Ralph Johns

These iChat 1 pages are coloured Blue and have the iChat 1 icon on them that was in use at the time, so you know where you are.

iChat 1 Pictures

You are In:- iChat >> Versions >> iChat 1 >> iChat 1 Pictures Index >> iChat 1 Preferences Index >> Accounts Preferences

	1[4]	01 Account Preferences	Oct 2008
1 Accounts Preferences

This is the Accounts Preference pane for iChat 1

It displays by default the Logged in Screen Name as greyed out text. It indicates under that if the password is stored with iChat.

Just below that is the Server Settings Button which is not active whilst you are logged in.

In iChat 1 you have check box to Enable the AIM valid Name. If you uncheck this you will be logged out immediately.

This will then allow you to type a New Name and Password adding them to the drop down list. There is a Clear option at the bottom of this List. If you use this All name and Passwords will be removed from your Keychain as well so make sure you have the relevant details somewhere else as well. If you have two or more Screen names Log out of AIM then use the drop down and select the new Screen Name to swap between them.

The Server Settings button is also active whilst you are logged out. In here you can set Proxies separate from the System Wide ones. More usefully you can change the Login port. The Default is port 5190 but if you are using Port Forwarding in some routers and modems this can be an issue so using port 443 is recommend.

AIM used to have additional server names that could be used, but no others seem to exists now.

The Main picture then has the section on Rendezvous Messaging. This can be Enabled/Disabled by use of the check box.

In the bottom section what IChat does as iChat Opens and Quits are set. If both the AIm and Rendezvous items are Enabled you can still decide on whether to Log in or not as iChat opens.

The indicators as to a Buddies' Status as Available, Away or Idle are the same shape and similar to the Aqua interface blobs that close and minimize window. Some colour blind people can not distinguish this and so there is an option to use shapes. Available is still green but a Circle, Away is a Red Square and idle is an Amber Triangle.

iChat is an application that can have it's own icon in the menu bar that will give access to certain iChat functions from there even if iChat is shut down. whether it is displayed is controlled here.

The last setting by default is unchecked. What happens then is when you quit iChat you appear as Away rather than Off-Line. In other applications this allows an app to be restarted if an invite is sent. As you are Away rather than Off-lIne you can not get Off-Line Messages as they are not held at the AIM Servers.

Having said that though iChat 1 will not accept Off-line Messages. It is prone though to starting up, apparently on it's own if someone does send you a new invite. Personally I prefer the setting shown to Log out fully and show as Off-line when iChat quits

Created with JAlbum 4.0.6

Information Block

These pages have sat here since 2008 with no update. In that time the AIM servers have been closed down (2017) and iChat has been superceded by Messages. That effectively make this a sort of Historical Document of how it worked.

This 2024 Edit/Update does make some tense changes to the Contents but mostly it stands as written. The general purpose of the update was to move, as much as possible to HTML 5 compliance where I could.

This site is about iChat from Version 1 through to iChat 5.x.x

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

This Information Block will change for Specifics about info on the page on view

About This Page

Control of how iChat Logs in and opens Buddy lists at Start up of IChat and also how it displays your status to your Buddies when iChat is Quit.

Also has some features about how Status indicators appear in the Buddy List.

When you are logged out of AIM you can change to a another account/Screen Name.

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.