Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Basilisk · May 22, 2004, 07:50 PM

For me the best thing about iChat is the iChatAgent and its MenuExtra. You can stay logged into iChat without an open application, and you can see who is online straight from the menubar in any application.

For me the worst thing about iChat is that the MenuExtra doesn't have quite the features I want

So I've built my own version that adds a few obvious features like sorting, buddy groups, Rendezvous buddy listing, automatic login, etc.

Now I need a few iChat users to give it a try. A beta build is available at:

http://ragingmenace.com/software/dow...iChatExtra.dmg

Give it a try and let me know what you think. I'll be following this thread, or you can contact me directly at basilisk at foobox.net.

Enjoy,

Alex

AKcrab · May 22, 2004, 08:20 PM

Seems to work well. Nice feature set.

brianlaughlin · May 22, 2004, 09:36 PM

I've been using it for 20 minutes with no problems at all.

zachs · May 22, 2004, 10:23 PM

Everything's working great so far.

Only issue is that it doesn't change between the "Flat" status icons and the normal Aqua ones.

songoku912 · May 22, 2004, 10:48 PM

So far so good, no problems. Good stuff

Basilisk · May 23, 2004, 07:30 PM

Glad that it seems to be working for everyone... Thanks for taking a look.

Only issue is that it doesn't change between the "Flat" status icons and the normal Aqua ones.

Ah, good catch. I'll take a look.

Thanks,

Alex

Steve Streza · May 23, 2004, 08:00 PM

Awesome util. I've been waiting for this for forever (just today, I was considering doing a little housekeeping on my AFK messages, because I have about 150 of 'em). Consider this posted on MacThemes.

mishap · May 23, 2004, 08:23 PM

very very nice work.

WICKEDfour · May 23, 2004, 10:45 PM

I'll second that. Very nice work! I can't wait to see what else you do with iChatExtra; I'd offer some suggestions, but at the moment I don't have any big ones except for this: How about submenus for each buddy group as well? That'd be great.

CharlesS · May 23, 2004, 10:48 PM

Like the others said, nice work. A few ideas for improvement:

1. Since the menu extra requires Panther, you shouldn't need an installer. In Panther, the preference pane can be installed simply by double-clicking on it.

2. The messages "No AIM Buddies Available" and "No Rendezvous Buddies Available" are somewhat wide, and cause the menu to be unnecessarily wide. Perhaps you could consider using two lines like Apple's menu extra does.

3. How did you get a 3rd-party menu extra to work without requiring APE to be installed? Just curious.

AKcrab · May 24, 2004, 02:25 AM

Originally posted by CharlesS:
3. How did you get a 3rd-party menu extra to work without requiring APE to be installed? Just curious.

From the readme:

iChatExtra incorporates MenuCracker (� 2002-2004 [email removed]]), a free, open source (Artistic License) project to enable third party menu extras. If needed MenuCracker will be automatically installed on your machine when you first activate iChatExtra from its System Preferences panel. The MenuCracker installation does not modify your System files in any way, and removing iChatExtra from your PreferencePanes folder along with a logout/login will remove MenuCracker entirely. More information on MenuCracker can be found at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/menucracker/.

If you already have a different method of enabling third party menu extras, such as Unsanity's Menu Extra Enabler (http://www.unsanity.com/) iChatExtra will honor that preference and will not install MenuCracker.

Perhaps that's why there is an installer?

edit: removed an email address.

CharlesS · May 24, 2004, 04:55 AM

Originally posted by AKcrab:
From the readme:

Perhaps that's why there is an installer?

edit: removed an email address.

Looking inside the pref pane bundle, MenuCracker seems to be stored inside it.

At any rate, when I installed this thing originally, I did it by looking inside the installer's bundle and double-clicking the .prefPane stored inside rather than allowing the installer to run, and it seems to work. It is a well-known fact that I don't trust installers.

alphasubzero949 · May 24, 2004, 05:30 AM

Originally posted by CharlesS:

It is a well-known fact that I don't trust installers.

*Cue shameless self-plug*

slava · May 24, 2004, 05:48 AM

Originally posted by CharlesS:
3. How did you get a 3rd-party menu extra to work without requiring APE to be installed? Just curious.

