This beta consists mostly of bug fixes and additional options for tabs. There are a couple of new features, mainly vertical auto-resizing of the contact list and resizing row height to fit custom font sizes. Unfortunately, the changing row height works only when the contact list is in the single-line view where the user icon is hidden.

I need feedback from users of .Mac encryption in particular. I've readded support for the encryption lock icon in the tab window but I don't have a .Mac account myself to test if it works or not. I also don't know if there is any additional functionality that the lock provides by clicking on it. Any details on how the lock actually behaves – other than looking pretty – would be appreciated.

I've added yet another hidden default for those of you who would like your text input line to be larger than one line. To make your input line an arbitrary number of pixels tall, type this command into the terminal: defaults write com.ksuther.chax MinimumInputLineHeight size-in-pixels. For a base reference, the default height with Lucida Grande 12 is 15 pixels.

Changes from 1.4:

  • (New) Growl notifications for when a user comes online, goes offline, goes idle, goes away, and becomes available
  • (New) Options to have the tab window come to the front when receiving a new message
  • (New) Option to disable the close buttons on tabs
  • (New) Option to have the contact lists automatically resize to fit the number of visible contacts
  • (Feature improvement) Contact list row height will now adjust itself according to the size of a custom font as long as user icons are hidden (the two line view will not resize)
  • (Feature improvement) Default iChat floating window notifications now work with tabs
  • (Bugfix) Lock badge when using now appears properly in the tab window
  • (Bugfix) Fixed a crash when double-clicking on a status icon in the activity window.
  • (Bugfix) AppleScript commands work again with tabs
  • (Bugfix) "Add Hyperlink..." command now works properly with tabs
  • (Bugfix) "Attach File..." command now works properly with tabs
  • (Bugfix) New message tab status color overrides offline status color
  • (Bugfix) Activity window now uses locale-specific date formats

23 comments:

MysticalOS at 2006-04-03 00:30:07 -0400

awesome. Definately an update I was waiting for. Finally full growl support. And no more closing tabs I dont mean to. One feature request. Well revise actually. Please add a gui pref for aolsystemmsg. This is an option I find myself toggling on and off.

Lindsve.net » Chax 1.4.1b at 2006-04-03 02:15:37 -0400

[...] Kent Sutherland has released a new beta of Chax today, which provides a couple of great new features. I have now updated the Norwegian localization for this release and it should be attached to this post. [...]

MysticalOS at 2006-04-03 02:28:00 -0400

Found a new bug. Not sure if it's tab fixes or newer growl support, but when i recieve new IM's and ichat isn't front app, when i click on ichat dock icon, it doesn't clear message count in most cases. This is with one IM open, tabs enabled, tabs always shown. Grown notifications on..

osxrulz at 2006-04-03 07:52:23 -0400

1.4.1b1 Bug(?) - When attempting to connect to group chat, I apparently do connect to it, but there is no window visible. The "Window" menu indicates that the chat is active, but there is no way to view the window.

Daniel at 2006-04-03 10:04:57 -0400

Couple of things: 1) The auto-resizing of the contact list is awesome ... now I don't have to use my applescript background app to do the same thing. 2) The 'JohnDoe123 become available' growl notification has a typo. 3) The Log Viewer doesn't view any of my old chats ... they just show up blank. New ones (since I installed chax, i think) do have content.

Andrew at 2006-04-03 10:42:00 -0400

Any chance you could include an option for borderless nibs, e.g. Safari, iTunes.

Sam Kelly at 2006-04-03 13:28:58 -0400

Thanks for this great app! Unfortuantly I am seeing an issue specific to 1.4.1b where iChat crashes when adding/removing Jabber Buddies from buddy list. I sent some more info in via your contact me form. Thanks, Sam

karsten at 2006-04-03 15:32:02 -0400

when i move between tabs i get the following error: NSInvalidArgumentException: *** -[NSWindow showLock:]: selector not recognized [self = 0x6043680] and later ichat crashs

Balthamos at 2006-04-03 17:57:33 -0400

The resize to fit contact list does not take into account groupings (ie when you expand/close a group the window does not change to fit) Also, would it be possible to make a window go back into a tab? I know that you can make a tab to a window, but it would be nice to be able to do it the other way (command drag a window to the tab bar or something) ~Balthamos

shamir at 2006-04-03 18:11:46 -0400

tabs dont seem to select when new messages come in that get added to the tabs when you have 1 IM and the new person IMs you - the message stays on the old (original) person.

ssp at 2006-04-04 09:59:50 -0400

Impressive new changes. Contact list resizing is a brilliant idea! It might be a good idea to exclude non-updated localised nib files from the beta versions... it's quite tricky to try out a new feature if the check box to activate it isn't visible.

osxrulz at 2006-04-04 10:23:06 -0400

Uninstalled and reinstalled Chax, then deleted the .plist. All seems well so far. I can once again join group chats. Feature request - Don't know if it's possible, but it would be nice to have a tooltip appear when hovering over a link in iChat. Few things are more annoying than clicking a link that says, "OMG! NEW STUFF IN THE APPLE STORE!" only to end up looking at a picture of tubgirl or something from rotten.com.

Andreas at 2006-04-04 13:41:09 -0400

I can' t find the option to have the contact lists automatically resize to fit the number of visible contacts. Can anybody help me?

alan at 2006-04-05 20:11:40 -0400

thanks for the applescript update. how about unifying the Bonjour and Buddy List. thanks, alan

Jason at 2006-04-05 23:48:22 -0400

alan: I asked about the unification and it is possiable with the developer tools with a program called Interface Builder! I tried it and it works, you just have to play around with it. I am not a pro at developing but I figured some of it out.

Robb at 2006-04-06 20:57:31 -0400

Great software.... only think I could wish for is a seperate Growl notification for initial message received so that I could have the ability to make that a sticky notification. Would come in handy since I have my dock hidden (so I do not see dock icon) and I miss the regular notification of a message received. Thanks

Nathan at 2006-04-06 23:35:29 -0400

With the auto-resizing contact list (awesome feature btw), my contact list seems to eventually scoot up the top of the screen every time it has to resize. Also, if i click and unclick the option for resizing in prefs, it scoots upwards too. Just thought i would let you know. Thanks for this awesome app.

Alex at 2006-04-07 12:56:07 -0400

You are a god among men. What you have done is add so many of the features that have been in freeware and shareware apps in all operating systems (mac, windows, linux) and add them to ichat. Since apple likes the KISS policy (keep it simple stupid) I can see why they didn't add these features... yet. What needs to be done now is to spread the word about Chax that way users will benefit from most of the features because anyone who has iChat will also have Chax. Where to start...?!

Alex at 2006-04-07 13:00:35 -0400

Once chatting with MSN and yahoo has been added (through jabber) you will DOMINATE!

XL at 2006-04-07 13:59:22 -0400

Hello, A great App! what would be fabulous : having bigger avatar, see avatar (bigger) in tootips Good luck XL

XL at 2006-04-07 14:29:05 -0400

And copying avatar into address book would be great

kingmob at 2006-04-08 07:15:02 -0400

10.4.6 seems to break something with tabbed chat support - when activated, I get the message "NSInvalidArgumentException: *** -[NSWindow showLock:]: selector not recognized [self = 0x78c1740]" when I try to close a tab, or switch between tabs - this also leads to iChat crashing almost every time this message appears. Besides that, Chax is the one thing that finally convinced me to switch to iChat - it's simply fantastic. Thanks!

Frédéric Côté at 2006-04-10 13:26:16 -0400

>>And copying avatar into address book would be great I totally second this request!