8 can't-miss Adium Xtras
I absolutely love the popular Mac multi-chat app Adium. Not only does it support a large number of messaging protocols -- including Facebook Chat in the latest version -- it's insanely customizable. In Adium, you can change the look of everything from your contact list to your message style to your dock icon. There's an extensive library of user-created styles at AdiumXtras.com, but they're not all good.
Recently, I went on a bit of a downloading tear, rummaging through the Adium Xtra trash to discover the Adium Xtra treasure. Here, I present my findings: 8 of the slickest, most beautiful add-ons ever to grace a chat client. To check out the full range of Adium Xtras for yourself, go to adiumxtras.com.
Cinematic is a smooth, dark style that fits in really well with OS X. It sports Apple's signature "reflection" effect, and uses buddy icons to show who's talking -- no text necessary. I like an uncluttered feeling when I'm chatting, and Cinematic delivers. Match it up with a darker buddy list style and wallpaper for a really put-together desktop.
Message Style: Supersonic
Supersonic is a pretty basic message style. Messages appear in solid-colored boxes, making it easy to distinguish your messages from your friend's. One neat trick you can do is to edit the CSS for this message style and do some quick color substitutions. We find grey and yellow work well: you can see when you have a new message from across the room.
Message Style: Model Portfolio
A relatively new entry into the message style arena, Model Portfolio is a fresh take on the popular Pushpin style. It displays buddy icons as large Polaroid snapshots, which adds a little bit of style and makes it really easy to see who you're IMing at a glance. With images at this size, you won't have to worry about sending those pesky "wrong window" apologies anymore.
This is a contact list style with a great concept: do away with icons, and get your contacts' statuses at a glance using background colors. If you're sorting your list by status, the effect is striking. We tweaked the colors a bit to make this work better over a light background, but the idea is simple and clever.
Dock Icon: Black Pearl
If you're thinking you don't want to use Adium because of that ubiquitous duck mascot, think again. Although there are literally hundreds of ducks to choose from, in all colors and styles, there are alternatives. One of the simplest is Black Pearl, a glassy black word-bubble that goes well with anything else in your dock.
Plugin: Skype
Skype is just about the only major chat service that isn't supported out-of-the-box in Adium, but you can change that with this plugin. You should know that this isn't going to give you the audio and video calling features of Skype, but it will allow you to IM your Skype contacts via Adium. If you're like me, and you have friends who use Skype as their primary IM client, this plugin is invaluable. The only drawback is that Skype has to be open in the background for it to work.
Emoticon Set: Riceballs
These cute little guys were designed by a true professional: David Lanham of The Iconfactory. There's a wide range of expressions in this set, and they're easy to distinguish from one another. They're also adorable enough to make even the most hardened emoticon hater go " :-D ".
The simplest of simple icons, these colorful dots are some of the most compact status indicators around. Just as importantly, they cover the full range of possible Adium statuses, so there's never any confusion about whether
your buddies are available.
