Ralph Johns

iChat In Pictures >> Your are in Folder 4_iChat WIndows >> Page: Status Message List

	11[15]	11 Status Message List	19-10-2008

This Picture is from iChat 4 but you can see the word "Invisible" looks different. When you click whever word or phrase you have here the List of Status Messages you have slides out from under the Header bar of iChat.

The initial list can be quite short in early version relying on you to create your Own. iChat 4 has a few simple common Mesasages to also choose from.

You can type a message as long as you want but iChat will tend to only display 42 characters of it, even if you drag the Buddy list Window wide enough to display them. As you can see from one of the lower Away messages Smileys also work here. You have to type the Smiley such as :-) for instance and it will be turned into a Smuiley on display to your Buddy (and to you only in later versions of iChat).

If your Buddies Message is longer then mouse over it in the Buddy List and a Yellow Tooltip box will show the whole message for a while

In between Available options you have or create and the Away ones iChat 3 and 4 have the ITunes option. This runs an AppleScript that reads what iTunes is playing and writes it somewhat dynamically as the Status Message.

At the bottom of this iChat 4 picture you can see that Version can be set to Invisible.

It is also where the Edit button is that brings up the Edit window (Coming Up Next).

Important Note: These Messages are stored in the com.apple.ichat.plist along with everything that you can change in the Preferences. It is the only thing I know about iChat that is stored in the .plist that is not controlled by the Preferences. If, though, for any reason you have to delete the com.app.ichat.plist then you will lose these as well.

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©  2008 Ralph Johns: Created October 2008

Information Block

This site is about iChat from Version 1 through to iChat 4.x.x

It has a mixture of basic info and problem solving help.

The setions below will change for Specifics about info on the page on view

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About This Page

iChat can display a message called the Status Message as it will inform people as the the exact state of you Availability or Awayness.

The basic choice is Availabe or Away and a chance to Edit/create your own in early version with iChat 4 having some more common options.

iChat 3 and 4 have the option to display what iTunes is Playing.

Compatibility

Confirmed to work with Win/IE 5.5 and later (should work in 5.0, but not confirmed), Firefox 2, Safari 3, Opera 9, iCab 3.02 and later, Mac/IE 5, Netscape 6 and later

Old browsers (IE version 4 or earlier, Netscape 4 or earlier) should only see a text-based page which, while not the prettiest option, is still entirely usable.