Snow Leopard: iChat restricting minimum chat window width

Users may experience an issue regarding the minimum width of a chat window in Mac OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard's iChat. The issue seems to restrict the window size to approximately 384 pixels, which some users may find too large for their needs (especially when working on smaller notebooks).

Apple Support Discussions user "lpalpac" reports:

i just upgraded from 10.5.8 to 10.6.2, i noticed that the iChat's chat window has a minimum width of 384 pixels (that is too large for me) i cannot resize below that, on 10.5.8 i didn't notice any resize problems with iChat.

Attempts to perform other troubleshooting methods, including deleting the com.apple.iChat.plist file, repairing permissions, changing screen resolutions, as well as starting iChat in 32-bit mode all proved fruitless. This issue seems to be related to language settings in Mac OS X. After changing the language setting from their native language (not disclosed) to English, logging out and logging back in, the issue corrected itself. If you are experiencing this issue and have a different native language running on your Mac, you can change the language to English by following these directions:

1. Open System Preferences > Language & Text
2. Drag English to the top of the preferred languages list.

Log out and back in or restart your Mac.

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