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Use a miniaturized Buddy List in iChat Apps
If you don't like to use iChat's menu extra and you regularly hide your unsightly buddy list, then you're a lot like me. And like me you're probably sick of constantly unhiding the buddy list just to get at your status. I thought it might be better if I could scale the window such that buddies are hidden but the other controls remain accessible, much like the "zoomed" mini-player in iTunes:


iChat's stock resizing-widget prevents you from doing this manually, but you can make it happen with a one-line AppleScript I wrote:

tell application "iChat" to tell (a reference to the bounds of window "Buddy List") to set contents to (items 1 thru 3 of (get contents) & (item 2 of (get contents)) + 94)

There are about a million ways to execute scripts, so I'll leave that part up to you. This will only change the vertical height of the buddy list window, while leaving its width and position the same. To unhide your buddies, simply resize the window manually. You can modify the window title string as necessary for your Jabber and Bonjour buddy lists, too.

[robg adds: It should be a pretty simple matter to write a "rezoom" script to go along with this, but it's beyond my very limited AppleScript skill set. You could then use a macro program to assign keyboard shortcuts for the "mini" and "normal" modes.]
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Use a miniaturized Buddy List in iChat | 8 comments | Create New Account
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Script to zoom in and out
Authored by: GrahamAJones on Jun 06, '06 07:54:35AM

Hi,

Great hint!

This script will prompt you for a Tiny buddy list or a Normal one (paste into Script Editor and run, or save from there as an appplication):

display dialog ¬
"Would you like a tiny iChat window or a normal one?" buttons {"Cancel", "Tiny", "Normal"} default button "Normal"
set theResult to button returned of result
if theResult is "Normal" then
tell application "iChat" to tell (a reference to the bounds of window "Buddy List") ¬
to set contents to (items 1 thru 3 of (get contents) & (item 2 of (get contents)) + 302)
else if theResult is "Tiny" then
tell application "iChat" to tell (a reference to the bounds of window "Buddy List") ¬
to set contents to (items 1 thru 3 of (get contents) & (item 2 of (get contents)) + 94)
end if



[ Reply to This | # ]
Use a miniaturized Buddy List in iChat
Authored by: Fenton on Jun 06, '06 08:19:24AM

Here's much the same, but as a simple toggle script. Put it (or an alias to it) in the iChat Scripts folder (available from the "Open Scripts Folder" when iChat is the active application).


tell application "iChat"
tell (a reference to the bounds of window "Buddy List")
set theBounds to get contents
if item 4 of theBounds > 300 then
set contents to (items 1 thru 3 of (get contents) & (item 2 of (get contents)) + 94)
else
set contents to (items 1 thru 3 of (get contents) & (item 2 of (get contents)) + 302)
end if
end tell
end tell


---
FileMaker Developer
San Diego



[ Reply to This | # ]
Use a miniaturized Buddy List in iChat
Authored by: ever on Jun 07, '06 05:40:39AM
Toggling is an excellent idea, but your script only works when the buddy list is in the upper part of the display. A friendlier solution would be to store the previous window dimension in a script property, alike so...

property unzoomed : missing value
tell application "iChat"
 set wr to a reference to the bounds of window "Buddy List"
 set wb to wr's contents
 if (item 4 of wb) - (item 2 of wb) = 94 then
  if unzoomed is missing value then
   set wr's contents to items 1 thru 3 of wb & (item 2 of wb) + 300
  else
   set wr's contents to unzoomed
  end if
 else
  set unzoomed to wb
  set wr's contents to items 1 thru 3 of wb & (item 2 of wb) + 94
 end if
end tell


[ Reply to This | # ]
Use a miniaturized Buddy List in iChat
Authored by: acaltabiano on Jun 06, '06 09:06:25AM

um.. wouldn't it just be easier to use ichat's preferences to put the status indicator in the menu bar? from there you can easily access your buddy list AND your personal status, all without "unhiding" the ichat window.

Saves you the applescript, too.



---
timing has an awful lot to do with the outcome of a raindance



[ Reply to This | # ]
Use a miniaturized Buddy List in iChat
Authored by: zane on Jun 06, '06 04:45:32PM

The OP mentions early in the hint that they don't like to use iChat's menu extra.

That said, I agree with you - doesn't iChat's menu bar extra give you quick access to your buddy list? How is a shrunken buddy list any better?



[ Reply to This | # ]
Use a miniaturized Buddy List in iChat
Authored by: ever on Jun 06, '06 09:18:54PM

Well, for one you can't enter custom away messages in the menu extra, only ones you've used before. It's a matter of personal preference. Some people don't like menu extras at all.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Use a miniaturized Buddy List in iChat
Authored by: something2sea on Jun 07, '06 02:44:31PM

What i did is opened the budylist .nib file in interface builder, and just changed the minimum size, so one can just shrink it down to that small if they desire! no applescript



[ Reply to This | # ]
Use a miniaturized Buddy List in iChat
Authored by: Crush on Apr 17, '11 08:11:51PM

Would it be possible to use something like this to have the iChat window "Zoom" and then set to a predefined width?

Edited on Apr 17, '11 08:12:15PM by Crush



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