These iChat 4 pages are coloured Gray and have the iChat 4 icon on them that was in use at the time, so you know where you are. The icon differs little from the Version 3 version.

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 In that time the AIM servers have been closed down (2017) and iChat has been superseded by Message and FaceTime. That effectively make this a sort of Historical Document of how it worked.

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iChat 4 Pictures Preferences

You are In:- iChat >> Versions >> iChat 4 >> iChat 4 Pictures Index >> iChat 4 Prefernces Index >> General Preferences

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01 General Preferences

Nov 2008

1 General Preferences

This is the iChat 4 General Section of the Preferences.

The first item is a choice of which App is your choice IM app in a similar way you can choose your Default Browser in Safari's Preferences.

A Change The Show Status in Menu Bar adds a small speech bubble icon to the Menu Bar at the Clock end and is now the top tickbox item. This will be greyed out if you are Off-Line but will display the Status Messages you have created if you click on it. Using one, whether Away or Available, will log you in.

When you are logged in but Away then the icon will have a - (minus) sign in the middle and will be dark to show you are Active. The drop down will now show you the Status Messages and your On-line Buddies. When Available the icon is just be a speech Bubble as it does when you are off-line, but now dark and show the same listings as when you are Away.

You then have a choice if the iChat resets the Status as it starts up (Green Arrow) At User Login… This is not a choice of what iChat does when the Mac Starts Up and the User Logs in. The default is for this to be On and ticked but can be distracting if you start up iChat and get Buddies calling before you have got the Buddy List filled properly. As iChat 4 can be set to Invisible you may think that is how iChat will start up the next time. If On this will change that.

The line When I Quit iChat, Set my Staus as Offline, indicated by the Blue Arrow, is very important. If you leave this Un-ticked then iChat will not fully log out of the AIM servers. You will display as being Away to many other AIM clients (Applications that can join the AIM service). For many clients this is used for Off-Line Messaging, but iChat 4 can do this whereas previous versions, cannot do this. Having said that it can be annoying to still get messages popping up whilst you think you have Logged out of the servers fully.

It can cause issues though, if you have two computers and login with the same Screen Name on both. As you login on the second computer the AIM servers will send you a Text Chat message to say you are logged in twice and wanting you to type 1 and send it to log the first computer out. You can set yourself here to Set your Status as Off Line or use the Accounts section to Allow Multiple Logins to get around this. (You need to set the same on both computers). You also need to consider Web based Logins including much older Browsers running in OS 9 that have the AIM messaging system built in such as Netscape

Not often discussed is the fact iChat can be set to send the current Away Message if you choose to. It is set here with the Auto-Reply with my Away Message

Essentially the Shapes option (third arrow down on left, coloured red) is to help colour blind people although they still have the same colours. It changes the indicators (normally the coloured blobs) next to your Available or Away status and those of your Buddies. A Circle, Triangle and Square are used. Having said that the factit points to greater inclusivity that actual window set and the various windows you can have open always include the Aqua interface 3D looking indicators such as the red Blob to left of this main picture and the Keep My Status as Away radio style selector.

A New thing. iChat 4 can offically Animate Buddies. You can use animated .gifs to do it or create them with the help of Photo Booth. However whilst falling penguins can be amusing for a while the movement can be distracting particularly if they are looped rather than play once.

They Changed Confirm before Sending Files. This has been moved to this General Prefs section from the Messages Section.

The next drop down can be used to set what Chat does when you use Fast User Switching if you have different Mac User Accounts on your computer.

The following items control what iChat does or asks you if the computer Sleeps or the Screen Save becomes active. (physically Away from your computer).

Files can be sent to you when you are not chatting (Text, Video or Audio but iChat is open). Where these are put can be stated in the bottom Drop Down item. By default it is the Desktop but it can be changed. However during a chat it is always the Desktop no matter what you have set here.

Next - Accounts Pane

Created with JAlbum 4.0.6

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Created October, 2008 Major Update/Edit October 2024.

 ©  Ralph Johns. Created October 2008

Information Block

This site is about iChat from Version 1 through to iChat 5.x.x
Mostly this is kept as an Historical Document. Some small tense changes have been made but the content is by and large untouched.

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

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

About This Page

Control how iChat Logs out of the AIM servers, where incoming Files are put and what happend when you come back to your computer if the Screen Saver is active or the Computer has been Sleeping.

Also has some Display and Function assist options like a Menu Bar icon to access certain parts of iChat.

Certian items have been moved to this set of Preferences and some are New for iChat 4

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.

Compatibility

As mentioned above this has had a major Edit/Update in September/October 2024 moving towards being fully HTML 5 compliant meaning that the Browsers listed below are likely to no longer work.

I have tested in Safari 18.1, Firefox 130.x and 131.0, Vivaldi 6.9.3447.48 and iCab 6.2.3 (All Mac Browsers) I don't have access to a PC let alone multiple browsers to test on.

The original pages worked 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/may only see a text-based page which, while not the prettiest option, is still entirely usable.

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