Back in January , I coveredChax , a not bad utility that enhances iChat ’s live feature and provide a number of novel ones . Another way to fine-tune iChat is Improv , Pastence ’s freeiChat Extender 1.4 ( ) .
Whereas Chax pore on functionality , iChat Extender ’s strong suit is appearance . For example , iChat Extender ’s Status screen let you opt the format of the Current iTunes Track status substance ; a numeral of presets are available , or you may create your own formatting via the Advanced screen .
The utility ’s trend screen lets you change the style of iChat ’s Group bars — to a bit of dissimilar colors and texture — and to exchange the coming into court of the “ thought bubbles ” that appear when you ’re typing subject matter in iChat .
If you ’re not a buff of iChat ’s “ smiley ” icons , you could disable them completely via the Smiley ’s projection screen ( an selection also available in iChat ’s View card ) , and the Login screen lets you like a shot sign in to iChat as “ Offline ” or “ Away ” rather of the default “ Available . ”
Making a modification via iChat Extender mostly requires that you restart iChat for the change to take effect . ( iChat Extender includes a Restart iChat button , but it did n’t turn consistently for me , so I ended up resume iChat manually . ) A backup lineament lease you create a backup of your current styles ; unfortunately , no instructions are allow for furbish up your preferences from this backup .
( Note that AIM ’s servers will temporarily disable your AIM business relationship if you sign out and back in too oftentimes in a short period of meter — something I discovered while testing iChat Extender ’s various preferences . After a few minutes your bill will be enabled again . )
iChat Extender is a simple utility , and one that ’s not without a few oddity , but it ’s certain to invoke to Mac drug user who like to customize their computing experience .
iChat Extender works with Mac OS X 10.4 ( Tiger ) or by and by and iChat 3.0 and later .
