The Home of Tom & Morven

Note: This post is continued.

You may notice a new feature on my blog, my Skype and MSN online indicators and contact points.

I got the details about the msnim protocol for web browsers to interact with the MSN program from here:
Use this code for adding MSN Messenger contacts:

<a href="msnim:add?contact=example@hotmail.com">Click Here To Add Contact</a>

Use this code for starting an MSN Messenger chat:

<a href="msnim:chat?contact=example@hotmail.com">Click Here To Start a Conversation</a>

Use this code for starting an MSN Messenger video chat:

<a href="msnim:video?contact=example@hotmail.com">Click Here To Start a Video Chat</a>

Use this code for starting an MSN Messenger Audio chat:

<a href="msnim:voice?contact=example@hotmail.com">Click Here To Start Audio Chat</a> 

Unfortunately this does not currently work for any browser other than IE, but apparently it’s in the pipeline.

The MSN Status picture is being displayed via a Wordpress Plugin called Web 2 Messenger Status. It’s easy to install, and includes the icons. However it uses a bot on your msn list to read your status, which you setup by creating an account at http://www.web2messenger.com. So it takes a few minutes to get going but I’m not sure of any other way in which you can read your msn status from the web. Because you use a line of php code to display the plugin on your blog, I could not place this on my About/Contact page (likewise it would not be able to go into any posts or comments fields), and had to put it in the sidebar.

A generic Skype status indicator which acts as a link to call you can be found at the Skype website at this URL:
http://www.skype.com/share/buttons/

However for my Skype display I’m more inclined to use this Wordpress Plugin, called Skype Button for Wordpress. You will need to read the install instructions. One limitation to this (what I consider to be) cool Wordpress Plugin is it either displays to be one of the generic Skype indicator buttons from the Skype website (explained above) or as a cool dropdown menu (which is why this plugin is cool) which unfortunately does not show what the online status currently is. It is just a method of contacting the person in different ways. Another limitation to the Wordpress plugin is you can only put the button in the sidebar where php code can be read, whereas the generic Skype status indicator is html so it can be inserted into a post, for example.

To copy exactly what I’ve done, I’ve used this code in my

sidebar.php

theme file:

Online Status








Add


Chat


Voice


Video

I’ve also discovered you can use Web2Messenger directly to display normal status icons, without using the Wordpress Plugin. This is by far much easier than installing any plugin, as it’s simply a link to a .png file. Refer to Web2Messenger for more details. There are a few other links from here to allow web-to-msn capabilities. However I can see that eventually I may like to use the Wordpress Plugin since it allows for storing custom images, which means I could set an MSN status which will indicate I’m out running, and hence you could display an MSN icon with a pair of running shoes over it, for example.