Multi-protocol iChat (MSN and more!)

Cybertronic · 5 Sep 2008 at 19:13

10 steps to a multi-protocol iChat

I been trying this today and it works great except for missing MSN avatars however avatars from Address Book will do for now

Doing this and combining Chax, an iChat addition, makes iChat competitive enough to compete with Adium

It's pretty nice to see your friends' availability in both Mail and Address Book when using iChat :cool:

If you like customising Adium a lot then doing these two things are certainly not for you

1337z0r · 8 Sep 2008 at 12:03

I did this so I could have video capability with AIM and not have to have adium open. But I found it lacked too many features such as avatars and personal messages.

titchard · 8 Sep 2008 at 12:31

I did this sort of thing before with an AllForces blog post that was basically the same steps but with a different jabber client.

To be honest, it is far to much faffing around for much less functionality - and is not worth the hassle in my opinion.

Adium for the win in this situation!

Rich

Cybertronic · 8 Sep 2008 at 12:48

1337z0r said:
I did this so I could have video capability with AIM and not have to have adium open. But I found it lacked too many features such as avatars and personal messages.

You need to install Chax to see personal messages/text status

Cybertronic · 8 Sep 2008 at 13:03

titchard said:
I did this sort of thing before with an AllForces blog post that was basically the same steps but with a different jabber client.

To be honest, it is far to much faffing around for much less functionality - and is not worth the hassle in my opinion.

Adium for the win in this situation!

Rich

The link I provided isn't really the same steps because it does not use third party Jabber servers. Instead it uses a local one installed on your Mac therefore making it far more secure

If you have not tried Chax, you should try it because I think it can compete with Adium

Still with Adium, you need to "faff" around with it to your own liking since the default themes aren't really that nice. iChat's (with Chax installed) integration with Mail and Address Book won it for me

Edit: Unlike the other link you provided, following the steps in the OP, you don't have to add contacts yourself hence making it much easier.

Scythe · 26 Sep 2008 at 16:52

Holy thread revival Batman, but will this support webcam over MSN?

Cybertronic · 26 Sep 2008 at 16:55

Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any webcam support over MSN using this method

However, you might be able to use the webcam if your friends are using Macs and iChat because I can use screen sharing with a friend using a Google Talk account. Google Talk doesn't support webcams natively even though iChat told me that this friend was using a Mac with iSight (webcam) so I'm guessing iChat uses a different method for communicating via webcams?