Shoutbox

Hi!
Here's something MSN has needed since day one: A sound when receiving a message even when the window has focus. Will Messenger Plus support this soon?

Until recently, I was in the habit of using WIN-TAB to defocus the chat window. This placed the focus on the first taskbar button which, with the aid of a third-party app called ButtonBoogie, could be relied upon to be a chat window. Hence, when a message was received, I could hit the spacebar and refocus the window for a reply.

As you can see, I've invested a great deal of time into solving this problem. Unfortunately, Windows XP breaks compatibility with ButtonBoogie. Worse even than that, pressing WIN-TAB under Windows XP gives focus to the SECOND taskbar button, for some reason.

Therefore, my life would be made a lot easier if you just supported this very simple feature. And I reckon one or two other users would be pleased also..

I looked into writing a plugin for it, but your plugin interface seems too specialised to support it. What I'd need is a way to be notified of all incoming messages, which isn't possible currently.

If you don't want to support this feature, please point me in the direction of some tutorials on writing my own MSN plugin.

Tis a good idea!  I've referred it to a plugin developer .

Edit your post and change MSN Plus! to Messenger Plus!, copyright issues.

Thanks eXoenDo! How will I know if/when the feature is implemented? Does the plugin have a homepage?

quote:

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Originally posted by ChewsHumans
Thanks eXoenDo! How will I know if/when the feature is implemented? Does the plugin have a homepage?

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The plugin developer he is talking about is me. If i get time to do it, I will. But I dont have an entire amount of time on my hands so...

Hi Matty,
Well, if you could describe to me in general terms how such a feature could be done, I could write a plugin to do the job myself. I haven't written Messenger plugins before, but I wrote a Winamp plugin once. I'm sure I could pick it up.

I'm familiar with C++, VB and the Windows API.

The main problem, I feel, is knowing when a message is received. Once I know how to do that, the rest should be simple. Is there a simple way to tell? Does the Messenger window receive a specific WM_ message or something, whenever a message is received from another user?

Obviously it shouldn't happen when a message is /sent/...

There doesn't appear to be the ability to be notified when a message is received in the API. Nevertheless, it should be possible: Plus! can do it.
If you want Matty and ChewsHumans, I can lend a hand (and some code) to the cause. I could even attempt to write the whole thing, except I don't know how to catch events in C++.

Hi raceprouk,
By 'catch events' do you mean events of other applications, like WM_ messages? This is done using a Hook callback function, implemented using the SetWindowsHookEx() API.

However, I don't think catching window events is the answer. Using a program called Winspector (similar to Spy++) I have examined the message queue of a Messenger chat window, and noticed nothing useful.

Also, I don't recall Plus! being able to do this. Could you tell me where it does?

I'd be very grateful for any assistance you can provide on this matter.

I believe that Plus! can at least access the content of received messages, so it can apply formatting and respond to commands. I can't think of any other way it would be possible without catching events, apart from packet-sniffing.
Anyway, what I mean by 'catching events' is the Plus! API provides an interface to Messenger. The Messenger API mentions a 'dispinterface' called DMessengerEvents. It is one of those events I wish to catch in C++.
From your post, I assume you are fairly familiar with the workings of C++ under Windows, so I'd appreciate all the help you can give.
Thanks in advance.

As I recall, the DMessengerEvents interface only reports /custom/ messages to plugins. In other words, it's a very limited resource, and a plugin using it will only be notified if it's relevant to that plugin. So, not much use to us.

However, you're right about Plus! being able to do it itself. If I had any contact with the authors of Plus!, I would ask them how it was done; but I don't know of any way other than hoping they read this post...

Has this option been added? This would make my MSN so much better.