Filed under: Software, Freeware, Internet Tools
Chax returns to Leopard, brings back Growl
Long ago, way back in the days before Leopard, the Chax plugin was a necessity for any serious iChatter. But then lo came the new cat, and iChat 4.0 brought with it many of Chax's headline features already built-in: chief among them the tabbed chat interface. But yet some things are still lacking in the shiny new iChat, perhaps most importantly Growl support. So it was with some satisfaction that I see that Chax 2.0b1 is out and returns the flood of iChat Growl notifications to my Leopard desktop. Though its feature list is, per force, shorter than in the old Tiger days, Chax still adds a handy chat-log viewer (organized by buddy), buddy icons in the Dock, and various other little tweaks to make iChat 4.0 feel like home.Chax 2.0b1 is a free download (donations requested) and is a SIMBL based Input Manager.
Update: For those of you having trouble getting Chax to work properly, you may need to reinstall SIMBL. Be sure to uninstall any previous version (particularly any from a previous Tiger install living at ~/Library/Input Managers).
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Quadrant said 9:28AM on 11-14-2007
Doesn't appear in iChat prefs for me, I know it's a beta but it seems a few users are having this problem with Leopard on the Chax site.
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Jake said 9:34AM on 11-14-2007
Same for me. Doesn't appear in iChat prefs.
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Matt said 9:42AM on 11-14-2007
Same problem here, but it seems like the final release should be out this week ("barring any significant problems").
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jopari said 9:50AM on 11-14-2007
*tsk tsk*
Mat, you forgot to mention that you need PlugSuit installed for Chax to work properly. Link: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/33346
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Peter said 10:30AM on 11-14-2007
I'm glad to see Chax back. Luckily, the new ichat took care of a lot of things on it's own (auto accepting text chats, multiple chats in a window) but I miss the auto-resizing window. That makes Chax worth it on it's own.
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Peter said 10:31AM on 11-14-2007
I'm glad to see Chax back. Luckily, the new ichat took care of a lot of things on it's own (auto accepting text chats, multiple chats in a window) but I miss the auto-resizing window. That makes Chax worth it on it's own.
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Thataboy said 10:45AM on 11-14-2007
I didn't install any plugsuit thing, and Chax is working fine for me. I welcome back the Growl and the auto-size.
I wonder if the Chax developer could work on a way to integrate buddy lists for multiple accounts(at least make them all groups in one window). Adium has spoiled me!
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Mat Lu said 11:24AM on 11-14-2007
@4: Well, no I didn't because I have Chax running without PlugSuit. I will say that I did have to re-install SIMBL manually.
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Adam said 12:27PM on 11-14-2007
Since iChat now has event handlers that let you invoke AppleScripts, I was able to set up Growl notifications with a simple script and no extra software. Works great.
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Kevin Dern said 12:34PM on 11-14-2007
I still think Adium is better than iChat, even with Chax. Here's why: http://leopardtips.blogspot.com/2007/11/adium-vs-ichat.html
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Jim C. said 2:50PM on 11-14-2007
I did the same thing as Adam (#9 post above). Since iChat now permits Applescripting of reacting to events (logging in, going away, logging off), it was easy to put together a script passes along the event notification to Growl. Plus, it means not having to use PlugSuit and SIMBL (for those that would rather not use those tools).
It's rather humorous, too... the Applescripts I'm using are based on one that the Chax developer put together before the first Leopard-ready Chax alphas came out! http://www.ksuther.com/weblog/?p=41
Anyway, Growl notifications were all I needed... no need to use Chax.
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Alexis said 3:23PM on 11-14-2007
Glad to see that Chax is Leopard-ready, especially since the Auto Accept AppleScript bundled with iChat 4 is bugged :\
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Samuel said 1:57PM on 11-15-2007
If this can bring back the Starwars affect then I'll download it
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Rhywun said 10:50PM on 11-16-2007
Yeah, my iChat doesn't auto-accept text chats either. But Chax has an option for it.
I'm still on the fence between iChat and Adium. I've used Adium for over a year and only with Leopard am I finally giving iChat a try, and I like it well enough. I only do text chatting, so the only real plus for me in iChat is that I find it somewhat more "Mac-like" than Adium. The font-handling seems broken in Adium, as my messages never quite resemble the sample shown in the preferences pane (I always have to bump the font size way up to make it legible). I guess with Leopard I'm trying to simply and use built-in software where I can, and iChat is "good enough" for me. The buddy list needs a lot of attention, though.
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