Modifying the AIM, ICQ, and YIM templates to work with custom images

This post is a sort of a continuation of this one, in which I posted my graphics.

You will need to have the following images in your images folder:
aim_icon.gif
icq_icon.gif
yim_icon.gif

The templates you need to modify are:
aim
icq
yahoo

Replace the aim template with the following code:

&nbsp;<a href="javascript:aimwindow('$userinfo[aim]')"><img src="{imagesfolder}/aim_icon.gif" alt="Send an AIM message to $userinfo[username]" border="0"></a>

Replace the icq template with the following code:

&nbsp;<a href="http://wwp.icq.com/$userinfo[icq]#pager" target="_blank"><img src="{imagesfolder}/icq_icon.gif" alt="Send an ICQ message to $userinfo[username]" border="0"></a>

Replace the yahoo template with the following code:

&nbsp;<a href="http://edit.yahoo.com/config/send_webmesg?.target=$userinfo[yahoo]&.src=pg" target="_blank"><img src="{imagesfolder}/yim_icon.gif" alt="Send a message to $userinfo[username]"  border="0"></a>

The main change here is the ICQ template. I felt that the innitial link was unnecessary, and intimidating. In my version, clicking on the image will just open up an ICQ window to send the user a message. The other two template changes are purely cosmetical.

If you want an example, just check the board in my profile.

[indiamike]

This is really cool and thanks for the images especially for releasing them in PSD format.

Just wanted to note to people installing this in case you don't realize it, make sure and change the path to where you uploaded your images to. In the code it links to VBulletin.org.

Mike

[Lanigironu]

Oh, you'e right. I didn't even notice it. Damn vB (how I loathe thee!) changed thevariables to urls.

Sorry about that.

[mashby]

Lanigironu,

Thanks for posting this info. I've made the change to one of my boards and I'm using custom images so it's a nice feature. Thank you.

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Online / Offline Status
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I would like to take this one step further if I could though. If you use the default code built in (though commented out) to vB, then it actually checks the users online status for the various supported IM's.

For example, if you use the built in code for ICQ, then it shows a green icon if the user is online and an orange icon if you're offline. I created an ICQ button for on and off status and I'd like to use it, but I'm just not that great of a coder to figure it out.

I know that it will change the speed of my forums, but I anticipate that they will be fairly slow, so I don't think it would be much of an impact.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on this?

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MSN
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I know that MSN doesn't have any web based features, but I would like to add the button none-the-less. I haven't searched enough on vB.org yet to see if anyone has a solution, but I thought I'd like to post it here just in case.

1. I need to know what template(s) to add so that the MSN icon appears if they have the custom field I created for MSN filled out.

2. I need to know what the heck to link to so that if someone wants to send a message to that person via MSN they can either a) send a message, b) find their information so that they can send a message.


Thanks again for the tips!