ChitChat was an
open sourceOpen source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
instant messagingInstant messaging is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via devices connected over a network such as the Internet.-Overview:...
clientA client is an application or system that accesses a remote service on another computer system, known as a server, by way of a network. The term was first applied to devices that were not capable of running their own stand-alone programs, but could interact with remote computers via a network...
for
Mac OS XMac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
supporting the
Yahoo! MessengerYahoo! Messenger is an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger is provided free of charge and can be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo! ID" which also allows access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Mail, where...
protocol. It enabled users to chat with each other over the global Yahoo! chat system. The last version, ChitChat 1.2, had a more refined user interface, speed improvements, Address Book support, IM reformatting, an improved events system, and numerous bug fixes. ChitChat was programmed in the
REALBasicREALbasic is an object-oriented dialect of the BASIC programming language developed and commercially marketed by REAL Software, Inc in Austin, Texas for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and 32-bit x86 Linux.- History :...
programming environment.
ChitChat was an offshoot of "miChat!", a Yahoo! Chat program for Macintosh computers written by J.
ChitChat was an
open sourceOpen source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
instant messagingInstant messaging is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via devices connected over a network such as the Internet.-Overview:...
clientA client is an application or system that accesses a remote service on another computer system, known as a server, by way of a network. The term was first applied to devices that were not capable of running their own stand-alone programs, but could interact with remote computers via a network...
for
Mac OS XMac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
supporting the
Yahoo! MessengerYahoo! Messenger is an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger is provided free of charge and can be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo! ID" which also allows access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Mail, where...
protocol. It enabled users to chat with each other over the global Yahoo! chat system. The last version, ChitChat 1.2, had a more refined user interface, speed improvements, Address Book support, IM reformatting, an improved events system, and numerous bug fixes. ChitChat was programmed in the
REALBasicREALbasic is an object-oriented dialect of the BASIC programming language developed and commercially marketed by REAL Software, Inc in Austin, Texas for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, and 32-bit x86 Linux.- History :...
programming environment.
History
ChitChat was an offshoot of "miChat!", a Yahoo! Chat program for Macintosh computers written by J. Seth Lowe in the REALbasic programming language. In late 2000, Seth publicly asked for other REALbasic programmers to join the project, in the hope that it would spawn a number of competing Yahoo! Chat clients and enrich the Macintosh experience. A programmer by the name of Tomis Erwin responded to this query. After collaborating on several features, Seth encouraged him to take free rein in creating his own client from the miChat code base.
The new program, dubbed "ChitChat", went through several major interface overhauls throughout its existence, seemingly in perpetual beta or pre-release, though it was available publicly. Finally, "ChitChat 1.0" was released in early 2004 with versions for Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, and Windows 98.
Over the years ChitChat had picked up a rather large feature set. In an effort to deflect feature-creep without crippling the program, "ChitChat Lite" was introduced in late 2005. The Lite version, a simplified no-frills release, never picked up as large a user base as its predecessor.
End of the Line
In April 2006, Yahoo! disconnected their "Java Chat" (known internally as YCHT protocol) in favor of the newer Yahoo! Messenger protocol (known as YMSG). ChitChat was designed on this older protocol and would need to be rewritten to support the new system. Citing the amount of time and effort a re-write would entail, Tomis announced that ChitChat was effectively terminated.
"...I would like to thank everyone for all the support over the years. It was fun, and I learned a lot..." ~ Tomis Erwin, ChitChat Homepage
During the years that ChitChat was in active development, a new trend in chat clients emerged; that of the multi-client. Multi-Clients connect to more than one service at once, this reduces the number of programs a user must simultaneously run on their computer. The only multi-client that can connect to Yahoo! Chat (as opposed to regular Instant Messaging) as of this writing is
AdiumAdium is a popular free instant messaging client for Mac OS X that supports multiple IM networks, including MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ and XMPP. It supports many protocols through the libraries libezv , MGTwitterEngine , and libpurple...