Here's the third, and hopefully last, pre-beta version of Chax for 10.5. The log viewer has been rewritten, so it should be more responsive and stable compared to previous versions. Functionally it is the same, but it should be significantly smoother. The commonly reported bugs have been fixed, as well as a bug in iChat where using the Auto Accept AppleScript to immediately accept text messages caused new chat windows to float on top of all other windows. I also re-added Chax's ability to auto-accept text messages, freeing up the AppleScript option in the preferences. Lastly, buddy icon notifications in the Dock are back. Full name notifications in the Dock will probably be following suit sometime soon.

Regarding a unified contact list, which has been a huge request - I too would love to see such a feature. However, a single contact list is a question of whether or not it is even possible, not me holding back on anything. You guys don't need to post any more comments or email me about it, I know! :)

The current set of features is probably what will be going into a final version. Expect a more completed beta with an installer soon.This build is not to be posted on MacUpdate, VersionTracker, or other software update sites.

Changes:

  • Log viewer has been rewritten
  • Added "View Logs" contextual menu item to contact list
  • Fixed scrolling in the contact lists
  • Improved display of status change messages in chat windows
  • Buddy icon dock notification option has been readded
  • Readded auto-accept text messages option, separate from the Auto Accept AppleScript
  • Fixed a bug in iChat where using the Auto Accept AppleScript would cause new windows to float above all others

Note: SIMBL or PlugSuit are required to use Chax.

24 comments:

Matt at 2007-11-07 00:14:10 -0500

I do have a feature request, if it's possible. Can you see about adding an option to put the timestamp on all messages in a chat? The once every 5 minutes thing from Apple doesn't seem to work anymore. It only puts the timestamps in if no messages are sent/received for a period of 5 minutes or more. Thanks, and keep up the great work!

nephraito at 2007-11-07 04:51:27 -0500

May i have another feature request? Please add support of ICQ authorization if possilble.

meatleg at 2007-11-07 05:22:50 -0500

yay! i love you man! that auto accept applescript wasnt working on my PB G4....thanks..

osxrulz at 2007-11-07 11:06:33 -0500

Matt: If you hover over a message, a tooltip will appear with the time stamp.

Peter Jones at 2007-11-07 12:54:46 -0500

Would it be possible to support OTR encryption? This is the last thing keeping me on Adium. http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/

Dan Diemer at 2007-11-07 15:46:22 -0500

auto-reconnect soon? i'd hug you.

Rubin at 2007-11-07 16:24:37 -0500

You've made me pretty darn happy with this update! I wanted the dock notifications and that's what I got! Thank you.

Rubin at 2007-11-07 16:31:22 -0500

Sorry, actually instead of Icons can we show buddy NAMES in the dock like the old version?? That'd be amazing.

benuetzer at 2007-11-07 17:32:18 -0500

GREAT! Thanks ... really missed this! Big up!

Allan at 2007-11-07 18:08:52 -0500

Hey, As I mentioned in the email I sent, Chax's Log Viewer not works for me! Lovely! Count me in on having a badge for incoming messages in the Dock - the names on the person/s. I would like it to be modifyable this time.. like a tiff or png image that can be HUE shiftet or replaced with one to my liking. I tried so hard to do that on Tiger but never managed to accomplish it. Thanks Kent!

Allan at 2007-11-07 18:10:23 -0500

I didn't mean to say "not works" but "now works" - I apologize.

Marc at 2007-11-07 21:03:35 -0500

Hey, this is kind of a feature request as well. Is there any way all contacts can be placed in the status menu. Right now it only shows either the bonjour or IM or Jabber buddies. It would be nice to see them all at the same time.. not sure if this is possible or not..

Andrew at 2007-11-07 22:11:20 -0500

Great work with the Chax alpha's, I love what you've been doing. One bug I noticed is that if you add a buddy (when the buddy is offline in my testing) with Growl notifications turned on, you get a notification that the contact you added is offline and then it continues to cycle through everyone of your offline contacts as "going offline". I usually just stop Growl and start it again but it'd be nice to not have to do that!

alden at 2007-11-08 00:06:55 -0500

Tried exporting chat logs, a .txt file gets created but it is empty (zero KB.) Running Leopard on a 15" Powerbook G4, 1.67GHz. I'm very happy to have found the Chax alpha!

kdr4186 at 2007-11-08 00:57:47 -0500

Much improved! A few things I have noticed: When buddies start using their cameras, it displays a growl notification say "____ has become available." Also, the buddy sign-on/sign-off notifications do not always appear when I am working in a different space. Excellent work Kent!

Nicholas Riley at 2007-11-08 01:29:29 -0500

One small request - could you add back BlockAOLSystemMessage support? It is the only feature I'm missing from Chax in Leopard now. Thanks.

Jason at 2007-11-08 03:31:15 -0500

I think I found a bug: When someone tries to send you a video or audio chat request, the request dialog fails to appear so you never know if someone is trying to chat with you. I confirmed this with a friend who also has this build of Chax installed. Anyone else have this problem?

nephraito at 2007-11-08 06:41:33 -0500

Forget to say - Thanks for your work with Chax. That plugin really good and helpful.

Paul at 2007-11-08 15:31:07 -0500

Yes Jason, I am seeing the same issue.

James at 2007-11-08 16:10:54 -0500

Glad to be able to use Growl notifications with iChat now. Is there any way that a future version of Chax will automatically resize fonts that are smaller than a given number to that given number without having to reformat the entire text? Some of our Windows friends tend to have very small fonts and it'd be nice not to have to ask them every time they send an IM to make their font bigger. Thanks!

Dan at 2007-11-08 23:31:17 -0500

Okay, maybe this has been mentioned, but how about a way to organize away messages?? like different folders? I can't be the only one with a billion

Cooner at 2007-11-09 00:15:47 -0500

Thanks for still working on this. I'm looking forward to if/whether/when you can reinstate proper display of Nicknames from the addressbook (iChat's built-in option of using 'short names' seems to work only randomly on some buddies) and making keystrokes available to switch up and down tabs ... again, if that's possible. Something I noticed tho ... After I installed PlugSuit, TextEdit started crashing on launch. Disabling PlugSuit seemed to make it work fine again. Anyone else experience this or similar problems? Or is SIMBL a better option? I'm about to cruise over to their site for more info ...

Cooner at 2007-11-09 00:25:24 -0500

UPDATE: So far, SIMBL seems to be working better ... at least, it's not crashing TextEdit on launch. :) Good luck with Chax!

Marcus Müller at 2007-11-09 09:16:18 -0500

Alpha 3 breaks Video Chat invitations for me - from the logs: Nov 9 12:50:58 calculon iChat[285]: *** -[AVChat joinState]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x1c57f500 Unfortunately, it doesn't tell the object's class - but when disabling chax.bundle, video invitations do work again so I presume it's something you have added. Have fun debugging ;-)