[RELEASE vB 2.0] MSN Message Center like available on http://www.msn.com

I could manage to implement the Messege Center from msn.com to vBulletin.
It doesn't work yet like the online indicators for Yahoo or ICQ, but that can perhaps be added by editing the VBS file.

Anyway, it offers the function to access your hotmail account, to create a new one, to download MSN Messenger, to start it and viewing the contacts in real time (without to have to refresh the page).

You can look at it here:

http://www.knowledge-emporium.com/tke/forum/index.php


I'm currently writing the instructions how to install it!


But before I release it I need to know one thing:

If someone has the MSN Messenger NOT installed, please go to our site and tell me if there is a link shown where you can download it!
I don't want to uninstall it just to see if it works!

[Yaa 101]

the original rip was from the msn page about 3/4 of a year ago...
it was 2 parts a html frontend that calls a vbscript that connects to a OLE object made available by MSN messenger application.

Yes the script is bad and buggy, nothing is done to make it better we just repackaged it and made it working with vb and my own written portal.

In most cases only edit the template to accommodate the hack in other environments.
if you are up to cleaning up programming crap of our friend Bill then please edit the vbscript... lol...
maybe i will fetch a new script when they changed it.

[Sadie Frost]

Worked great for me - no problems (and that's saying a lot for me!)

I'm running 2.2.1 and all I did was follow the instructions.

[buro9]

Christian,

and everyone else...

I have tidied up and read through the vb part of the script (I don't put vb on my site until I know what it does) and I can tell you that:

1) The script is fine... few errors, but they're easily dealt with.
2) I have re-formatted, if you would like me to supply this to you christian I can.
3) Microsoft have implemented tracking of this app.

Number 3 being something a lot of you will have issues with.

There is an image named mctrack which is null to start with, but on every click is assigned a different value which is always a get request from the MS site.

Whilst doing a wget of the image returns a 302 and then a 404, I have no doubt that it's irrelevant... getting stats from an error log is as easy as from a web log, except you get the benefit of not having to actually serve anything so you have lower bandwidth as a result.

So there you have it, a nice tracking and stats thing built in... which, btw, is easily removed.

Again, Christian mail me and I shall give you an updated version.

I would suggest also making a second layout... so you have the default layout as currently is, and a second layout that actually resembles the vBulletin who's online bar on the forum homepage, i.e. horizontal. This was users could place it at the bottom of all forum display pages easily and avoid having to litter threads and post pages with it.

Just my thoughts and discoveries.

Cheers

David K

[buro9]

One more thing, anyone wanting more information to construct a cleaner interface can view the API's at http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/.../359/topic.xml

[Yaa 101]

Thanks for the time you have put in this david...

[buro9]

I got quite far with my mine (screenshot attached), and it's a little more elegant in that it users the vBulletin template system rather than create another php file.

But... you can see that on the web it doesn't show you the user names... why? I believe this is because of a recent security change in MSN Messenger because of the virus a coupla weeks ago. Looks like the best thing we can do is re-rip the vb (now jscript) code from hotmail!

Ah well, all that effort to start over again!

Maybe I'll do it, but I'm feeling tired and exhausted so maybe not, though I'd let you all know in any case.

[Webmasta XT]

can someone Modify this Hack and make it show names of the online ppl, and when I login from the xtreme forumz it opens the hotmail login page and doesn't login MSN... can someone plz do that? or the owner?

[buro9]

There's little point Webmasta XT.

I tried to bring the hack forward somewhat to fit my own needs... and discovered in the process that Messenger 4.6 (the now default that all others will prompt upgrade to) doesn't show usernames.

This is something that Miscrosoft have hard coded into Messenger, only Microsoft domains are 'trusted' alongside 'localhost'... what this means is that you can get it working locally, and see it working on Hotmail... but you cannot use it elsewhere.

If you did not see the virus (ok, it was harmless... but M$ didn't like it) on Messenger recently... it seems that this put such a shock through the M$ system for this release to come out.

4.6 is nothing but a point release security patch addressing this issue.

Unless you can guarantee your users are on a previous version (you can't) there is no more point furthering this hack as it is. M$ simply don't want you to be able to do this, and they have very successfully stopped everyone from doing it.

Oh well, such a shame... I had such a lovely Javascript version working too.

Cheers

David K

[buro9]

I should have pointed out that the above link to the API's on the M$ site have now been updated to reflect the fact that the friendlynames array is now restricted.

[ice!~neko]

DUDE!!!

that owns.... 10/10 XD

to bad about the names