Meebo pop-out windows and OS X Exposè Nov15 '06
Meebo has taken another step closer to the functionality of desktop chat applications, by allowing users to "pop out" chat windows, from the browser.
This is a great idea, and combined with Mac OS X Exposè, you can easily view all conversations at once.
Here's the idea...
In Meebo, you'll notice your Buddy List has a little arrow in the upper right corner:
Clicking on this arrow will "pop out" the Buddy List to a separate window, within your browser. If you're like me, you use tabbed browsing in Firefox, so you may only ever have a single window open (albeit with a bunch of tabs contained within).
The benefit of having your Meebo Buddy List in a separate window is that you can "jump to it" rather easily, in OS X.
The quickest way? Simply hit the keyboard combo Command + Tilde (Tilde is next to the "1" key, in the upper left corner). This combo cycles through open windows within an application, much like Command + Tab (Alt + Tab on Windows) cycles through all open applications.
So your Buddy List is now in a separate window. How about each chat window?
Same thing applies here. Each chat window has the same little arrow in the upper right corner. Click that, and the window will "pop out" to a separate browser window.
Now you have a bunch of "floating windows" behind your main browsing window. How do you quickly view all windows at once?
With OS X, you can use Exposè:
The trigger would be Application windows. Set that to whatever keyboard "hot key" you desire. Mine is set up so that whenever I put the mouse pointer in the upper left corner, Exposè is fired, and I can instantly see all windows of the current application.
When you use Exposè to view all Application windows in your browser, you should see all of your chat windows floating on your screen. You can then quickly jump to whatever window you'd like:
Another tip
Another great tip is to "hide" the extra menu bar icons and text, so your chat windows are uncluttered.
Notice the chat window below. There is exta menu bar icons and text, that takes up valuable screen space:
Click the little "pill" button, in the upper right corner of the window.
That should remove any menu bar information:
Roundup
As Meebo continues to get better, it will gain further popularity. These new features are a step in the right direction.
Categories: Software 
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