Mac OS X Lion: The Missing Manual

Text Chatting

A typed chat works like this: Each time you or your chat partner types something and then presses Return, the text appears on both of your screens (Figure 20-4).

iChat displays each typed comment next to an icon, which can be any of these three things:

Figure 20-4. As you chat, your comments always appear on the right. If you haven’t yet created a custom icon, you’ll look like a blue globe or an AOL running man. You can choose a picture for yourself either in your own Address Book card or right in iChat. And Web links your pals paste into messages are perfectly clickable—your Web browser leaps right up to take you to the site your friend has shared.

POWER USERS’ CLINIC: iTunes by Remote Control

Thanks to some sneaky AppleScripting (Chapter 7), you can 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 make sure Enable Bonjour Instant Messaging is turned on. 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 ...