Just FYI, Menu Extra Enabler does not requires APE. It's an InputManager plugin. =)

shockme17 · 11:36 AM

great app. ive been looking for someone to come up with this feature, who knows when apple will finally update ichat to implement it. good work!

my only suggestion is to remove the "AIM" title, to keep the menu looking more closely the original. I'm guessing that it's there to differentiate between AIM and Rendezvous-perhaps an option to remove the title, or if Rendezvous isn't enabled, then the AIM title will be dropped automatically?

i found a slight bug when trying to IM cell phone numbers directly. instead of IMing +<numbers> it IMs just the phone number without the "+"

also when i quit (with the original ichat toolbar disabled) it automatically logs out

On your app, i have my away message set to a custom message, but when i open up iChat, it sets me as "away" and not the custom message

otherwise. great work!

Basilisk · May 24, 2004, 01:46 PM

Thanks for all the positive feedback folks, let me answer a few questions:

How about submenus for each buddy group as well? That'd be great.

I had the same idea

,I'll probably add this at some point...

Since the menu extra requires Panther, you shouldn't need an installer. In Panther, the preference pane can be installed simply by double-clicking on it.

I'm aware of this, but I use an installer for the same reason I ended up adding an installer to MenuMeters... Using an installer drops the number of "I can't install it" support questions to zero. It lets me force the preference pane cache to rebuild, and it lets me automatcially remove the MenuExtra during uninstall (which otherwise would prevent user's from just deleting the prefPane).

2. The messages "No AIM Buddies Available" and "No Rendezvous Buddies Available" are somewhat wide, and cause the menu to be unnecessarily wide. Perhaps you could consider using two lines like Apple's menu extra does.

I'll consider doing this, or perhaps just saying "No AIM Buddies". Really, though, is a wide menu that much of an issue?

How did you get a 3rd-party menu extra to work without requiring APE to be installed? Just curious.

As others have already noted, MenuCracker is bundled for users who don't already have another enabler (like Unsanity's MEE).

my only suggestion is to remove the "AIM" title, to keep the menu looking more closely the original. I'm guessing that it's there to differentiate between AIM and Rendezvous-perhaps an option to remove the title, or if Rendezvous isn't enabled, then the AIM title will be dropped automatically?

You are correct, its there to emphasize the difference between AIM versus Rendezvous. I'm unlikely to try to switch it around, it seems like it serves a good purpose and doesn't add much (just 4 characters) to the menu.

i found a slight bug when trying to IM cell phone numbers directly. instead of IMing +<numbers> it IMs just the phone number without the "+"

Interesting, I don't have any mobile phone buddies... Does the IM fail without the "+"? What does iChat report when it opens the chat window?

also when i quit (with the original ichat toolbar disabled) it automatically logs out

This is deliberate (same behavior as the Apple version of the iChat extra). If you remove the menuextra and it is the only thing keeping the connection open (i.e. iChat itself is not open) then it will disconnect. Is this not what you are seeing?

On your app, i have my away message set to a custom message, but when i open up iChat, it sets me as "away" and not the custom message

I'm not able to reproduce this... Do you have any other iChat enhancers installed? In particular I'm wondering if you have iChatStatus installed, it might me modifying the the status when iChat launches.

Thanks,

Alex

CharlesS · May 24, 2004, 02:53 PM

Originally posted by Basilisk:
I'm aware of this, but I use an installer for the same reason I ended up adding an installer to MenuMeters... Using an installer drops the number of "I can't install it" support questions to zero.

Well, the thing is that there's already an installer for pref panes built into the OS. All a user has to do is double-click on the pref pane. I should hope that users wouldn't have a problem with that. If so, there could be a short file called "Installation instructions" which would basically say "Double-click on the pref pane." Or you could put that text in the disk image's background picture.

It lets me force the preference pane cache to rebuild, and it lets me automatcially remove the MenuExtra during uninstall (which otherwise would prevent user's from just deleting the prefPane).

Doesn't the OS rebuild the cache when double-clicking a prefPane to install it? I've not yet had a problem with panes not showing up when I double-click them. For the last point, maybe it would make sense for you to include an uninstaller then. But an installer shouldn't be necessary. IMO.

Basilisk · May 24, 2004, 03:12 PM

I should hope that users wouldn't have a problem with that.

Based on my prior experience, your optimism is unfounded

But an installer shouldn't be necessary. IMO

Its a religious issue. My attitude is that anything that saves me time is worth it, and since the installer code is common to my stuff adding an installer was about 15 minutes of work. Those who are actually concerned about the installer are usually the ones who have already dug into the resources and done the manual install themselves. To date, including this thread, I've only had 3 folks who felt strongly enough about it to ever speak to me about the installer. By contrast, at the peak of MM popularity I was answering 2 bad prefpane cache questions a night.

