Mobile status = Pain in the Neck!

Question

Level 1

19 points

Mobile status = Pain in the Neck!

So, for me this issue is just nails on a chalkboard....

Anyone else have a dumbA friend that has their "mobile" device connected to their AOL account? How IRRITATING is it to go to your little iChat bubble on your menu bar and see "oh, So-n-so is online"... You text them... they respond "THIS IS THERE MOBILE PHONE!!!!!!!"

YOUR NOT AVAILABLE YOUR STUCK IN TRAFFIC 2 HOURS AWAY FROM HOME! Like I want to have a conversation with someone that responds in 1 syllable sentances.

Basically I need it so that when someone is "Mobile" as an "Available" status (oxymoronic to say the least!) my ichat will change their status to "idol" or "away" to keep them out of my menu...

Any scripts? Any hacks? PLEASE!!!?

This pretty much sums up my frustrations : http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2004/12/weirdcontext_shifts_caused_by_im_onhiptops.shtml

TiBook 500 G4 15 (old skool) Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Posted on Dec 20, 2005 8:14 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 21, 2005 1:29 PM in response to t_m

What you are requesting is not something that can be handled by iChat. The person on the phone has to set their own status. iChat, or any other chat client for that matter, cannot set a status for someone else.

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Answer 2

t_m Author

Level 1

19 points

Dec 21, 2005 7:41 PM in response to Michael Allbritton

Then why do other clients put a little icon of a cell phone next to the persons name when their "mobile"? Granted it's not changing their status per-say but it certainly does the trick...

The logic behind a script would be simple : 'Does this person's status message contain the word "Mobile" > If so change _________________'

It surprises me that no one has written a hack for this.

Of course it suprises me even more that Apple hasn't addressed this issue.

What suprises me the most is that there's alot of people reading this that think "mobile" and "available" are the same thing. (Which from the point of view of someone trying to get ahold of a 3rd party - there's a huge difference!)

In a perfect world the solution would consist of changing their color in the buddy list to some other color than green, and removing them from the list of available people in the shortcut menu in the top right.

Please more discussion and ideas.

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Answer 3

Ryan M.

Level 6

8,184 points

Dec 21, 2005 8:27 PM in response to t_m

I really don't see why this is such a big deal. I mean, when you go to the iChat menubar item and click a name, iChat will be forced open thus showing your buddy list. At that time, you can check to see if your buddy is actually available. Sure, it's a dirty little work around.

In the meantime, provide feedback to Apple via the iChat menu. I'm almost 100% positive you can't change someone's status since it's all controlled by that user and what commands are sent to the AIM server, but here's an Applescript if you're familiar with it.

I left out a lot though because of the above fact that I'm pretty sure you can't trick iChat into thinking a person is really "Away" on their mobile phone without that user setting their status.

global viewerName --does nothing global viewerID --does nothing global originalStatus --does nothing on run set theBuddyIDList to {} --does nothing set theBuddyNameList to {} --does nothing set theBuddyDisplayList to {} --does nothing set theIndex to 0 tell application "iChat" set theBuddies to properties of ¬ every account whose status is available and status message is "Mobile" --your code will go here --whether or not it's possible, I'm unsure. end tell end run

Your best route is talking to Apple about it.

-Ryan

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Answer 4

t_m Author

Level 1

19 points

Dec 21, 2005 9:16 PM in response to Ryan M.

It's mainly irritating because I'm a designer and it's a fundamental design and usability flaw.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Available = "I'm sitting right here ready to chat with you."

Mobile = "You're paging me and I might respond in the next 10 min if I happen to look at my phone. Leave a message after the beep."

Mobile ≠ Available
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It's also that I have the buddy list hidden all the time. I'm a fast switching person using 8+ apps at a time and to slow down my production time by opening the buddy list every 5 sec is annoying to say the least. Thus the reason I use the top menu 90% of the time.

Another issue is that some of my buddies have longer names so even when my buddy list window is open I can't necessarily see their status description. One client has something like "ImJustWayToCoolForThisJob" which on a regular sized buddy list window ends up being "ImJustWayToC..." and in order to see their status description I have to scroll over the name for 3 sec.

In fact just looking down the list about every 3 in 5 have names that end with "..." because the name pushes off the status description.

Yes, stretching the window huge would solve it, but I'd still have open iChat and look around before messaging someone instead of just clicking once on a dropdown menu.

This also creates issues when using many dashboard widgets, mail, ical, etc etc etc.

We don't necessarily need to change their status type. After all - they're not telling iChat their status type is "available" they're telling iChat they're "mobile". iChat is what's automatically equating "mobile" with "available".

Thanks for the help and I'll send feedback to apple, but I've seen some amazing hacks out there and I'm sure there's someone with a skill-set to accomplish this.

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Answer 5

t_m Author

Level 1

19 points

Dec 23, 2005 3:23 PM in response to t_m

and.... bump to the top.

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