Like Safari and many of the other Apple applications, iChat supports custom plugins that allow you to customize or optimize your iChat experience.
One great plugin for iChat is Chax. Chax is made by the same developer that brought us WARP for Spaces and adds some great features to iChat.
Merge Your iChat Contact Lists
If you’re a user of multiple instant messaging accounts, Chax will automatically create a new merged contact list for you. Once this list is in view feel free to close your iChat contact lists for AIM, MobileMe, and Google Talk.
Additional Features
Additional Chax features include:
- Unified contact list shows all contacts from all accounts in one window
- Growl notifications for new messages and users changing status
- Automatically resize the contact list to fit the number of visible users
- Built-in log viewer
- Activity log that displays your contacts’ status changes
- Auto-accept file transfers, AV chats, and screen sharing requests
- Toggle text status visibility of users
- Always on top option for contact list, message windows and AV chats
- Set font of names, status messages, and group separators
- Option to auto-accept text chats, skipping new message notification window
- Show status changes directly in the message window
- Additional unread message notifications in the Dock
- Automatically go away when the screensaver activates
- Properly use ICQ accounts without sending text formatting in messages
Chax is a free download and may be just what you need to get the most out of iChat. Installing Chax is a breeze and a great addition to iChat. What iChat plugins do you use?
