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 In that time the AIM servers have been closed down (2017) and iChat has been superseded by Message and FaceTime. That effectively make this a sort of Historical Document of how it worked.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

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

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03 Messages Preferences

Nov 2008

3 Messages Preferences

This is the iChat 4 Messages Section of the Preferences.

Somewhat self explanatory. You choose your Bubble/Balloon colour, the Font (style) and the Font colour. As a general Rule go for Light on Dark or Dark on Light. As far as Fonts go they will only display if your Buddy has the same font (it will default to Helvetica in iChat if they don't have it). Choose something that is easy to read. Also choose a suitable size for most of your Buddies.

You can choose to override Reformat the incoming format but this is global and will do it for all Buddies in all the chat variants. It can become confusing in Group chats and Chatrooms if everyone has the same Bubbles and Font.

A New item. You can use this new setting to create a Keyboad Shortcut choice to bring iChat to the Front. You just have to wok out Key combinations that are not used elsewhere in the app.

Automatically Saving Chat Transcripts can be very useful. Any and all text chats for 1-1 chats to group chats are then saved to a folder called "iChats" inside your Documents Folder. These are saved by name with a date and time part to the file name. iChat can reopen them from the File menu or you can Double Click the file itself and iChat will open it. You can also use Open With from the Finder's File menu and use a Text or Word Processor application but they are then difficult to read as all the info to create the bubbles, colours and fonts are in there for each IM sent.

More New items. The Next three items are new. I have highlighted two in the picture Collect chats into a Single Window works with all text chats whether they are 1-1 chats or Croup chats. This brings in to play the Watch for My Name option, which will make the icon bounce extra times in the DOCK and flash the band in the tabbed Chat window that the references is in if it is not the front one. If you are used to using Tabs for Groups in a Buddy List then the Chats windows become somewhat similar.

Also the Remember Open Chats Across Launch will reopen any chat that was Open when iChat was Quit. This can be useful for rejoining a Permanent Chatroom if you shut down your Computer at night or for rejoing a Group chat if a Restart of the computer is needed after a Software Update. It can also be a useful tool if you are in different Time Zones to a Buddy and need to get back to them the next day. FOr 1-1 Chats it can depend on other settings made in the General Pane about "When I Quit..."

Another Change or rather a Move. This Section used to have the Confirm Before Sending option for Files and this has been moved the the General Section.

Next - Alert 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

These effectively are global settings to how your Bubbles and the text in them look. Whilst the main white background always shows Bubbles when you do this the Colours and and Fonts choosen apply to all forms you can use to display you chats Bubbles, Text, Compact and Boxes. You only see these at your end.

You can also override incoming IMs to look how you want although there are drawbacks to this in Group Chats. In large Group Chats or Chat rooms more specifically it can be difficult to work out who is "speaking" if all the incoming Bubbles are the same and the Fonts are all the same. Having said that I can see that joing a caligraphy might be difficult if you did not overrride the Font as some handwritting styles can be difficult to read

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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