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From an anonymous submitter...
Authored by: robg on Aug 30, '05 09:23:22AM
If setting the status to "Current iTunes Track" from the iChat's menu bar only results in "%Artist - %Track" as status, the solution is simple. After following the steps in this hint, do this:

Now in Terminal, enter:
defaults write com.apple.iChat iTunesMessageFormat \
-string '%Artist - %Track'
Restart iChat, and choose the "Current iTunes Track" status option from the menu bar. Now the current track and artist information should show correctly if iTunes is running.

Then you maybe want to add something special, for example, a music note in the status message. Here is how to do it.

Do not worry about the unicode code. Open "com.apple.iChat.plist" in Property List Editor. Find "iTunesMessageFormat" and then double click the value column. Now open Character Palette from the menu bar, go to Symbols/Miscellaneous Symbol. Choose the symbol you want to use and then "Insert". You should see your selected symbol in the value column of "iTunesMessageFormat". Ctrl + S to save the "com.apple.iChat.plist" file. Now you are all test. Try to see the fancy iTunes Status message.

If you IM with Google talk users, the message shows perfect in Google talk.

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From an anonymous submitter...
Authored by: DMCrimson on Aug 30, '05 04:15:54PM
no, the status message goes "%Track - %Artist" even AFTER applying that default's command and restarting iChat & iChatAgent - no matter how many times I run the said command in terminal. No Matter what I do, it always gets "%Track - %Artist" when the status is set from the menu (not from iChat, but menu extra) com.apple.iChat.plist has entry for iTunesMessageFormat, and it says "np: %Artist - %Track" com.apple.iChatAgent.plist has entries for iTunesMessageFormat ("np: %Artist - %Track") and FZPersonStatusMessage ("np: %Artist - %Track"), no mention of "%Track - %Artist" there. (saved plist's at this point) iChatAgent is not running, let's see what happens when I launch iChat now. FZPersonStatusMessage has reverted back to "%Track - %Artist" Any ideas why?

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