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Historical Document

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 In that time the AIM servers have been closed down (2017) and iChat has been superseded by Messages. That effectively make this a sort of Historical Document of how it worked.

I will make attempts to renew and refresh Links to either the most current site or use the Way Back Machine Archive so that people can at least look at what was used. I will make Edit Notes on this and on those where I can find no link to replace the older one as I go through the document.

iChat Preferences

iChat In Pictures >> You are in Folder 3 iChat Prefs >> Page : General Prefs Picture.

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1General Preferences

02-10-2006

This is the first of the Preference Screens. It is accessed from the iChat Menu and then Preferences.

This one is labeled "General" The Options are fairly self explanatory. However:-

iChat does not by default log out of AIM fully when iChat is quit - it sets you to Away. With some AIM Clients (Apps) versions this allows Off-line IMs to be stored on the AIM servers for you, although some people find it will start up iChat when the computer is On but iChat is not running. (forces iChat in to a sort of Background mode)

Shapes changes the 3D blobs for Available, Away and Idle to be a Square, Triangle and Circle although they are still coloured Green, Red and Amber. Whilst this might seem usefull for colour blind people there is no corresponding setting for System Wide resetting to get rid/change the default Aqua interface settings that give the other Green Amber and red blobs top left of any window or any other of the 3D look to things. (Edit 2024:- Looking back it looks like it an Accessiblity thing but it only applies to iChat).

Status in the Menu Bar puts a Speech Bubble icon in the menu bar on the right side towards the Clock. This in turns can access On Line Buddies to start Chatting or Change your Available/Away Status. If you are Off-Line it is greyed out and shows nothing. Away has a minus sign in it. Arguably it does save of Screen space meaning you could dismiss the Buddy List(s) however you lose much in the way of Groups and other tricks using the Buddy List like dropping files to send.

In later versions you can Auto-Reply when your Status is set to Away (and you have an Away message set)

Then there are a set that deal with how iChat should treat you or itself when doing certain things. When you do nothing on the keyboard or mouse for 5 mins iChat will regard you as Idle and you will show as such on other people's Buddy List. iChat presumes you have been away from the computer. This one is about what to do if you set the Away Status before hand. Some people report it does not work as it should.

The one that does Downloads does vary as to where it puts incoming files. If you are in Text Chat it will always put them on the Desktop no matter where they are set for at other times.

Next- Accounts Preferences

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Created with JAlbum 4.0.6

© 2005 Ralph Johns: Edited 24/9/2005, 5/5/2006
Updated September 2006
Updated October 2008. Reviewed and Updated to HTML 5 October 2024

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

Options to This Page

To the right you can resize or colour the page as well as choose one of three Fonts.

About This Page

Page 1 in this Preferences series of 6 pictures - the General Preferences

They are normally only 5 screens in later (A/V) versions (iChat 1 has only 4) but I was running an Add-On called Chax when I grabbed these pictures so it is included.

Essentially this screen deals with the Dressing around the sides of iChat as it were rather than the actual function.

I have given brief details of what each settings does.

I remind you that these are from iChat 3 and there are slight differences in each version. iChat 1 for instance tends to put Accounts and what it has of the General Preferences on the same Screen but has a separate Privacy screen which you will see is a tab in Accounts in this version.

Compatibility

Much of this page has been altered to be as HTML 5 compatible as possible. This may cause issues with any of the Browser below.

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.

Previously 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) may only see a text-based page which, while not the prettiest option, is still entirely usable.