04 -0500

[...] I’ve been beta testing Chax 1.4 the past few days. Lots of nice improvements, but the biggest is probably a new tabbed interface — this really helps when you’ve got multiple chats in progress. A public beta is now available, so check it out. The beta has been very stable, no problems at all. [...]

EXCELLENT! at 2006-03-16 17:51:57 -0500

This is excellent. What a great software!!

Andrew Conti at 2006-03-18 15:36:43 -0500

Excellent software. Helps make iChat a little more useable. Any way you can improve the way the buddy list looks? I can't stand that the only way to sort contacts is alphabetically.

Andrew Conti at 2006-03-18 15:37:41 -0500

[...] I can’t stand that the only way to sort contacts is alphabetically. [...] I meant groups, not contacts.

nato at 2006-03-18 21:15:26 -0500

Great enhancement! For the next verison, it'd be great if the close window bubble would close the whole window (and all tabs) rather than just closing the active tab (since that function is already available with the close button on the individual tabs). Thanks!