Shoutbox

"VIP CONTACTS"
Here is an idea that may take a little while to explain, and understand, but if implimented into plus, it could easily allow for future expansions, ideas, and even help out some of the current features already in plus. It has to deal with selecting some of your contacts on your contact list, and declaring them as "Special" or VIP (Very Important Person) contacts, giving them a wide variety of functions and more...

This is how the Settings window could be arranged to select your "VIP Contacts":
In the plus! preferences, there should be a way to make certain contacts off of your list VIP's. For Example, you could  have 2  lists of contacts, one on the left side, and the other on the right side. the left side contains a list of all of your contacts, and the right side is a list of your VIP contacts. click as many contacts from the left list that you want to make VIP's, then click an "add" button that adds these contacts to the right list, and declares them as  VIP contacts.

What is a VIP Contact?
You could have many different functions and events happen for only these "VIP Contacts". Your VIP contacts could be the people you talk to the most on MSN, your best friends, your Girlfriend or Boyfriend, for example. The point is they are more special then just any contact on your messenger, and this is the oportunity to give them special priviledges.

Ok, What Would this feature be used for?
Originally, I thought up this feature to expand the new Plus feature that allows you to add certain contacts onto your desktop.  You could have only your VIP contacts appear on the desktop when they sign online, and disappear off the desktop when they go offline, instead of simply having all your online contacts on the desktop at a time. You could also filter this so that only your VIP contacts with their status set to "online" will appear on the desktop, and those set to away, brb, etc... will not appear. Or you can add all your VIP Contacts to the desktop at once. Once I began thinking, I realized this feature could be used in conjunction with other features to make them easier to use, and expand and improve the current features already in plus!!! For example, you can set notifications to display for specific contacts, such as when this specific contact changes their status, goes offline, changes their name, and so on. Instead of changing this option for each contact, have it change for all of your "VIP" contacts at once, kinda like grouping your contacts together, and changing the settings for all of them at once, thus saving time. This could also be used for "sound events". Have all of your VIP contacts have the same sign in sound/sign off sound/alert sound, which would be different from the rest of your contacts.  As you can see, adding the new "VIP Contacts Feature" gives privledges to specific, VIP contacts. such as decribed above.  And, as described, this feature can add new features, and can improve and expand current features in plus. This feature could be used for many other current plus features that have to deal with specific contacts such as blocking all of your VIP contacts at once, sending them all a message and so on. You can also have a custom away message to be filtered to your VIP contacts only. The opporunities for this feature can go on and on, I have just begun!

In Conclusion
So in conclusion, having selected some of your contacts and have them labeled "special", or VIP (or another term) can make many features easier, expand the plus features and its limits, and give some of your contacts "special" or priveledged rights. this feature may be significantly hard to impliment, but it can go a long ways, and i have just begun. Patchou, or many other avid fourm members could expand on this feature, and make it a huge success of a major new version of plus. I hope my idea was helpful, and maybe if not used, it could spring another similar idea! thanks for your time reading.

Sample ScreenShots with explanations
Below are a few SAMPLE settings windows for "VIP Contacts". These Screenshots best show what I am trying to explain above. This might give some people a better idea of what II am trying to explain.

This shows where the "VIP Contacts" section could be added to the Plus Preferences window. Under the "Contact List" section I feel is the best place.


This shows what the VIP Contacts Settings window could look like when you click the "settings" button that you see in the above screenshot. the "etc..." at the bottom simply means there could be more features added.


This shows what the VIP Sound Events window could look like when you click the "configure" button next to "Apply to Sound Events" in the second screenshot.


This shows what the VIP Notifications window could look like when you click the "configure" button next to "Apply to Notifications" in the second screenshot.


This shows what the VIP Contacts on Desktop window could look like when you click the "configure" button next to "Apply to "Contacts on Desktop"" in the second screenshot.



I hope those screenshots make things a little bit clearer!  I hope that people are pleased with this possibly new feature as I feel that it can be used for many possibilites and make plus way better! (not sayin its bad or anything, it's GREAT!).

Wow, thats a lot of writing! I hope some of these suggestions are considered, and/or spring apon new ideas! I have spent a lot of time thinking up this idea, and presenting it to the messenger plus! forums. Sorry about the bad editing on the screenshots, I got lazy and used MS Paint

- Jordan