21.6. Let the Chat Begin

21.6. Let the Chat Begin
As with any conversation, somebody has to talk first. In chat circles, that's called inviting
someone to a chat.
21.6.1. They Invite You
To "turn on your pager" so you'll be notified when someone wants to chat with you, run
iChat. Hide its windows, if you like, by pressing -H.
GEM IN THE ROUGH
Making iChat Auto-Answer
When you invite another Mac to a video chat, someone has to be sitting in front
of it to accept your invitation. That's an important privacy feature, of course,
because it prevents total strangers from peeking in on you when you're walking
around in your underwear.
But having to have a live human at the other end is kind of a bummer if you just
want to peek in on your house, your kids, or your spouse while you're away,
using your iSight camera or camcorder as a sort of security cam or nannycam. In
the pre-Leopard days, you could set up iChat to auto-answer your video-chat
invitations only by using add-on software or geekster Terminal commands.
In Leopard, though, that option is available right out of the box.
Choose iChat Preferences Alerts and then turn on Run AppleScript.
From the adjoining pop-up menu, choose Auto Accept. From now on, iChat will
love all your buddies and accept their invites immediately.


When someone tries to "page" you for a chat, iChat comes forward automatically and
shows you an invitation message like the one in Figure 21-4
. If the person initiating a
chat isn't already in your Buddy List, you'll simply see a note that says "Message from
[name of the person]."

Tip: If you're getting hassled by someone on your AIM/.Mac buddy list, click his screen
name and choose Buddies Block Person. If the person isn't online at the time, go to

iChat Preferences Accounts Security and click the button for Block specific
people. Click the Edit List button, and then type in the screen name of the person you
want out of your IM life.

Figure 21-4. You're being invited to a chat! Your buddy wants to have a typed chat
(top left) or a spoken one (top right). To begin chatting, click the invitation window,
type a response in the bottom text box if you like (for text chats), and click Accept
(or press Enter). Or click Decline to lock out the person sending you messages—a
good trick if someone's harassing you.


GEM IN THE ROUGH
iTunes by Remote Control
Thanks to some sneaky AppleScripting (Chapter 7), you can now use iChat as a
glorified music-system remote control for another Mac. Specifically, you can sit
at Mac #1, controlling the iTunes playback of Mac #2 elsewhere in the house.
That's handy when Mac #2 is connected to your sound system, and you really
don't feel like getting up off the couch.
To set it all up, start on Mac #1, the one you'll be using in person. In iChat,
choose iChat Preferences Accounts. Click Bonjour, and turn on Use
Bonjour Instant Messaging. Close the window.
On Mac #2, the one with iTunes, open iChat. Choose iChat Preferences
Alerts. From the Event pop-up menu, choose Message Received. Turn on Run
AppleScript on this Mac, too, and then select iTunes Remote Control from the
pop-up menu.
Now, while seated at Mac #1, you can control Mac #2's music playback by
typing one-word commands into iChat. You can type any of these commands:
play, pause, status, next, previous, mute, unmute, or help. After you type your
command (like mute when the phone rings and you're blasting Green Day), hit
the Return key to make iTunes on the other Mac obey your orders.

You'll get responses in the iChat window, too. For example, if you send "next,"
iChat types back, "Playing next track. Now playing 'In This Diary' by The
Ataris.")


21.6.2. You Invite Them
To invite somebody in your Buddy List to a chat:
•
For a text chat, double-click the person's name, type a quick invite ("You there?"),
and press Enter.

Tip: You can invite more than one person to the chat. Each time you click the +
button at the bottom of the Participants list, you can choose another person to
invite. (Or -click each name in the buddy list to select several people at once
and then click the A button at the bottom of the list to start the text chat.)Everyone
sees all the messages everyone sends.

•
To start an audio or video chat, click the microphone or movie-camera icon in
your Buddy List (shown in Figure 21-2
).
To initiate a chat with someone who isn't in the Buddy List, choose File New Chat
With Person. Type the account name of the person, and then click OK to send the
invitation.
Either way, you can have more than one chat going at once. In the Olden Days (before
October 2007), real iChat nerds often wound up with screens overflowing with individual
chat windows. Juggling them all, and keeping them all current, was just part of the fun—
and still can be.
But in modern times, you can now contain all your conversations in a single window. If
you like the idea of a consolidated chatspace, chose iChat Preferences Messages

and slap a checkmark in the "Collect chats into a single window" Box. Figure 21-5 has
the details.
Figure 21-5. Now, when you're conversing with several buddies, you can bounce
between conversations by clicking the buddy names on the side of the window. It's
not as adventurous as keeping all your chats going in separate windows, but it's a lot
easier to hide when the boss comes your way.