BitWise Chat - 0.9.9.2

I was looking for a cross-platform encrypted chat program, and bitwise is certainly first choice here. Everything works well, including unicode, voice and the whiteboard (which I like much). Logging in with multiple identities at the same time is also a very nice feature.

I have a few suggestions/wishlist for improvements though, mostly cosmetics:

1. the user-interface could be a bit nicer and easier to use.
2. in preferences, an error message will be raised when no folder for chat logs eg is set. It should be an alert or something else, an "error" is too dramatic and makes one feel as if something went wrong
3. one should be able to add nicknames to buddies
4. the away settings are handled in an extra window, that's not really necessary I think. A status line in the main window would be sufficient
5. it would be nice if one could also set a custom status when one is not idle
6. when someone sends a link in chat it should be clickable
7. there should be support for emoticons - I know, this is really not essential, but still many people love using them
8. there doesn't seem to be growl integration
9. esp. for the Mac, access via a menu bar item would be nice
10. I'm missing a button for toggling invisibility

This is a really great idea, but so far that's all it is. Me and a bunch of online buddies have been trying to get the calling part working. The only thing that looks like it works well is the text chat. I don't know how the rest works, but it was too much wasted time on the last two versions. I think I'll wait a year and then maybe they can get a grip. Maybe they will have better directions or something. Do they try their own applications out before posting them ? It sure doesn't seem like it.