PLEASE HELP: Programming Messenger -- possible?

[Duncan A. McRae]

Docs are nearly impossible to find out there, and whatever looks
promising (a link to MSDN, for example) almost always returns a 404.
Is Microsoft actively discouraging my playing around? Are there
resources available to help me program/automate with Messenger, or
should I just throw it away and use AOL/Yahoo's offerrings?

I'm attempting to build add-ins for Excel so that I can communicate
with someone without constantly leaving the work we're doing. I
cannot count on NetMeeting being available.

I can pull up my contacts, I can log MSN (root object) events and I
can open a conversation window, but I can't interact with the window
very much to send/receive text. I'd like to eliminate the
conversation window entirely, but failing that polling it for text and
using SendKeys to send text would be acceptable.

Thanks all;
Duncan

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Greetings Duncan,

There is some MSDN documentation, but it is remarkably confusing and won't work with MSN
Messenger (just Windows Messenger).

Instead, you might see this forum on MSNFanatic, where you should be able to get some samples
of some actual code:
http://www.msnfanatic.com/forums/index.php?showforum=57
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com

"Duncan A. McRae" > wrote in message
om...
> Docs are nearly impossible to find out there, and whatever looks
> promising (a link to MSDN, for example) almost always returns a 404.
> Is Microsoft actively discouraging my playing around? Are there
> resources available to help me program/automate with Messenger, or
> should I just throw it away and use AOL/Yahoo's offerrings?
>
> I'm attempting to build add-ins for Excel so that I can communicate
> with someone without constantly leaving the work we're doing. I
> cannot count on NetMeeting being available.
>
> I can pull up my contacts, I can log MSN (root object) events and I
> can open a conversation window, but I can't interact with the window
> very much to send/receive text. I'd like to eliminate the
> conversation window entirely, but failing that polling it for text and
> using SendKeys to send text would be acceptable.
>
> Thanks all;
> Duncan

[Duncan A. McRae]

Thank you Jonathan. I've been to that site, but perhaps not that
forum. I'll check it out.

Thanks again;
Duncan

"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" > wrote in message >...
> Greetings Duncan,
>
> There is some MSDN documentation, but it is remarkably confusing and won't work with MSN
> Messenger (just Windows Messenger).
>
> Instead, you might see this forum on MSNFanatic, where you should be able to get some samples
> of some actual code:
> http://www.msnfanatic.com/forums/index.php?showforum=57
> ____________________________________________
> Jonathan Kay
> Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger
> Associate Expert
> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
> Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
>
> "Duncan A. McRae" > wrote in message
> om...
> > Docs are nearly impossible to find out there, and whatever looks
> > promising (a link to MSDN, for example) almost always returns a 404.
> > Is Microsoft actively discouraging my playing around? Are there
> > resources available to help me program/automate with Messenger, or
> > should I just throw it away and use AOL/Yahoo's offerrings?
> >
> > I'm attempting to build add-ins for Excel so that I can communicate
> > with someone without constantly leaving the work we're doing. I
> > cannot count on NetMeeting being available.
> >
> > I can pull up my contacts, I can log MSN (root object) events and I
> > can open a conversation window, but I can't interact with the window
> > very much to send/receive text. I'd like to eliminate the
> > conversation window entirely, but failing that polling it for text and
> > using SendKeys to send text would be acceptable.
> >
> > Thanks all;
> > Duncan