2 iChat Questions

Hey all...I finally did it! I went out Thursday night and drove an hour to the nearest Apple store to buy my very own 17" Superdrive iMac! Well...I guess I have no will power at all, because I sprang for the 20". ****!!! This thing is amazing. I'll post some pics in the setup thread when I pick up some decent speakers (recommendations welcome).

Anyway, I wanted to ask a few questions about iChat:

#1 - How do I check someone's entire away message without having to resize the iChat window? When I used AIM on my PC I just click the info button and could easily "away message stalk" anyone. Now in order to fully stalk people I have to resize the window to see their entire message...bummer.

#2 - Slightly less important now that I've gotten used to it a bit more, but it was pissing me off the first night. Just for future reference, how to I make the actual chatting format more like AIM without the talking bubbles (a line to line format)? To be honest they've grown on me, and actually add kind of a cool factor, but I'd still like to know. I know it's possible because someone posted a screenshot of it on another forum.

Thank you to any response...

Taylor

WasabiTaylor said:

#1 - How do I check someone's entire away message without having to resize the iChat window? When I used AIM on my PC I just click the info button and could easily "away message stalk" anyone. Now in order to fully stalk people I have to resize the window to see their entire message...bummer.

Click to expand...

Just hover your mouse pointer over their name in your contact list. It should display the message in a 'tool-tip' type of display

WasabiTaylor said:

#2 - Slightly less important now that I've gotten used to it a bit more, but it was pissing me off the first night. Just for future reference, how to I make the actual chatting format more like AIM without the talking bubbles (a line to line format)? To be honest they've grown on me, and actually add kind of a cool factor, but I'd still like to know. I know it's possible because someone posted a screenshot of it on another forum.

Click to expand...

That is just the way iChat is. The person with the screenshot was likely using another chat program and not iChat. Probably Adium. If you are looking for a more traditional display, I would suggest using Adium. You can find it on www.versiontracker.com.

I'm still positive that there is a way to format it like AIM, but I don't care anymore.

However, I have another question.

When I'm iChat and I put my computer to sleep before I go to bed, is my away message still available to read or does the computer log me off and log me back on when I wake it up? If so, how can I stay logged onto iChat but not have my display on?

Thanks

Taylor

There is a way to format iChat to go line by line like AIM and you can choose to get rid of the icons and use the persons screen name when in chats and in im's if you want.

What you need to do is have an IM window open, you dont have to be in a conversation, but it helps.

When the window is open and selected, go to View and choose "Show as Text" that will take away the balloons. Then if you want to show the persons screen name in the window instead of their buddy icon choose "Show Names".

You can also edit how the bubbles or lines look by going into iChat > Preferences > Messages. I have mine set so all incoming messages have a random background color, and are formatted to helectiva 12 in black. This should give you more of what you want, I hope it helps.

this is how my IM windows look like after I did all of that to it, except I blacked out the names:

I recommend getting the i360 for it, it's very handy for moving the screen