So its a non-negotiable, sorry,

Alex

shockme17 · May 24, 2004, 03:24 PM

as far as the cell phone buddies go, the message comes up as "buddy not available. and interesting enough sidenote : generally with ichat, you can't just add cell phone numbers to your buddy list, nor with AIM for mac, but if you do it in windows, where it's supported, ichat, and aim will pick up the feature.

and as far as starting up ichat and the away message being changed - i did have the demo of liveicon installed, so that could be the issue.

""also when i quit (with the original ichat toolbar disabled) it automatically logs out

This is deliberate (same behavior as the Apple version of the iChat extra). If you remove the menuextra and it is the only thing keeping the connection open (i.e. iChat itself is not open) then it will disconnect. Is this not what you are seeing?""

well, say if i have the original apple version enabled, an option is open to stay logged in when you quit ichat. but since disabling the apple version, that option is no longer open, so when ichat quits, it logs out on your app too..

let me know if im still being unclear.

CharlesS · May 24, 2004, 03:27 PM

Originally posted by Basilisk:
Based on my prior experience, your optimism is unfounded

Based on my experience, adding a simple line of text "To install, drag this to the Applications folder" to the disk image background eliminated all questions of this sort. And with pref panes on Panther, it's easier, because all you have to do is double-click the file. So a simple line of text saying "To install, double-click this file" should do the trick.

Its a religious issue. My attitude is that anything that saves me time is worth it, and since the installer code is common to my stuff adding an installer was about 15 minutes of work. Those who are actually concerned about the installer are usually the ones who have already dug into the resources and done the manual install themselves. To date, including this thread, I've only had 3 folks who felt strongly enough about it to ever speak to me about the installer. By contrast, at the peak of MM popularity I was answering 2 bad prefpane cache questions a night.

So its a non-negotiable, sorry

It looks like this menu extra has only been available for two days, and even then it has been a beta not available to the general public. So having 3 people write already about the installer is a telling sign.

Did these bad prefpane cache questions occur on Panther, or were they only on Jaguar?

Basilisk · May 24, 2004, 04:16 PM

as far as the cell phone buddies go, the message comes up as "buddy not available. and interesting enough sidenote : generally with ichat, you can't just add cell phone numbers to your buddy list, nor with AIM for mac, but if you do it in windows, where it's supported, ichat, and aim will pick up the feature.

OK, it must be one of the magic "capability" bits. Anyone with a cell phone AIM buddy want to give me their AIM name so I can test? I don't even need to send them a message, I just need their name. Send it to me at basilisk at foobox.net and I'll try to get it resolved.

well, say if i have the original apple version enabled, an option is open to stay logged in when you quit ichat. but since disabling the apple version, that option is no longer open, so when ichat quits, it logs out on your app too..

Ah, I think I see what you are saying... You're not talking about removing iChatExtra from the menubar logging you out, you're saying quitting iChat logs you out even though iChat extra is still in the menubar?

It looks like this menu extra has only been available for two days, and even then it has been a beta not available to the general public. So having 3 people write already about the installer is a telling sign.

You've misunderstood. Since I began using an installer with all my software, including MenuMeters, you are the third person to complain. That's 3 users total across all my software. A quick bit of rough math makes that about 0.004% of downloads for just the last MM release alone.

To be clear, I understand your concern. I really do. I just disagree, and arguing against the validity of my personal experience answering support email isn't likely to convince me. Your apps are drag installs because they are true standalone apps, and folks understand that paradigm. I am not invalidating your experience to note that my apps are different, and may be less intuitive for non-technical users to install or debug when they don't work (due to corrupted caches).

Alex

shockme17 · May 24, 2004, 05:04 PM

yes thats precisely what i was saying

and, ill make a screen name for you with a cellphone number on it, so you can test it out.. be careful though, because if you alter the screen name on the buddy list in mac, it can change the properties of the cell buddy, making it useless, and having to reconfigure in windows.

CharlesS · May 24, 2004, 07:11 PM

Originally posted by Basilisk:
You've misunderstood. Since I began using an installer with all my software, including MenuMeters, you are the third person to complain. That's 3 users total across all my software. A quick bit of rough math makes that about 0.004% of downloads for just the last MM release alone.

Ah. Okay, sorry about that. However, consider for a moment the possibility that not everyone who dislikes the installer will write about it. I can't even count the number of times that I've downloaded some app, seen an installer, said "ugh," but not really written about it because I felt lazy. The reason I reported it this time was because I was already sending a bunch of other feedback. That doesn't make installers any less annoying, though. There have been times that I have decided not to try certain shareware apps because they used one of those VISE installers that I couldn't work around.

To be clear, I understand your concern. I really do. I just disagree, and arguing against the validity of my personal experience answering support email isn't likely to convince me. Your apps are drag installs because they are true standalone apps, and folks understand that paradigm. I am not invalidating your experience to note that my apps are different, and may be less intuitive for non-technical users to install or debug when they don't work (due to corrupted caches).

Actually, one of my apps (DockDisks) is a pref pane, although it's probably not as popular as your pref panes. Regardless, it has a quick set of installation instructions in its read me file: Under 10.3, just double-click the pref pane. By doing a search for the word "install" in my DockDisks mail folder, the last installation-related question I can find dates from December 2002. If your users are having a problem with corrupted pref pane caches, I can begrudgingly accept that, but I need to ask if you had any such reports under 10.3.x, because I would normally imagine that the automatic double-click install should take care of the cache automatically. If it doesn't, that is grounds to send a bug report to Apple, IMO.

Basilisk · May 24, 2004, 08:05 PM

consider for a moment the possibility that not everyone who dislikes the installer will write about it.

I acknowledge the possibility, but so what? At the end of the day using an installer reduces the number of installation issues in my Inbox.

This is a matter of personal preference, and one you clearly hold dear. If you pass by software that requires an installer then that is your choice. I respectfully disagree with your position, and will continue to ship my freeware in a manner that suits my needs. Further discussion is pointless, we're just tilting at windmills.

Alex

gorickey · May 25, 2004, 12:08 AM

Thanks Alex for this great little jewel...

flysky · May 26, 2004, 11:48 PM

A few quick notes/questions:

1. I don't know whether you tried to be compatible with iChatStatus, but it works for now. I believe I did have to click on the iChatStatus Preference Pane or start playing a song in iTunes to get iChatExtra to recognize it. It would be great if you maintained compatibility as you develop iChatExtra.

2. Would it be possible to sort buddy lists in the pull-down menu? I'd like to be able to get them into an order other than alphabetical.

3. Like a couple of others, I'd prefer "Buddy Lists" in the menu to "AIM Buddy List".

That's it for now. No problems to report. Nice work.

mitchell_pgh · May 26, 2004, 11:54 PM

Interesting, what are you going to charge for this when it goes final?

Basilisk · May 27, 2004, 12:06 PM

I don't know whether you tried to be compatible with iChatStatus, but it works for now... It would be great if you maintained compatibility as you develop iChatExtra.

I've looked at the iChatStatus code and there's nothing I am doing that should break compatibility. Really the only problem will be that the iChatExtra status stuff (esp. the screensaver stuff) will get overridden by whatever your iChatStatus scripts do.

Would it be possible to sort buddy lists in the pull-down menu? I'd like to be able to get them into an order other than alphabetical.

Maybe, what other sort order would you want? Alphabetical seems the logical choice.

Interesting, what are you going to charge for this when it goes final?

This is just something I threw together for my own use, it will be donationware.

Alex

flysky · May 28, 2004, 02:24 AM

Originally posted by Basilisk:
Maybe, what other sort order would you want? Alphabetical seems the logical choice.

My personal preference would be to have an additional tab in the Preference Pane that showed all Buddy Lists and could be reordered by dragging them (similar to Startup Items under Accounts). That way I could manually control the order of the list.

Thanks for making the application available and taking suggestions.

Basilisk · May 28, 2004, 05:44 PM

My personal preference would be to have an additional tab in the Preference Pane that showed all Buddy Lists and could be reordered by dragging them (similar to Startup Items under Accounts). That way I could manually control the order of the list.

Ah, I understand. I'll add it to the potential TODO list. That said, I should warn you that I really intended this to be a quick hack, and adding a drag and drop capability for buddy/group ordering is getting more than a little beyond the amount of time I intended to spend on it

Alex

Basilisk · May 30, 2004, 03:34 AM

I've got a new version posted, addressing the bugs reported as well as adding buddy group submenus.

http://ragingmenace.com/software/dow...iChatExtra.dmg

Enjoy,

Alex

shockme17 · Jun 9, 2004, 07:01 PM

Thanks Basilisk. This has been running great with no noticeable bugs.

I just have one suggestion, possible option of buddy icons in the drop down menu?

any plans for a future/official release?

mishap · Jun 9, 2004, 07:56 PM

again, great app!

thanks

Weezer · Jun 10, 2004, 01:38 AM

has anyone come up with a way so that the main ichat buddy list actually uses groups correctly? In that, buddies are sorted in your list by group, not all displayed at once, or all just of that one group. That's one of the main things keeping me from using ichat.

