Shoutbox

It is exactly the same issue, qgroessl....

Messenger Plus! does not sort the contacts, if you use custom names or not. In fact Messenger Plus! doesn't contain any code for sorting the contact list at all. It totaly let MSN Messenger handle that stuff.

In case for custom names, Messenger Plus! only changes the item (aka: what you see on a line), it doesn't change the item's visible location in that list. Since Messenger Plus! needs the emails to detect which item is which contact and thus which custom name, the list has to be in "View By Email" so Plus! can take and compare the internal texts of the items. Result, they are sorted by email address (because, as said, Plus! doesn't change anything to the order of which MSN Messenger displays them).

In case for statusses, this is exactly the same. Plus! only changes the last thing on the listview's item, it doesn't alter the visible nor internal order. Hence Plus! will not sort the list on statusses either...

Now why is it that Plus! let MSN Messenger handle the sorting? Because of the amount of work it would take to sort the list! It isn't a simple "IF B>A Then Swap A with B", there are many pitfalls in that list. For starters it is devided in groups, so you have to change that as well. Then there are the many combinations of MSN Messenger sorting itself which must be ignored constantly each time MSN Messenger updates the list, etc... Not to mention the problems which could/will occur because of the altered internal indexes of the list because you sorted the list yourself, etc..., etc...

It isn't so straitforward as it may seem. Possible? Yes... Doable? If Patchou has heaps of time...

Possible with a plugin? In theory yes... Doable? Not worth the amount of massive work and debugging. There are far 'easier' jobs which could be done with plugins, but are never done because nobody wanted to spend time on them. So I very highly doubt someone is willing to spend time on this and produce a half-working plugin which is bound to have problems...