Chatter App

Messages.app, being the default chat app for OSX, can be very frustrating to use. The strangest thing in the interface is that it creates redundancy with two buddy lists. There's one buddy list in the chat window which contains offline buddies, their chat logs as well as online conversations, and another list in a separate window displaying all online buddies. Although Adium is a great alternative, it simply doesn't have all the compatibilities or features as Messages, whether that be video chat, file-sharing with Messages users etc.

So I decided to design my ideal multi-protocol chat client for desktop. It's called Chatter. Here are the highlights of its design:

• Unified interface – One window for everything you'll need to do
• Integrated Chat Logs Search – Find old chats straightaway with the convenient search box
• Tear-off messages window – Should you prefer to have multiple windows, you can drag the subnavigation bar off and have individual messages as their own windows. There's also a pop-out button in the upper right of the navigation
• Collapse chat into buddy list – Press the arrow on the upper left of the chat navigation in order to keep an eye on your current inbox of chats.
• Compact buddy list – Users have the option to use large or small text in order to keep the list from taking up too much screen real estate.

(Keep an eye out for some BIG news this Monday! Got something special coming.)