Clear typed-in but not-yet-sent replies in iChat 3

Sep 20, '05 09:00:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

Prior to 10.4, iChat had a feature that was handy: you could start typing a reply, but if you changed your mind, you could hit Escape to erase and clear the typing.

iChat 3.0 doesn't use the Escape key for this any more (it now brings up a list of possible word completions), and it appears that you have to either backspace over everything, or highlight and delete it all! This really bugged me when upgrading...

Luckily, using two Emacs control-key combinations, you can emulate the old behavoir. First hit Control-A followed by Control-K. If you've created multiple paragraphs (say by using Option-Enter), you'll have to use multiple control-K's to clear everything.

[robg adds: This change bugged me, too, as it was very easy to erase the rant poorly constructed sentence you'd just typed and start over. In my case, I found it easier to retrain my fingers to use Command-A (Select All) and then hit Delete. This also handles the multiple-line example properly, since Command-A selects everything. Note that these methods also work in previous versions of iChat, so I haven't marked this hint Tiger-only.]

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