Facebook today released a major update to its iOS app, bumping the version number to 6.0 and adding a number of new features, one of which is Chat Heads, a new take at chat notifications.
In its release notes, the company noted that the feature would be rolled out to everyone in the next few weeks, but if you’re curious like us and want to get access to Chat Heads right now, read on.
The feature is activated by checking an entry for “messenger_chat_heads_ios” in com.facebook.Facebook.plist located in the Facebook/Library/Preferences/ folder. To enable it, you’ll have to edit that file. Things get a lot easier if you’re jailbroken and have iFile installed:
- Open iFile and head to the Facebook app folder in /var/mobile/Applications. (If you see weird strings as folders, you should enable Show Application Names from iFile’s Settings.)
- Open com.facebook.Facebook.plist located in Library/Preferences with the “Property List Viewer”
- Navigate to ProjectGating > Cache and flip the “messenger_chat_heads_ios” switch to the “On” state. If it isn’t already there, follow the instructions below.
- Hit the “+” button at the bottom, enter “messenger_chat_heads_ios” in the name, and select Boolean as the type and tap create.
- You’ll see the field now with a switch to its right, flip it to the “On” state.
- Force quite the Facebook app, and reopen. You should now have access to Chat Heads.
An alternate, but much harder, way is to copy the plist file to your PC/Mac using a tool like iFunBox, editing it using Xcode or TextWrangler, and then putting it back. The portion that needs to be highlighted is shown below:
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➤ Facebook
Via: @noir
