[kent m]

I'm continuing to set up a mac for my grandfather and am trying to make things as simple as possible. For example, I've set up the Mail program to be very simple to start an email message by placing address links in the dock with our photos on them, and a single click on a photo will open a new email (FYI, in case you hadn't figured it out, OSX is amazing in how flexible the system is for customizing the behavior of it's operations...)

Is anything like this possible with an iChat buddy? I've tried the simple method of simply dragging the name out of the Buddy List, hoping that it would create a link in the same manner as dragging an email address out of a message does, but that won't work... is there maybe an Applescript solution? I'm not up on Applescript at all and Automator has been pretty confusing the couple of times I've tried to set anything up with it...

Any help appreciated, thanks very much!

K

[cybergoober]

You'll want to enter a link like

Code:
aim:goim?screenname=aim_screen_name&message=Hi!

into Safari's address bar then drag it somewhere to create a file that you can then place in the Dock. Obviously, replace "aim_screen_name" with the screen name of the person you want him to initiate a chat with. You can give it a custom icon as well, if you choose.

You could probably also use AppleScript to achieve a similar goal, but I'm no AppleScript guru.

[kent m]

Thanks for the note.

A quick test of this doesn't work for me. Entering the text and replacing "aim_screen_name" with my AIM account name gives no results when dbl clicked. It seems to open, but nothing happens so maybe I've made a mistake.

Does anyone know if there's an iChat Applescript dictionary available, or if & how I can get iChat into Automator - won't show up for me. 10.4.5

Thanks,
K