Chat Transcript Manager was given a pretty warm welcome by the Mac users, thank you!
Now of course we are receiving numerous feature requests, and (as expected) the #1 request is "Will Chat Transcript Manager support my favorite IM app XYZ?". I'll try to cover briefly the top requested clients here and our plans on the integration:
- Proteus: support for Proteus will be coming in next one or two point updates (this being 1.1 or 1.2). More likely in 1.1 because it uses sqlite as a backend to store the chat logs (so do we, except they use 2.x and we use 3.x. Not a big deal anyway). So watch for it soonish.
- Fire: this one uses HTML or XML formatted logs, depending on the service it uses, so it will probably be feasible to estimate the support within 2 point updates too (likely 1.2), since it is semi-similar to Adium logs.
- MSN Messenger: not yet ready to tell the estimate, since 5.x uses its own proprietary binary format for the log files, and we're not sure how to parse it yet. Keep the hope up, though! ;)
- Colloquy: uses XML as a log format, so we will probably add that too at some point. No timeframe yet. If you want us to get to it sooner, please vote for it in the comments.
- Ircle: not sure at the moment. Ircle outputs a plain text log format that can vary depending on the options user has set in the preferences, so parsing it out can be a notable pain. Again, please vote if you really want this.
- Snak: We have received some requests, but have not looked at it yet. Vote.
All these plans are preliminary and not set in stone, yadda yadda. We will be releasing minor updates (such as 1.0.1) in between that add localizations (anyone want to localize Chat Transcript Manager in exchange for a license and a place in the credits?) and minor bug fixes. 1.0.1 will come with Italian and Danish localization in a few.
Overall, thank you for your support! Keep it coming. ;)
Just a quick note: Smart Crash Reports web interface now decyphers the hardware model, so you'll see "iMac (Flat Panel)" instead of "PowerMac4,2" in the crash report:
What is it? In a nutshell, it is an application that will scan your iChat and Adium chat transcripts, store them all in its own database and then allow you to browse and search them in a snap.
How is that different from Spotlight, you might ask? The answer is simple: Spotlight searches for text, while Chat Transcript Manager allows you to narrow your search by time interval, chat contents, and participants, not to mention the plain vanilla old style text search.
The chat contents criteria is something I find very useful. Often, I get sent a link to some site (usually it's either these silly russian jokes from my Russian friends or the weird pictures from our own Rosyna), and then a few days later when I want to re-visit or bounce it to someone else, I can't remember it. What's worse, I can't even remember what we talked about when the link was sent to me, or what the site name was. So the text search won't work in this case. This is where Chat Transcript Manager comes handy. I simply launch it from the iChat with Cmd+0 (CTM has a nice little option that lets you add a shortcut to it right into iChat's/Adium's Window menu), then select the range (This Week usually works fine for me) and "Links" as the Chat Contents criteria. Voila, I have all chats with the links in them available. Then it's a matter of finding the chat I need and hitting Next button on the toolbar, that will jet me right to the link. Useful.
And of course, Chat Transcript Manager comes with everything you'd expect from a well-behaved Mac application: it will update your chats live if you keep it open, it has awesome chat display styles to choose from (thanks to the great designers who allowed us to use their designs -- Matthew Bice and Peter Simonsson), and much more.
The price. You can try it with no features removed for 15 days or 30 launches, whatever comes last. We realize the product like Chat Transcript Manager may not be needed every day, so if you use it infrequently you still have a chance to fully try it out. Then, if you like it (and we really hope you do ;), you can purchase it for $10 (this is an introductory price that will last for a month, then it jumps to twice as much, so if you like it, make sure you grab the opportunity to get it cheap!).
And this is just the beginning of the road. There are many exciting big and small things we want to implement in Chat Transcript Manager, and your feedback will help us in deciding the priorities, as usual. We will expand the list of supported log formats, so make sure to let us know your favorite chat application (other than iChat and Adium X, that is).
Overall, try it out, and see for yourself. Here's the direct download like (1.2 M): http://www.unsanity.net/ctm-10.dmg.
Looking forward to your feedback!