TabbyChat 2 Mod 1.8, 1.7.10, 1.7.2 Incoming chat messages from the MC server are scanned for special delimiters at the beginning of the chat line that are common to several server-side chat-channel plugins.  When these chat channels can be deduced by TabbyChat, a new 'tab' is created above the chat window.  This tab contains only the messages from that channel and filters out the rest.

The first tab listed will always be the catch-all tab, holding all received messages just like you would see without this mod, and is denoted with a * (asterisk).