Angus Logan's Blog

A while ago I announced the Windows Live Messenger IM Control on my blog - got to http://dev.live.com/Messenger/

The team have been doing some really cool stuff lately;

We got some feedback:

• Its great but I can't have my users copying and pasting, how can I streamline the signup so all my users can easily publish their presence (for example a social network).
• I love the Windows Live blue but I want to configure the colors
• How can I programmatically query the presence.
• Its all good but I want more!

What have we done?

• Ability to Invite Users to Share Online Presence (and return the ID): You can now add a hyperlink to your site saying "Show my Presence" and that goes out to the WebSignup.aspx page which allows a user to opt in to show their presence and receive IMs via the Web.
  • Link to http://settings.messenger.live.com/applications/websignup.aspx?returnurl=http://dev.live.com&privacyurl=http://dev.live.com and you are returned their approval status and their Messenger Unique Identifier (an ID unique for that user which isn't their Windows Live ID)

• Querying the Windows Live Presence API - a JSON end point which returns the user's Status, Display Name, and a URL to the image.

{    

"status": "Offline",    

"icon": 

{    

"height": 16,    

"url": "http://settings.messenger.live.com/static/w13r2/Conversation/img/Status_Online.gif",    

"width": 16    

},    

"statusText": "Online",    

"id": "12BACD345678@apps.messenger.live.com",    

"displayName": "Name"

}

• Customization of the colors in the IM Control & new badges
  • colors are configured via the URL in the IFRAME, we have a few sample colors.
    • <iframe src=
      • http://settings.messenger.live.com/Conversation/IMMe.aspx?invitee=dcc7f76fcd6c161a@apps.messenger.live.com
      • &mkt=en-US
      • &useTheme=true
      • &foreColor=333333
      • &backColor=FDC098
      • &linkColor=333333
      • &borderColor=FB8233
      • &buttonForeColor=333333
      • &buttonBackColor=FFC9A5
      • &buttonBorderColor=FB8233
      • &buttonDisabledColor=FFC9A5
      • &headerForeColor=333333
      • &headerBackColor=FC9E60
      • &menuForeColor=333333
      • &menuBackColor=FFFFFF
      • &chatForeColor=333333
      • &chatBackColor=FFFFFF
      • &chatDisabledColor=F6F6F6
      • &chatErrorColor=760502
      • &chatLabelColor=6E6C6C
    • />

• Seeing this implemented in a sample - I added the collection code into the Adventure Works Resorts Quick App (WLQuickApps.Social) - all the code is available at http://codeplex.com/wlquickapps

• You want more? watch this space ().