Is my MSNM contacts script obsolete?

Torrential Web Dev

Saturday, February 3. 2007

Posted by Jonathan Street in Web Tools, PHP Programming at 22:32

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Is my MSNM contacts script obsolete?

I keep a fairly close eye on my server logs. It's a boring process but undoubtedly worth it. You never know what you might find.

I've recently got a few visitors from mytton.net, the website for David Mytton. It turns out that he has recently been looking at implementing some contact importing functionality on a project he is working on.

This entry is one of a series looking at fetching contacts. For a summary of all the important facts, a demo and the download link please view the MSN contact grab page in the scripts section.



Unfortunately he didn't spot my tutorial on grabbing contacts with libgmailer so he was left battling through the official documentation.

He did find my work on a contact grabbing script for MSNM though. He also highlights another option though which looks very useful. Essentially it is the 'official' version for what my script does.

It is a javascript/AJAX tool you can embed on your site released by MSN Live. The documentation and some examples are available here.

So does it render my script obsolete? It certainly has a lot going for it: likely more stable than my script, returns all contacts not just those from MSN Messenger, the connection is directly to MSN/Windows Live so users will probably feel more comfortable using it.

It isn't perfect though: relies on javascript so some users won't be able to use it, returns just those contacts the user selects and I didn't see a select all option on the examples, uses pop-ups so anyone using a pop-up blocker may have issues though it seemed to work fine for me using Firefox.

It isn't perfect but if you can implement it within your site then it is worth considering.

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Hi, i have tested your sccript on my serveur and is result a error (Could not connect to messenger service)

You can try there!

http://www.studio-webcam.com/test/sendtofriend/1/usage.php
#1 joo (Homepage) on 2007-02-11 03:27 (Reply)
It could be that it is just a temporary problem with the MSN service. If it still isn't working post the error (and a link to a phpinfo page if you don't mind) and I'll take a look.
#1.1 Jonathan Street (Homepage) on 2007-02-11 13:31 (Reply)
Dont still work, try

http://www.studio-webcam.com/test/sendtofriend/1/usage.php

And check on the jmstreet site, its work

http://jmstreet.info/tools/msn_contact_grab/usage.php

Addme on your msn for fix a probleme. clonage@hotmail.com
#2 joo (Homepage) on 2007-02-11 19:05 (Reply)
Thank you for all the info on AB Imports.

I would be very much interested in finding out if you made or planning to make any progress on AB Import for hotmail and aol?

Both your scripts are importing messenger contacts, not AB contacts.

The example you site is a front end one from dev.live.com - anything to make it work with php?
#3 Mandy (Homepage) on 2007-02-21 20:20 (Reply)
Hi Mandy

The original intention was to find or create scripts to import contacts from hotmail, aol mail, and a variety of others. I've not really done much work on this lately though as other things have taken priority.

Regarding the windows live script it is based on the frontend and it can't be made to work directly with php. It can however collect the contacts and then pass them back to a php script.
#3.1 Jonathan Street (Homepage) on 2007-02-22 07:09 (Reply)
Thanks Jonathan. Yeah I was thinking of something like that - passing it to php but for whatever reason I couldnt figure out how to get the user logged in for the dev.live script - I think it expects the user to be signed in.

Anyways, if you find something on AOL/Hotmail - pls do post like always :-)
#3.1.1 Mandy (Homepage) on 2007-02-22 07:16 (Reply)
The dev live script does work if the user isn't signed in but it launches a pop up so that they can sign themselves in. The problem with that of course is that an over-zealous pop-up blocker will create problems.
#3.1.1.1 Jonathan Street (Homepage) on 2007-02-22 07:28 (Reply)
Hello Jonathan,

I want to fetch the contact list from hotmail but its seems the code is not working.

Please assist.

Thanks in Advacne
#4 Amit on 2008-01-30 14:05 (Reply)
Hello Amit

Apologies for the delay in replying to you. Which script are you having trouble with?

If it is with the script I put together then please bear in mind that it fetches contacts from MSN Messenger and not hotmail. Do you use MSN Messenger? If not then it won't bring up any contacts.
#4.1 Jonathan Street (Homepage) on 2008-02-10 10:34 (Reply)

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