Shoutbox

Hi!

I´m starting in the adventure of Windows development with C++ and the .NET framework, I originally started programming many years ago with Delphi (5) but since I got to the web business, I never came back (I work with Flash Platform, HTML, CSS, JS, PHP and SQL currently). Now I just downloaded a copy of the Visual Studio 2005 (Express). What I want to do is develop a MSN Messenger plug-in that interfaces with my site server-system (built in PHP4 and MySQL for db), I had so many great ideas on what I could do with it that I even bought a book on C++ and started sutdying it, but before I dive into MSN plug-in development, I would like to be sure of the following:

- Is it better to interface directly with the MSN COM API or Plus! really does make life easier? Is there any drawback on using it (other from having it installed);
- Is the Plus! API justa  wrapper around the default MSN API?
- As I come from ActionScript, the .NET managed languages are easier for me but I sincerelly don´t like VB... Is there a implementation of the Plus! API for C#?
- I want my plug-in to communicate to my PHP app on the server.. what techinique would be the best to use - (HTTP VARS, XML/SOAP) I´m not that good on Windows client/sever programming.

That´s it for now!

Thanks in advance,

Marcelo Serpa.

Welcome to the forums

Is it better to interface directly with the MSN COM API or Plus! really does make life easier?
Well from my experience using the Messenger object passed from Plus! is a lot easier, paticurly with C++.

Is the Plus! API justa  wrapper around the default MSN API
No, the Plus! API and MSN API are totally different.  Plus! passes a reference to a Messenger API object, and then it has its own Plus! API which allows things such as parsing commands/tags, showing toasts and adding to the event log.

Is there a implementation of the Plus! API for C#?
I think there is yes, although I don't think it is an official version included with the plugin documentation ---> Help: Plugins

I want my plug-in to communicate to my PHP app on the server.. what techinique would be the best to use?
I would use HTTP myself, although I think XML/SOAP would probably be the best way.

The C# framework can be found in this link: http://shoutbox.menthix.net/attachment.php?pid=259848

Thank you Dempsey for the answers! And thank you n0n4m3 for the link to the file. I´ll start my experiements right now!

Thank you again,

Marcelo.