Hopefully you will have read and followed the code from the first part of this article. The first part covered most of base functionality including how to sign in, get the users details and get their contact list. What is left is how to actually carry out a conversation with a contact.
If you remember from the first article, in the signInCompleted event handler we defined three delegates to handle various events. The first part of this article talked about the first two of these delegates, and that leaves the last one to talk about :-
The Windows Live team have been busy over the past few months and recently launched the Windows Live Messenger APIs. This is basically split over three parts, the IM Control, the Windows Live Presence API and the Windows Live Messenger Library.
What all this allows you to do is to create a Windows Live Messenger plug-in for your own website. What this (and coming articles) will try to explain is how to use these API's to actually create and integrate Messenger on your site as you can see below.
You've heard me stress in the past the importance of writing good JavaScript, especially when it comes to the complex code that makeup a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget. You've also heard me preach that you should always lint your code. In the August 2007 issue of MSDN Magazine I mentioned a great free online lint utility called JSLint by JavaScript guru Douglas Crockford.
Today it just got easier as JSLint (http://www.jslint.com) has now added full native support for Windows Vista Sidebar gadgets. In the past this was possible, but you had to add a comment to your code like this:
/*extern System */
Now all you need to do is click a single checkbox:
