cocoaforge

Just made the switch at my cousin's behest from iChat today, and so far, I'm impressed. However, there are a few things I wish I could do that seem impossible...

-Have a "..." message appear in the chat window when a buddy is typing
-Have conversations start at the top of an empty window rather than the bottom
-Have chats automatically jump the the bottom when a new message is sent by either person
-Have striped background colours work properly with a background image
-Have the group bubble at the top "locked" for borderless windows so it's always there (currently it scrolls offscreen if you scroll down your list)

solistus wrote: -Have the group bubble at the top "locked" for borderless windows so it's always there (currently it scrolls offscreen if you scroll down your list)

That actually sounds like a really awesome idea, for every buddy list window style. When the group name is about to scroll offscreen, it would just stay at the top of the window...

solistus wrote:-Have a "..." message appear in the chat window when a buddy is typing

actually there is and always have been. You see it in the contactlist and you also see it in the chatwindow. The colored dots change to a pen with ... when someone is writing. when someone stops writing, but still has text in their input field you only get a small pen. pretty nifty! in the accounts section you canspecify if others see you are typing. make sure your other contact has this option too, there are several clients who are able to block you viewing them typing. it should just work though, it's feature. then again.. WHICH protocol are you using here?

solistus wrote:-Have conversations start at the top of an empty window rather than the bottom

I'm not sure if this possible, but it's the logical IM way that newer messages apear at the bottom.

solistus wrote:-Have chats automatically jump the the bottom when a new message is sent by either person

hmm you can do so automatically with command+end (the one right from 'delete'). i'm not in favor of changing it, since it's highly annoying if you want to look something up that has been posted way up. when you scroll up to the point you want to look something up and something says something... BAM.. you are back down. no good imo. it could be a preference though.

solistus wrote:-Have striped background colours work properly with a background image

okay... not sure what you mean here. what exactly is the problem? WHEN do you have -striped- backgroudn colors if you allready use a background image?

solistus wrote:-Have the group bubble at the top "locked" for borderless windows so it's always there (currently it scrolls offscreen if you scroll down your list)

this won't work if you have a lot of groups and a long contact list. when i scroll down various groups go out of the screen, with locking it there will be like six groups locked at the top.

Some poor wording on my part, let me clarify a few.

-Have a "..." message appear in the chat window when a buddy is typing

I noticed the pen thing, which is cool, but I'd like a chat message to appear à la iChat with an ellipsis. I'm not always staring at the little coloured dot, and sometimes my buddy list is blocked when I'm working with another document.

-Have conversations start at the top of an empty window rather than the bottom

I don't mean have messages go above others when received, but when you have an empty chat window and the first message appears, I wish I could set it to start at the top instead of the bottom. A very minor issue, but one that's made my transition a bit less seamless.

-Have striped background colours work properly with a background image

I shouldn't have said background colours; what I meant was the alternating grid option for the colour behind names. I want to use that, as well as a small, faded image, but the alternate colour lines will appear over the image.

-Have the group bubble at the top "locked" for borderless windows so it's always there (currently it scrolls offscreen if you scroll down your list)

I can see this being an issue for those with many groups, but I have no interest in groups. Perhaps it could be a separate bubble of sorts; I don't know if there is a 'master' bubble, as I only have one group and don't know how it handles multiples, but always having something constant at the top with an arrow to expand/collapse the buddy list would be very handy.

solistus wrote:-Have conversations start at the top of an empty window rather than the bottom

I don't mean have messages go above others when received, but when you have an empty chat window and the first message appears, I wish I could set it to start at the top instead of the bottom. A very minor issue, but one that's made my transition a bit less seamless.

That was actually how it worked, a looong time ago, and then it got changed. (In case you don't know: the message view is rendered by WebKit, which means that it's basically a web page. I don't really know the details, but I think there's some fancy javascript that controls auto-scrolling when a new message appears.)

solistus wrote:Some poor wording on my part, let me clarify a few.

-Have a "..." message appear in the chat window when a buddy is typing

I noticed the pen thing, which is cool, but I'd like a chat message to appear à la iChat with an ellipsis. I'm not always staring at the little coloured dot, and sometimes my buddy list is blocked when I'm working with another document.

okay, it shows in the buddylist as well as the tab of the chatwindow, but i guess that's not enogh for you. you also want to see it WITHIN the chatfield, correct? like iChat. Okay.. i get what you mean.. i think that's not possible yet, the devs might add some feature that can handle this (for example a new event in message styles or something), but you have to request it at the devs.

solistus wrote:-Have conversations start at the top of an empty window rather than the bottom

I don't mean have messages go above others when received, but when you have an empty chat window and the first message appears, I wish I could set it to start at the top instead of the bottom. A very minor issue, but one that's made my transition a bit less seamless.

okay... i get what you mean here. and i don't think they will change it, especially since there is a function that allows you to see parts of the previous conversation which leads to logically see the oldest message on top. for me, i always let adium show the last 10 messages from the previous conversation. superduperhandy since i sometimes close the window by accident. this way you still see what you are talking about. i thnk you just have to get used to the new situation anduse the recent history function.... and just bite your lip when you have a new contact

solistus wrote:-Have striped background colours work properly with a background image

I shouldn't have said background colours; what I meant was the alternating grid option for the colour behind names. I want to use that, as well as a small, faded image, but the alternate colour lines will appear over the image.

okay.. i still don't get what you mean. where are we in the menu? do you think it's a bug? or maybe it's an or or situation; ie.. you just have to choose which one you use.

solistus wrote: -Have the group bubble at the top "locked" for borderless windows so it's always there (currently it scrolls offscreen if you scroll down your list)

I can see this being an issue for those with many groups, but I have no interest in groups. Perhaps it could be a separate bubble of sorts; I don't know if there is a 'master' bubble, as I only have one group and don't know how it handles multiples, but always having something constant at the top with an arrow to expand/collapse the buddy list would be very handy.

okay.. agreed. it would be usefull in someways. especially in online/offline view mode.