Basilisk · Jun 10, 2004, 12:27 PM

I just have one suggestion, possible option of buddy icons in the drop down menu?

I've considered it, but I'm concerned about the performance of doing all that image compositing duing the menu drop. I'll add it to the potential TODO, but that's it for now.

any plans for a future/official release?

Probably, it seems to be bugfree from the reports I've had. I'll probably do an offical release in a few weeks (right now I'm moving jobs and just don't have the time).

Alex

shockme17 · Jun 14, 2004, 11:33 PM

i just noticed one small feature thats missing...

i believe with the original ichatextra, the small pop up window appears when a message comes in without ichat actually loading-whereas in your ichat extra ichat has to load first...possible fix?

and a new option/feature suggestion : customizable buddy alerts? perhaps in a small bezel (like volume/brightness meter)

cwachs · Jul 31, 2004, 03:25 PM

I love the program. I have noticed that if I boot my machine without being connected to the Internet, the Preference Panel does not load, iChat does not load and once I do connect to the Internet, I have to go to System Preferences and turn on iChatExtras again. It will turn itself off if no Internet is detected. It would be nice if it would still launch iChat and just not conenct but not turn off the preference panel.

geekwagon · Jul 31, 2004, 04:42 PM

For some reason it doesn't work on my G5 with 10.3.4. I run the installer, open System Preferences, click on iChatExtra. When I click on "enable iChatExtra Menu" I get a 2 second pause and then a dialog that says menu extras could not load, see the documentation. I don't have APE installed, and I don't have any other haxies loaded that I know of.

Also, the one feature that I really want is for it to be able to re-connect automatically when iChat disconnects due to network problems. I am behind a proxy at work and AIM disconnects between 10-20 times a day, I can't believe that iChat makes me dismiss a dialog and re-connect manually whenever this happens. The "official" AIM client sucks in every way compared to iChat, but at least it has this feature.

drainyoo · Aug 2, 2004, 04:12 PM

Originally posted by Basilisk:
For me the best thing about iChat is the iChatAgent and its MenuExtra. You can stay logged into iChat without an open application, and you can see who is online straight from the menubar in any application.

For me the worst thing about iChat is that the MenuExtra doesn't have quite the features I want

So I've built my own version that adds a few obvious features like sorting, buddy groups, Rendezvous buddy listing, automatic login, etc.

Now I need a few iChat users to give it a try. A beta build is available at:

http://ragingmenace.com/software/dow...iChatExtra.dmg

Give it a try and let me know what you think. I'll be following this thread, or you can contact me directly at basilisk at foobox.net.

Enjoy,

Alex

WHat a sweet APP dude! Awesome job!

Phanguye · Aug 17, 2004, 04:21 PM

seems to be broken now... any chance of a fix?

Paq Man · Sep 1, 2004, 07:02 PM

PLEASE PLEASE. I REALLY WANT THE BACKGROUNDS FIXED. WHEN YOU START A NEW MESSAGE, I WANT THE WINDOW SIZE TO BE THE SIZE OF YOUR BACKGROUND IMAGE. AND THAT THE IMAGE IS FIXED (WHEN YOU SCROLL DOWN THE ICTURE DOES NOT MOVE WHILE THE MESSAGES DO?). IS THIS POSSIBLE?

ManOfSteal · Sep 1, 2004, 07:15 PM

Originally posted by Paq Man:
PLEASE PLEASE. I REALLY WANT THE BACKGROUNDS FIXED. WHEN YOU START A NEW MESSAGE, I WANT THE WINDOW SIZE TO BE THE SIZE OF YOUR BACKGROUND IMAGE. AND THAT THE IMAGE IS FIXED (WHEN YOU SCROLL DOWN THE ICTURE DOES NOT MOVE WHILE THE MESSAGES DO?). IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Note to self:

Turn off CAPS LOCK

Paq Man · Sep 2, 2004, 01:21 PM

Oh and I would really like to see tabs. Thanks

Hey, Your app is seriously so cool. I wish I had this from the beginning.

brapper · Sep 2, 2004, 04:59 PM

Originally posted by Paq Man:
PLEASE PLEASE. I REALLY WANT THE BACKGROUNDS FIXED. WHEN YOU START A NEW MESSAGE, I WANT THE WINDOW SIZE TO BE THE SIZE OF YOUR BACKGROUND IMAGE. AND THAT THE IMAGE IS FIXED (WHEN YOU SCROLL DOWN THE ICTURE DOES NOT MOVE WHILE THE MESSAGES DO?). IS THIS POSSIBLE?

settle....

Also, seems to be doing its job. Which, of course, is great.