I Want To Do Something Cool With iChat But Need Help!

frank_t · February 21, 2003 11:56AM

You how in the Terminal app you can play around with the Transparency to make the window all clear....i want to do the same in the chat window of iChat...would be cool to see the desktop or anything behind it...i don't mean the window just where the text is in the chat window....like when you set the background....can this be done...is there a hack? Please post as i would love to have this work as i know it can be done in os 10.2

frank_t

giaguara · February 21, 2003 12:00PM

<a href="http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20010407171430814&query=terminal +default+set" target="_blank">Get transparent windows in any cocoa app.</a>

frank_t · February 21, 2003 12:58PM

That looks hard.....can someone that knows how to use Dev Tools do it?

Frank_t

ghost_user_name · February 21, 2003 1:24PM

lol... so, you don't want to touch the command line but you're willing to write a little app to execute the same commands in ObjC or AppleScript instead?

Of course it's hard. It's not something that the apps are *meant* to do. You said yourself it'd be a hack.

frank_t · February 21, 2003 1:32PM

"you're willing to write a little app to execute the same commands"

I don't know where i said i would be willing to do that as i don't know how too... <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" />

I am asking for help remeber

Frank_t

[ 02-21-2003: Message edited by: frank_t ]

ghost_user_name · February 21, 2003 2:04PM

Well, you said Dev Tools; so, I automatically assumed you'd be writing an app to do it. Why else would you metnion them?

frank_t · February 22, 2003 2:54PM

I metnion them as only that way can one make it work as there isn't any GUI for this.....yet...

Frank_t

serrano · February 23, 2003 10:57AM

[quote]Originally posted by frank_t:

That looks hard.....can someone that knows how to use Dev Tools do it?

Frank_t<hr></blockquote>

There's 4 steps, 1 of them is open, and 1 of them is save.

It seems it doesn't work anyways. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />

[ 02-23-2003: Message edited by: serrano ]

frank_t · February 24, 2003 9:18AM

Dam....would look very cool as the balloons still make it easy to read the text unlike the terminal app....

Frank_t

frank_t · February 24, 2003 10:33PM

Is there a programer that knows a work around so it can be done as this can be done in the terminal app.....would it be very hard to tell ichat windows background to do the same?

Frank_t

dfiler · February 27, 2003 12:32PM

[quote]Originally posted by frank_t:

Is there a programer that knows a work around so it can be done as this can be done in the terminal app.....would it be very hard to tell ichat windows background to do the same?

Frank_t<hr></blockquote>Yep... go into the iChat nibs, reclass the window or the view used to display messages. Add your custom class to the nib. Open up Project Builder and override the draw routines in this class with a call to the super's draw routines... should work perfectly!

frank_t · February 27, 2003 1:00PM

Gee you make it sound so easy <img src="embarrassed.gif" border="0">

Could you give a step by step of what and where i edit by how much and i may get it done befor i pull my hair out.....why is something so cool need to be so hard to do

Frank_t

kickaha · February 27, 2003 3:49PM

Meow meow meow meow.

You're talking about editing the inner workings of a compiled app. Try it sometime on any other system... not gonna happen unless you can read the assembly for that hardware and know the inner workings of the OS intimately.

Actually, the only thing blocking me from *doing* this is the lack of a header for the Aqua2Window class. Anyone have a pointer to help out a developer in need?

serrano · February 27, 2003 11:30PM

Stop bumping your thread. It's annoying. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />

frank_t · March 2, 2003 1:01PM

Well i tryed Application Enhancer and it does it to all of the window....why can't i just do the background? like in the Terminal app? someone? why is this so hard to do?

Frank_t

kickaha · March 2, 2003 1:40PM

*sigh*

You're not a developer, are you?

Making a window transparent is easy... you're just telling the Window Server "make this one window transparent". That is one of its documented functions. That's what it *does*. All you're doing there is requesting it to do something it was designed to do and respond to external requests for.

What *you* want to do is to dig into the inner workings of iChat, tease out the one object that is the background of the iChat chat window, and tell it to go transparent. Oh yes, and the window itself needs to know to have a transparent pass-through background as well, without forcing transparency on all objects.

VERY different. I'm sorry you're frustrated that this is 'difficult'. (It's not, really, and the fact that we even have a chance in hades of doing it at *all* is a testimony to the design of the inner workings of MacOS X.) It's just quite a bit beyond making a single window transparent. Heck, that's easy.

For comparison, it's the difference between asking someone "Please open this jar for me" and surgically replacing one of their hands with a jar opener.

As I said above, a couple of minutes poking around the guts of iChat led me to realize that I would need information on the Aqua2Window class to do this, but otherwise it's straightforward and pretty simple. All I'd have to do is subclass A2W, override the awakeFromNib: method, redirect the object in the .nib file itself to the new custom class, and call it good. But, without the header file for A2W, *I'm* at an impass. If anyone else wants to take a crack at it, and has more experience teasing out private framework tidbits for extension, go for it.

frank_t · March 2, 2003 1:57PM

I see..no i'm not a programer but i know that in the InspectorX.nib from the terminal app if you look under colorInspector thing you will see that is what i'm looking for as in the terminal you can make only the background clear and not the window....which is what i'm looking as you know...so i ask is there a easy way of copy and paste the colorInspector thing in ichat somewhere that will let me use i t as a GUI or even as code it self? I don't know which just as long as it does the job.....hope this helps in someway.....sorry if it doesn't..

Frank_t

kickaha · March 2, 2003 2:12PM

No. There is no way to do what you want short of digging into the inner guts of iChat and programming a new class to override the existing custom class that we don't have full information on.

Terminal *PROVIDES* that functionality in its code. iChat does not. That l33t hax0r you're talking about is just accessing a hidden option in Terminal, it's nothing big. What you want in iChat would be.

It's a cool idea, but I'm sorry, it's just plain out of your reach at the moment.

Now, if you wanted to learn how to do it, I'm sure the rest of us would applaud.

frank_t · March 2, 2003 4:13PM

Dam....

Frank_t

I Want To Do Something Cool With iChat But Need Help!

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