Chax Makes iChat AV Perfect. Chax Is Free.

There are few applications that tell the Mac story better than iChat AV. Why? It works. Setup is utterly simple. Quality is high.

Compare iChat with AOL’s Instant Messenger, and you’ll see what I mean. How do you make iChat perfect? Add Chax. It’s free.

The Chax logo shows a bandaid on the iChat talk balloon, as if there’s something on iChat that needs to be repaired.

So far, the only things I’ve added to iChat to improve it were new Smileys, and iGlasses. The former is handy, the latter is really to improve the iSight camera, not iChat.

iChat is nearly perfect, and Chax’s bucket of add-on utilities makes it better.

What do you get for the price you pay? First, no price. Chax is free. Second, what you get is worth more than free. It’s a stack of utilities worthy of five stars.

For example, use Chax to change the fonts on your Buddy List and the status messages.

Use Chax to add nicknames instead of being stuck with the Buddy’s first and last name from Address Book. Chax does it for you.

Clean up your Buddy List status bar by hiding the audio/video status icon (not that I find that a big deal; for “free” sometimes you get a solution looking for a problem).

I have a few friends with multiple screen names (I have three myself) and Chax lets you send an Instant Message to whichever screen name you choose.

One of my favorite features is “Auto Accept Text Chat Invitiations.” It just saves me the step of wandering around my Mac’s screen first. I’m glad there’s no “Audo Accept Video Chat Invitation.”

That could cause a problem when I’m wearing next to nothing. Honestly. Seven months pregnant, curlers, and no make up could cause a heart attack to an unsuspecting iChat user.

When an iChat Buddy sends an image, it gets dumped to your Mac. Chax lets you open it in Preview first with a simple double-click.

The Mac’s Dock is a love or hate relationship. I use it because it’s there. Mail’s Dock notification lets me know there’s new email. Chax let’s iChat display a new message notification in the Dock, including the number of unread messages, or the sender’s name. Handy.

My ultra favorite Chax tool is “Always On Top.” Yes, you can get pregnant that way, too. But Chax lets iChat float over other Windows on your Mac.

Why would you want that? So you can keep doing other things while chatting, audio, video, text. No more back and forth clicking.

Another handy feature that should be used ONLY with friends you trust is the Auto Accept of Incoming Files. Add that to Auto Accept Text Chat Invitations and iChat could be come a trojan horse parking place.

iChat has a nice “auto-away” feature which changes your status when you leave your Mac. Chax lets you change it to auto-away off, or simply change the time period to be idle before going away.

If you’re not an iChat user then all the above will be make your head spin and you’ll begin drooling (much like Bambi does while waiting in line at a restaurant).

As an iChat user, you’ll love the list of extra goodies in Chax.

For example, let’s say you’re chatting with someone using AV (audio, visual-- teleconferencing), but you want to send them a file. Try it.

iChat chokes, the file gets sent, usually you have to wait, sometimes you have to start the session over again. Chax has a neat feature called “Send Files During AV Chats” which, remarkably enough, does that.

Now you can keep talking, keep watching, and send files anyway (your mileage may vary; you’ll need a powerful Mac and high speed connection).

Another great feature of iChat is the log. The problem is, the log is just that. If you carry on more than one chat at a time, backing through the log is painful as everything is all mixed together.

Chax lets you view iChat logs by user so you don’t have to scroll through a huge log for three or four days.

Normally, I reserve such utilities as Chax for Freebie Friday. You get Chax on Monday because I suspect that everyone will want Macworld news for the rest of the week. Click Here to view the feature list and download. Chax is free.

Bambi Hambi
Chax and iGlasses are a great combination to iChat AV.

Tera Patricks
Some of these are features that Apple should build in to iChat. I’m surprised there’s not a price tag on Chax.

Jack D. Miller
There’s another feature I use, Alex. It’s the ‘set a custom away auto-response that is different from the away message.’ Not a clever name, but useful.

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