I searched the forums but couldn't find discussion of this anywhere else, so apologies if it's a duplicate.

MSN has an option to switch my status to Busy when a full-screen app is running, but I don't use it because often I still want to appear available when I'm viewing a PowerPoint slide, etc.

It would be great if MsgPlus could add functionality where I could change my status to Away/Busy/whatever when my screensaver starts up.  That way, when I lock my computer and go to a meeting in a hurry, people aren't still chatting with me.

Messenger should automatically change your status to 'Away' (actually 'Idle') while a screensaver is on.

<offtopic>w00t! 3000 posts</offtopic>

raceprouk is right, there is an option which automatically changes your status to away after x  minutes of inactivity - it's right above the option to switch your status to busy during a powerpoint presentation. All you need to do is use the same timeout as for your screensaver so they kick in at the same time.

If you have msgplus it also has an automatic status changer - if it is enabled I think it overrides the other one. You can change these settings from the menu of your main contact window:
Plus! -> Preferences -> General Options -> Miscellaneous

That's not quite what I meant, but could be useful if you set the delay to the same as your screensaver.

I often do Win+L to lock my workstation, so relying on a timeout doesn't suffice.

This made me realize that I didn't ask for the proper feature.  I'd like to be able to have my status change to Away as soon as I lock my workstation.

That happens anyway.

Not in my testing.

Go to tools and personal and check the box thats says the following...
"Show me as "Busy" and block my alerts when I'm running a
full-screen program, such as a slide presentation"
But in this case a screensaver

I don't want that.  I'm away, not busy.

Why not set your auto-away time to the same as the time specified for the screensaver?

Go to tools and personal and check the box thats says "Show me as away when I'm inactive for xx minutes" ... when you press win-L to lock your workstation, Messenger will set your status automatically to "idle", which means that you would be away (at least for all unpatched Messenger clients ). Hope this helps!

As I tried to say before, I don't want to rely on a timeout.  If I have the timeout set to something small, even 5 minutes, then I'll still have people messaging me for the first 4:59, thinking I'm online.  If I set it to anything lower, then I'll show as Idle/Away when I'm reading a large web page or someone stops in to talk for a minute.

Not really, idle depends one the movement of the mouse, you'll move your mouse while reading a big page, I think?

quote:

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Originally posted by beastie
I don't want that.  I'm away, not busy.

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Sleeping isn't busy?  Anyways, back to subject, MSN doesn't depends on last message sent, it depends on your mouse movement.

quote:

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Originally posted by beastie
As I tried to say before, I don't want to rely on a timeout.  If I have the timeout set to something small, even 5 minutes, then I'll still have people messaging me for the first 4:59, thinking I'm online.  If I set it to anything lower, then I'll show as Idle/Away when I'm reading a large web page or someone stops in to talk for a minute.

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Away, busy... what's the difference?

There's a setting somewhere that I've seen where you can still get audio alerts when set to busy... so that would make away and busy all but the same, minus the asthetics such as name and icon.

andy

quote:

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Originally posted by GroteSmurf
sorry, when I was not clear in my answer . You can set the time to whatever you want. When you press win-L Messenger will immediately change your status to Idle/Away. I thought, that was what you want...

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quote:

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Originally posted by beastie
That would be fine, but it didn't work for me in my testing.  I still showed as online in my colleague's MSN session.

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I think away is meant to be considered *not by the computer* and busy *by the computer but working on something*. Thats what I always took it for anyway. But back to the point, when I press Win+L my Messenger seems to auto set to idle/away anyway.

Just make it so the status change matches the same time the screen saver come on.

I stand corrected.  I must not have waited long enough for my idle status to update.