Since many many years, MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger actually have 2 kinds of "Away" statusses.
The normal Away status is the one you can set yourself to using the menus.
The other Away status is invoked by Messenger itself after you've been doing nothing on your PC (being idle) for some time.
Although both these statusses are called "Away" in Messenger by default, they both are very different statusses.
The Messenger Plus! feature "
Show contacts as idle instead of away" will simply rename the special Away status to "Idle"so that you can actually see the difference.
So this feature doesn't add anything new to Messenger, it simply renames something which is already there since a very very long time.
This feature in Messenger Plus! of renaming the special Away status to Idle is already more than 2 years old. And before this renaming was added to Messenger Plus! Live as a feature, many people did the renaming themselfs by patching their Messenger program manually with a resource editor or by the aid of some patch program.
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Don't forget that the time set to switch to the Idle status can be controlled and even be disabled.
So even if you know for sure that a contact hasn't touched his/her computer for a few hours, it is still possible that you wont see him/her as Idle, but just as Away because he/she has disabled the "
Show me as Away when I'm inactive" option in his/her Messenger.
To control the timeout or to disable the switching to Idle for yourself, you need to go to your Messenger Options:
Tools > Options > Personal > Status > Show me as Away when I'm inactive for x minutes
And of course, in order for you to actually
see the possible Idle statusses of your contacts, you need to enable the renaming in Messenger Plus! Live:
Plus! > Preferences > Messenger > Contact List > Show contacts as Idle instead of Away when appropriate
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Some other small note:
quote:
Originally posted by eilonwylovegood
...and my Messenger Plus hasnt said anyone is idle
Messenger Plus! is an addon; it does not replace the Messenger client, it just adds some features. You are still using MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger to chat with your contacts.
So Messenger Plus! will never say someone is idle. It is MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger which will say and show if someone is idle or not. Messenger Plus! simply renames the string "Away" (thus not the normal one, but the one used by Messenger to show that special status) to the string "Idle".
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I was wondering it it shows people as idle cause it says "Show contacts as idle instead of Away when appropriate" and my friend who uses Messenger Plus says I was idle for a few hours and my Messenger Plus hasnt said anyone is idle and I know some people are away/havent touched the comp in hours. Is this an old feature? or does my friend have a script or an old Messenger Plus? Thanks. 
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