A rather small update from the last beta. I've fixed all of the problems I have found related to tear-off tabs, so that feature is now enabled by default in this beta. As always, please let me know about any issues that come up.

The final release of Chax 1.4.6 will likely be one of the last updates that will include major improvements until iChat 4 is released in Leopard. I plan on continuing to hunt down any bugs remaining in Chax, but new features will likely become few and far between. Chax will be updated for Leopard compatibility when Leopard is released, but not before then. Attempting to keep up on every change made by Apple between different development seeds of 10.5 would simply be wasted effort on my part. Relatively few people are running Leopard seeds (legally) anyway -- the few of you that are running developer builds are will have to wait for Leopard GM to use Chax.

Finally, I plan on working to release the source to all of Chax once I complete the final version of 1.4.6. Hopefully those of you interested in hacking iChat or any other Cocoa application will be able to get a better idea of how to do so.

Changes from 1.4.6 beta 1:

  • (New) Activity log data can now be exported as an HTML table
  • (Bug) Fixed multiple problems with tear-off tabs that would cause crashes
  • (Bug) Fixed problems with trying to rapidly tear tabs off the tab bar
  • (Bug) Fixed message window positions not being saved when closing multiple tabs

21 comments:

Pepi at 2006-09-11 05:07:04 -0400

Thanks for making Chax! I am looking forward to he published sources. Pepi

Angelo at 2006-09-11 06:46:13 -0400

Great to hear you're gonna release the source. I'm looking forward to that. Great work!

Volte at 2006-09-11 19:03:55 -0400

This is amazing. I am so glad I stumbled across this. Only one request, as I know you've gotten before, combined buddy lists. Combine them all into one, duplicate contacts are merged, along with a right click to allow for selection of which service to use to contact an individual. If you get this. I have a lovely, chunky donation coming your way. To this, I promise. Thank you so much for this awesomely and professionally done plugin. I've just about converted from long time Adium. Also, by any chance. can you write a log importer? or does this already exist. Woohoo. Back to native apps :)

Travis Bell at 2006-09-12 12:18:58 -0400

Nice work! Chax has always been one of my favourite utilities.

Dino at 2006-09-12 12:31:12 -0400

tearing off a tab still crashed iChat for me.

Dino at 2006-09-12 12:40:46 -0400

after more investigation it seems that it crashes when i close the window i tore off.

AC at 2006-09-12 13:07:39 -0400

Awesome add on! Here's an a idea, how about marking users that are 'mobile' something other than avalible, maybe make them look idle or away? just a thought, keep up the good work!

jordan at 2006-09-12 20:35:35 -0400

I love this program, however, it's been crashing iChat a lot lately and I'd like to uninstall it. How should I go about doing this? Could you please email me?

Big Dub Diesel at 2006-09-13 14:12:27 -0400

Chax is super awesome. I would like an option to time stamp every individual IM bubble. Sometimes a message comes in, and I have no idea how long it's been sitting. iChat seems to tab the first message back if you've been idle a while, but this is inconsistent. Cheers!

Rockman at 2006-09-13 14:59:25 -0400

I've been really impressed with all the features of chax. I found a bug a while back, I think it was 1.4.5 where I first noticed it. I always like my iChat status in the menubar without actually having iChat open, but whenever some initiates a conversation with me and iChat opens the chat window will have a black background and the time will not show up in it either. Also when I'm done talking to the person and I close the window, iChat crashes. Again, great job on chax and I hope the bug is gone with 1.4.6. Thanks.

Dan Crane II at 2006-09-13 20:13:04 -0400

I have a suggestion. Is there any way to post the Album Artwork that corresponds to the iTunes track that I am listening to in teh lcoation of my icon/avatar? I would assume that if the artwork was not available, then the standard iChat icon previously chosen would be used, or maybe the choice of a "No Artwork Available" small graphic in its place. Either way, I really enjoy chax!

Cody at 2006-09-13 23:08:37 -0400

Ok, so I got a crazy idea the other day. My friend got a Mac, and now he of course has iChat, and thus I can click the arrow in my Buddy List and go the the iTunes Store and see his song's page. But honestly, I don't plan on ever using that to purchase songs, or really for anything. BUT, it would be awesome if instead, when I clicked the arrow, it would search my iTunes for the closest matching song and play it. The code would essentially be very similar to the Symphonic widget from mindquirk.com. It would just grab the title and artist and just match the closest song and play it in my Library. I really could see myself doing that because I see songs on my Buddy List and want to listen to them myself. Is this possible at all?

Aaron at 2006-09-14 12:00:14 -0400

Since the contact page is down, I figured I'd give this a shot here:

Aaron at 2006-09-14 12:05:08 -0400

Sorry! I hit tab and enter and submitted accidentally! I was wondering if Chax in any way changes the location of the custom away messages for iChat, as I have a long list of them and wanted to be able to just copy and paste rather than using the iChat status menu. Are these messages located somwhere other than the .plist file located in: Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.plist ? Thanks!

Erik at 2006-09-14 16:55:24 -0400

Chax is a great extension! I'm wondering what the "Disable close buttons on tabs" preference is suppose to do. When I have several tabs open and switch between them, I occassionally hit the user's icon and accidentally close the window, thus losing what the user just sent me. I was under the impression that disabling the close buttons also disables closing the tabs (expect via right click).

Lou at 2006-09-14 17:50:47 -0400

I don't know about anyone. I love this program, one of the best i've used. BUT it crashes my ichat whenever it's installed. I have re installed tiger on a fresh hd a few times in the last few months, each time, ichat is crash-free until I install chax. A day or so later, it starts it's "on incoming IM" crash - 1 in 30 incoming IM's. I can't figure it out. I hope no one else is having this issue, but i'm sure they are since these fresh installs are unlikely related.

Scott at 2006-09-15 13:29:23 -0400

Great app. Can you add the ability to disable the show others when I am typing a message feature. Thanks.

Chris at 2006-09-17 14:28:53 -0400

Chax is really a wonderful add on. It's pulled me away from Aduim, which says a lot. One feature that I would like to see is the ability to add Growl notifications for certain users only. I plan on playing with that when the source is released, but I think it would be a helpful feature that many people would enjoy. Thanks again for a great product.

likâ„¢ at 2006-09-17 14:45:41 -0400

I got severe problems with Chax: My friend and me have newest OS X, therefore newest iChat + Chax 1.4.5. Whenever she sends me a picture pasted into iChat (AIM) I get a »RendError« Message, she is alledgedly typing »¥øyå« or somthing similar (we call it the yoya bug) and that's it — no picture. We both uninstalled Chax, deleted all iChatprefs and rebootet, after weeks it was gone for the first time. Then I installed Chax 1.4.5 again and there it was, the yoya bug. Any help? Please mail!

Rick Yaeger at 2006-09-18 17:17:48 -0400

Actually, I would love it if Chax were able to block the sending of inline images via iChat. Sending inline images almost always causes chats to drop (without notification). It would be better if the transmission of the image could be stopped before it started somehow.

Mike at 2006-09-20 11:47:37 -0400

REALLY liked using Chax, especially since I'm seriously lacking real estate on my laptop. But after installing the most recent version and using it for a while my iChat would get hung up and would take about 4 min to quit. Went to the Genius Bar yesterday and we discovered that Chax was the culprit. We removed the program and now iChat quits right away. Anyone else have that problem?