If you run the AppleScript:
tell application "iChat"
set status message to "testing"
set status to away
end tell
You might expect to have the away message “testing”. But what you get is an empty away message. That’s because set status destroys your status message. It behaves as if you had selected “Away”, “Available”, etc. as your status from iChat’s status menu.
If you want to set a custom away message, call set status first, so it won’t over-write your message.
tell application "iChat"
set status to away
set status message to "testing"
end tell
Filled as radar://6505882, but Apple considers it expected behavior.
With the current version of iChat under OS 10.6.6, I can’t get the workaround to work.
This fails to do both, and I only get the message, without the status changing:
tell application "iChat"
set status to away
set status message to "Do Not Disturb"
end tell
However this works:
tell application "iChat"
set status to away
end tell
and this works:
tell application "iChat"
set status message to "Do Not Disturb"
end tell
Comment by Lantrix — January 16, 2011 @ 7:03 am
I’m afraid I have no suggestions, except reporting it at: http://bugreport.apple.com. Good luck!
Comment by Vincent Gable — January 16, 2011 @ 7:52 am
Try to call sleep function between setting status and status message:
tell application “iChat”
set status to away
do shell script “sleep 0.1”
set status message to “Away”
end tell
That helps me.
Comment by Kentzo — February 3, 2011 @ 2:20 pm