14 DAY TRIAL // Long-time macOS users certainly remember Adium, as this has long been one of the most popular multi-platform instant messaging apps on Apple’s desktop platform.
Adium came with an impressive feature package that included anything from a super-user-friendly and modern interface to support for a wide array of networks, including the now-discontinued Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, and so many others.
And believe it or not, but Adium is still being used these days by a substantial number of users running macOS on their devices. Sure, most of them are enterprises that need an easy way to chat with contacts in their own internal networks, such as when a Jabber server is being used, but Adium still survives despite the migration to cloud-based infrastructure.
New operating system updates and old software don’t always play nice, and this is exactly what happened this month when Apple rolled out macOS Catalina.
As an old application, Adium experiencing compatibility issues isn’t necessarily something totally surprising, especially as the developer behind the app hasn’t really been in a rush to improve it.
On macOS Catalina, one of the biggest problems for users whose devices have been updated to Catalina is the broken auto-scrolling feature in messages.
In other words, when someone sends you a message and you open the conversation window, Adium no longer automatically scrolls down to the last message to lead you to read it, so the whole thing needs to be done manually every time a new message is received.
It goes without saying that this isn’t the most convenient way to deal with a compatibility bug, but fortunately, a workaround already exists, thanks to enthusiast @ Cocoa Forge Forum.
First and foremost, there are a few things that you need to know before getting your party hat on and modify your existing installation, or you can simply download the Softpedia patched version for macOS Catalina.
If you want to modify your installation, you need to update Adium to the latest version. The most recent release of the app is version 1.5.10.4, and you can find it on Softpedia right here – if you don’t update to the latest version, the chances are not only that you won’t be able to fix this bug, but also come across other issues after installing macOS Catalina.
The following workaround is for the Default (Stockholm) message and some existing themes. You can check what theme you are using at the following location:
Adium > Preferences > Messages > Message Style
Finder > Applications> Adium > right-click > Show Package Contents > Contents > Resources
Template.html
//Auto-scroll to bottom. Use nearBottom to determine if a scrollToBottom is desired.
function nearBottom() {
return ( document.body.scrollTop >= ( document.body.offsetHeight - ( window.innerHeight * 1.2 ) ) );
}
function scrollToBottom() {
document.body.scrollTop = document.body.offsetHeight;
}
//Auto-scroll to bottom. Use nearBottom to determine if a scrollToBottom is desired.
function nearBottom() {
//return ( document.body.scrollTop >= ( document.body.offsetHeight - ( window.innerHeight * 1.2 ) ) );
return 1;
}
function scrollToBottom() {
window.scrollTo(0, document.body.scrollHeight);
//document.body.scrollTop = document.body.offsetHeight;
}