In Leopard, iChat has come with greater user experience and perhaps user-friendly. This makes some forgot the old small yet useful tips. Today, we will try our best to refresh your iChat's skill.

Playing Around with Buddy's Info

To open iChat Buddy's Info, click on the name of your buddy on Buddy List and then hit keystrokes I. There are several tips you can do the following :

Check Buddy's Capabilities

There it is, under Profile and below your buddy's display photo, you can see your buddy's chat types that are available.

Change Buddy's Display Photo

Under Address Card, where you can clearly see your buddy's detailed information, there is Picture section in which your buddy's display photo stands. Are you getting sick of the display photo? If so, open your favorite image collection and drop one of the best into the photo frame. Then here you go, you got a brand new buddy's display photo.

Revealing Text Field Secrets

Illustrate with Image

It's also known that an image worths thousand of words. For iChat, drop the image, that you want to attach, to the text field and the image will be sent to your buddy, which you've conversation with.

Unlimited File Attachment

With iChat, you won't be troubled by file size limit when you wanted to send files. In other words, it's unlimited. To attach file, simple drag-and-drop will work.

Define Line Breaks

In iChat, can no longer be used to add line breaks into your text message. Instead of using only , you should try using and you will get your line breaks.

Live Links for Your Buddy

You can attach link and let your buddy click the link you sent directly from iChat. You only need to type the format for the link, which you don't need to add "http".

Quick Change the View

Do you like to view the instant messages Balloons? If not, you can try other view option, such as Boxes and Compacts. Clck on the field to display the pop-up menu.

Customize Background

Apple Menubar ▸ View ▸ Set Chat Background... and then choose image for your background.

Re-Defining Preferences

There are many preferences you can define for your own sake, which will successfully build your procrastination mood. These settings, which can be done under iChat Preferences, are :

Always Stay Tuned

Inside your iChat Preference, under General and at the Settings section, tick the "Show status..." checkbox and don't tick then "When I quit iChat..." checkbox. Therefore, you still can receive instant messages from your buddies even though you've quitted your iChat.

Change Balloon and Set Font

Still inside iChat Preference, under Messages, you can see clearly where you can change those colors. Lemon is not bad.

Save Chat Transcript

Under Messages, tick the checkbox labelled "Automatically save... to" then select your destination folder. This way, you won't lose any precious data or lame jokes from your buddies.

New Feature for Leopard

Screen Sharing and Video Effects

These two features, which are quite popular and quite useful to improve procrastination rate, can be navigated from contextual menu (Click) for screen sharing and Apple Menu bar ▸ Video ▸ Show Video Effects (E).

Additional iChat Video Effects can also be found at : and .

Warning...

We will not take any responsibility for procrastination caused by iChat. Experience it for your own risk.