The only new feature in the beta is the option for vertically orientated tabs, which a number of people have been requesting for quite some time. A movie showing what the vertical tabs look like is also available here.

Changes from 1.4.7:

  • (New) Support for vertically oriented tabs on the left and right sides of message windows
  • (Bug) Fixed a problem where tab animations became stuck when opening or closing a tab
  • (Bug) Tear-off windows are now always the same size as the window they are removed from

Update: I initially uploaded a version where non-English localizations did not have the new vertical tab options added. Redownloading 1.4.8b1 will solve this problem.

30 comments:

rickey939 at 2007-02-10 02:19:50 -0500

Awesome!

Dome at 2007-02-10 09:39:11 -0500

I don't find the option :( is it because the language is not english?

denny at 2007-02-10 13:20:20 -0500

fantastic! been using chax for a while, mainly for the tabs... very nice to have them on the side. i wonder, would it be possible to add a preference for larger tabs/user icons? as currently implemented the icons are very small and hard to make out. thank you for making ichat so much better!

Adam Betts at 2007-02-10 14:28:32 -0500

Side tabs is so sweet! Unexpected addition but very nice! I'd also love to see bigger icons (somewhere around 32x32.) Name doesn't have to be bigger though, it's perfect right now. I'm much happier now with side tabs :) Bottom is not the best place to hold lot of IMs in one window.

Dome at 2007-02-10 15:41:35 -0500

That's great, it's working the no english version... very fast update :-) thanks ;-) by Dome.

Rick at 2007-02-10 22:57:12 -0500

Love the side tabs. Had no idea I would. Now here's a crazy idea... Can you split the sidebar pane and put a buddy list in there? Make the height variable (i.e. user can grab the pane border and resize). The way you do tabs would do for buddy list entries (just add a coloured pimple for status and an icon for audio/video capability.

ljun at 2007-02-11 04:25:25 -0500

bigger icons would be nice :) Also, if there's any way to flush the left tabs with the interface (instead of having that gap between the top of the interface and the first tab). For some reason, I don't get time stamps on the messages anymore? Is this from chax?

Bruce at 2007-02-11 09:34:08 -0500

I was hoping that the side tabs would be vertical tabs rather than horizontal. As they are, I'll probably NOT be changing from using the tabs at the bottom.

Joshua at 2007-02-11 15:42:30 -0500

Do you think it would be possible to have the iChat logo just turn red when an unread message comes in, and have it remain red until you activate iChat?

Sam at 2007-02-11 16:16:19 -0500

Amazing app that just gets better and better and better. Side tabs are amazing! I was wondering if you might make the icons bigger (I know I'm the 7th person to say it, but they are pretty small). Also, considering tabs are now above and below eachother as opposed to the left and right, perhaps you could add a choice of tab-switching hot keys to cmd+shift+up arrow/down arrow?

Brian Hawthorne at 2007-02-12 10:52:42 -0500

Just discovered Chax. What a wonderful thing! One suggestion: It sure would be nice if there was a way to tell iChat to show the date as well as the time in the chat transcript. At regular intervals, iChat is kind enough to drop a timestamp into the chat window. This is great, except that sometimes I leave a window open for several days (usually over the weekend) before noticing that someone sent me a message. Then, all I know is that they sent it at 3:05pm, but not what day. Dunno if the timestamps are something that Chax can modify, or if they are outside the regular chat events.

macboyx at 2007-02-14 02:30:51 -0500

I'm having a problem. Whenever I hit CMD-W to close a tab, Chatx closes all my tabs and gives me a warning. This does not happen on my other Mac running Chax (same version) I can't seem to find where to turn that off...can someone please help?

Flambé at 2007-02-14 02:54:20 -0500

Would be great if Chax could disable one annoying feature of iChat (which seems to be gone from the Leopard version): when iChat finishes receiving a file, it reveals it in the Finder bring the Desktop window to the front. This is horribly crippling, since it takes the focus away from iChat. If it happens in the middle of typing a messages, you can easily end up with randomly renamed files, etc.

O. Feliciano at 2007-02-18 00:09:11 -0500

New version (1.4.8 beta 1) no longer registers with Growl (0.7.6). No longer displays notifications. Reinstalled Chax after removing Growl ticket and it no longer registers at all with Growl.

bob at 2007-02-18 18:26:48 -0500

one thing that drives me crazy: I want the default chat (when I double-click & when I hit the "start Text chat Button") to be a CHAT, not an IM. that way, I can later add people that MAY come online later, w/o having to start a WHOLE NEW chat from the file menu. I want to have to select IM from the file menu, and the default to be a chat (many participants OK). Got that in the works? I have been checking out this site recently after hearing about it from macworld, but while the other features are cool (esp. the tabs), I think the IM/Chat thing is a deal-breaker! Can't find any info on whether it does that already or not!

