Shoutbox

I would like to see an ability to change the displayed name in my messenger window.  This would look more professional for me at work.

Instead of a off color or policitlly incorrect email address as the displayed name I can give the person my own nickname.

For eample my friend 'BOB JONES" has a nick name of displayed as "Pretty Pink Panties" or PINK_PANTY_HUNTER@HOTMAIL.com but I'd rather just see him as BOB JONES or what ever else I want to call him.

Is there a way to do this.  I dont want to change the way others see his name, just the appearance in my own window.  Maybe the ability to give each contact a 'NICK NAME" and then I chose to display the nickmane or not.  Yahoo IM has this feature, why not MSN?

yes, it will be available in wlm8 (new msn)
msgplus has that feature.

You can do this with MsgPlus. Right click on contact>Messenger Plus extras>Rename contact.

So this is a plugin feature... if so can I have the link, or is it a feature in a PLUS (PAID) version... (thats lame)

Or is it a feature in a yet to be released (beta) version?

Messenger Plus! is a free addon developed for MSN Messenger 7.5 or lower. It is available at http://msgplus.net.

However if you are using Windows Live Messenger you will not be able to use Messenger Plus! as it is not supported yet and is currently being recoded.

As you can see from this thread there are ways to do it for both.

With Windows Live Messenger you Right Click your Contact > Chose Change Nickname (I think).

As an addition of Matty's post and to get things cleared up a little bit more...

Plus! has always been free...
There's no paid version of Plus!.
There's an option to support Patchou by using his sponsor program, but it's completely optional, meaning you'll get the same Plus! version, the same features and all either you install or don't install the sponsor

The feature that you are talking about has actually been one of original Plus!'s features since September 2003.