So, why is there no “Invisible” in the iChat Menu Bar?
Truly one of life’s great thrills is going online in iChat with your status set to “invisible“. It’s pretty much the closest you can get to joining the CIA without actually getting off the couch and enlisting. But as much as I love the ability to spy on my iChat friends without them knowing I am online, one thing thing that puts an extra dagger in my Cloak and Dagger web surfing is that for some reason “Invisible” is not an option from the iChat status icon in the Menu Bar, requiring me to make an extra mouse click or two and launch iChat’s buddy list in order to conceal my online identity. What this means is that I briefly appear on my friend’s buddy lists, blowing my cover, and opening myself to all sorts of “Hey, how r u?“‘s (you know who you are, Jordan).
Above: iChat lets you set your status to “Invisible” from the Buddy List…
Above: …but not from the Menu Bar iChat icon.
Anyway, I’m filing it as a bug with Apple, as I can see no reason for this disparity. In the meantime, does anyone know of a work around to this? (um, besides Adium). Thanks!
I think I do know the reason. Invisibility is not supported on Google Talk/Jabber in iChat, so I guess having a universally applicable option in the menu bar for invisibility would cause confusion, because it would only work for your AIM/.Mac buddy list.
You’re right though. There must be some way to sign on as invisible without “blowing your cover”. 🙂
That made me think about another burning question: How do I remove the .mac icon from my menu bar. I don’t have .mac and will probably never have .mac. There’s no checkbox to remove it from the menu bar like there is for iChat .
Yes, there is a workaround. While “offline”, open your Buddy List from the menu-bar. Then choose “Invisible”.
Clunky, but it works.
🙂
M
to Jonro:
Hold down the Command key and click and drag the icon off your menubar
Hmm, I do not know about being invisible in buddy lists, but this is a cool “invisible” effect for ichat… http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=377104
I guess you mean .mac sync icon in menu bar?
Go to Application folder and find iSync then go to preference and you will find the option to turn menu item off.
mmmmm Utz Cheeseballs!