Bryan at 2007-02-18 21:33:36 -0500

I know this isn't really related to Chax, but I'm really desparate and hoping your knowledge of iChat could help. I would have emailed you directly but since thats not available I'm doing it this way. I'v tried looking through forums at MacosXhints.com and macrumors and Apple.com/support and asking at each of these forums and no one seems to have an answer. I'v seen a small handfull of other people have the same problem I'm having. I'm having a problem where I cannot see any buddy icons. Instead everyone has the generic "aim guy" icon. The little check box "always use this picture" from the address card is not checked for anyone. I'v tried so many things, and have been dealing with this problem for about 5 months, so I can't say what triggered it. At the time I thought it was a small issue that I could easily fix. Here are things I have tried: deleting temporary files associated with iChat, repairing permissions, deleting all preferences for iChat, and creating a new user account for MacOS. Now that last thing did something interesting. I can see buddy icons if I login to the other user account and launch iChat and sign in. So what I tried to do was copy every single file with "ichat" in the filename over to my main user account. I even used an application to show hidden files and searched with that on. So far there is NOTHING that works. There is one exception, I can see buddy icons of other mac users that have made their icon using an iSight camera using the built in functionality of iChat to do so. Please, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Mark Heftler at 2007-02-19 01:01:00 -0500

I recently connected Chax with Growl and now iChat won't make any audible notifications for received messages, though it's still set to. Any ideas?

Lindsay at 2007-02-19 01:04:40 -0500

I'm having a problem... Whenever I try to add a new buddy I get: Could not add to your buddy list. (Feedbag error 12) I have no idea what's going on or if this is an iChat error or a Chax error. I currently have Chax 1.4.7 so maybe 1.4.8 would fix it? Please help! :) thanks.

Andy K at 2007-02-20 04:41:59 -0500

Thanks for all your hard work on this program! A suggestion; is it possible to have a different user picture depending on status? I.e. idle is one picture, away is another.

Matteo at 2007-02-23 07:46:38 -0500

First of all thank you very much for the work you've done and are doing with chax. It's amazing. I wonder if it is possible to implement some option like showing all the contacts (AIM, jabber, bonjur) in a single window, maybe with some sort of icon indicating to which of the 3 option the contact is belonging. Also it would be nice see all the available contacts from the ichat menu bar and not only them from 1 service (as it is now). May you work on that? Thank you again and sorry for my English but I'm Italian... Thanks..

jess at 2007-02-23 14:00:06 -0500

I've been using chax for a week (flat sitting with a G5, unfortunately I only have panther at home, so can't use it there, yet). It's a major improvement over standard iChat. I'd like to second Matteo's request for a combined contact window and add the following requests: Contact list(s) able to be put in a tab along with the messages. Hide empty groups. Info option to launch browser for contact info page (eg icq.com/UIN) Disable the this machine is too slow for videoconferncing message. (And these probably will need to be filed under moon-on-a-stick) (Since I understand I chat uses sip) Allow ichat to register with standard sip providers (eg FWD, gizmo) ie replace xlite. Allow iChat to act as a plugin for Adium. Thanks

jess at 2007-02-23 15:15:59 -0500

And the one I missed :(: A be right back tab. An extra tab at the far right, that when pressed puts you into away mode with the message typed in the box (remembered from previous use.) Optionally sent as a message to all active chats.

Andreas at 2007-02-24 15:02:29 -0500

Hi, I'm having some trouble with tabs in version 1.4.7. Often I have tabs that get shrunk down even when "Disable tab overflow menu" is checked. I have to go into the preferences and uncheck it, and then check it again, to make it look right. Is this a known problem?

Rob at 2007-02-24 20:50:26 -0500

Hey, looks like a great addition to iChat! One suggestion, can you make it possible to to select the text in user's away messages? Its always frustrating when someone has a link or some info in there and you can't select the text to copy it somewhere else. Cheers!

Michael at 2007-02-24 21:50:33 -0500

I am sorry to put unrelated comments at the end of this post, but your email form is disabled. One feature I would love to see in Chax is chat encryption using TOR like in Adium. I would love to encrypt chats with my family and friends, but I am the only one with .Mac.

G. Gibson at 2007-02-26 17:21:27 -0500

Hey, Anyone know of an effort to bring IRC or other protocols to iChat? I could really really use that. I've been using Fire for a while, but it is kinda rough-cut in comparison to iChat. I think it would be optimal to use an add-on to iChat and leverage the stability of the code base. Any thoughts, suggestions, known project urls? If so, please email me at: mrgibson@mac.com No spam please.

James D at 2007-02-27 12:51:38 -0500

Does anyone else have a problem with the "Error joining chat" bug mentioned previously on this blog? http://www.ksuther.com/weblog/?p=29 Basically, with Chax installed and the 'Automatically accept text invitations' preference checked, I sometimes get an error on an incoming text message. I can't dismiss the dialog or interact w/iChat for a few seconds; I can then dismiss the dialog and interact with iChat as normal. It's getting very annoying. I love the functionality of Chax/iChat but I'm looking for a new client as a result of this bug.

James T at 2007-02-27 18:50:32 -0500

Hey, this is an awesome product. I've always gotten tired of the lack of customization in iChat. This maybe a selfish demand, but I was wondering if it was possible to implement an option that makes the iChat window into an Aqua window instead of the grey brush metal look it has. Other than that, keep up the great work!

Tury at 2007-03-01 00:24:57 -0500

It broke my iCamara... I uninstalled and it still broken, no picture shows up... Do you know what is going on? :( besides that... man amazing! but I neeeeed my iCam :)

bigBOON at 2007-03-02 13:58:48 -0500

It screwed up my A/V options in iChat also, and my friend's who I sent it to. I get a communication error everytime I try to start a video chat. Any ideas? I even tried removing it from CPU and rebooting, but it's still messed up. Pls let me know what I can do (I need the video function for work, so it's imperative). Thnx so much!!!