"Instant messaging" field nonsense and solution.

[edcxdr]

Hi. Sorry for my week English.

First of all i want to thank you for such great product. But there is one thing that makes me mad: "Instant messaging" field nonsense. We have year of 2010 and i think that this is a right time to change this. I don't want to make any kind of custom mod for this because i believe that this should be in default invisionpowerboard code. So lets start:

Profile Page located here contain this fields:

# AIM
# MSN
# ICQ
# Yahoo

The problem is that invisionpowerboard developers don't follow changes that was made to those services:
(below changes was made at protocol side, i hope that i won't have to post screenshot/links for proving this)

- With ICQ 7.x and AIM 7.x someone who have AIM account can add people who have ICQ account, without having an own ICQ number at all. Same with other side: someone who have ICQ number can add people who have AIM account by their email login, without having an own AIM Account at all.

- WLM 9 and Yahoo Messenger 10 can do same thing. Someone who have MSN account can add people who have Yahoo Messenger account, without having an own Yahoo Messenger account at all . Same with other side: someone who have Yahoo Messenger account can add people who have MSN account by their email login, without having an own MSN account at all

Conclusion: There is absolute no need to separate ICQ number/AOL Instant Messenger field and WL/MSN Messenger/Yahoo Messenger field, because people don't need "extra" account to be able to communicate.

Separation of those field cause confusion and unwanted account creation. Typical situation is "He have ICQ number and i want to talk with him, but i have only AIM and dam i don't want to have second IM application :-("

I want to propose a solution what i believe is much better and shows what is true at todays IM world.

1. Connect ICQ number and AOL Instant Messenger field into one:

ICQ/AOL:
Why those field are connected? - this is a clickable/tooltip link that will open an explanation why those field are connected.

2. Connect WL/MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger field into one:

MSN/WL/Yahho Messenger: (alphabetic order)
Why those field are connected? - this is a clickable/tooltip link that will open an explanation why those field are connected.

3. Add "Do i have Jabber?" or "List of services that use Jabber" at the bottom of "Jabber address" with a list of know services that use XMPP protocol.

4. There is one more independent IM service that is very popular over the world: XFire. If you will do proposed changes then saved space can be used to include XFire field in default invisionpowerboard code. Note that i don't propose that default invisionpowerboard code should contain every IM field that exist (eg QQ in China, GG in Poland) that is what mods are for, but XFire are very popular services over the world.

So what do you think about that ? Let's have some discussion.

[Andrej]

Hi. Sorry for my week English.

First of all i want to thank you for such great free product.

Free? IPB is not free, are you using a nulled IPB forum? If so, that is not allowed.

[edcxdr]

Free? IPB is not free, are you using a nulled IPB forum? If so, that is not allowed.

Excuse me , i was use copy/paste from phpbb topic.

[Jaggi]

You can add custom profile fields so add whatever you want!

[AngelFire]

i disagree, i have msn, yahoo and icq, skype etc, all separate accounts and as they are different products and you can have different accounts. also if you want you can join them together, there is nothing stopping you adjusting the custom fields yourself (no mod needed)

[edcxdr]

You can add custom profile fields so add whatever you want!

As i write in first post "I don't want to make any kind of custom mod for this because i believe that this should be in default invisionpowerboard code" That is not the point. I propose a solution for default invisionpowerboard code for all people that use it.

i disagree, i have msn, yahoo and icq, skype etc, all separate accounts and as they are different products and you can have different accounts. also if you want you can join them together, there is nothing stopping you adjusting the custom fields yourself (no mod needed)

But take look at you closely: you have 3 independ IM services, not 4. MSN and yahoo are the same protocol. You can add people from you yahoo account to you MSN account and have one IM instead of two. That is the whole point of those changes - to show people that they don't need additional IM service if they have one. People still believe that they have to create additional account for every IM name - that is bad and my changes can increase awareness of this fact. If someone use ICQ and if he see "AIM/ICQ" field and then read "Why those fields are connected?" he might be very happy that he don't want to have register another extra account in some other IM service.

[Jaggi]

As i write in first post "I don't want to make any kind of custom mod for this because i believe that this should be in default invisionpowerboard code" That is not the point. I propose a solution for default invisionpowerboard code for all people that use it.

you don't have to write a mod, you login to the acp got to members > the click custom profile fields, from here you can edit existing ones or add new ones, what's the problem?!!?

[AngelFire]

no your missing my point, i have different contacts for different things in my life, i want them like that, i dont want to log into msn and then have all my contacts from yahoo talking to me. I know i can add my contacts from yahoo to msn or vice versa but thats why i use different products, i dont care if they are the same protcol. different products, different custom fields.

[edcxdr]

you don't have to write a mod, you login to the acp got to members > the click custom profile fields, from here you can edit existing ones or add new ones, what's the problem?!!?

The "problem" is that i propose a change for default settings that don't do any harm and provide some benefits. I know that i can do everything that i want with those fields but again - it's not the point of this post. I wanted to point attention of developers at changes to IM world and describe some small but essential benefits.

no your missing my point, i have different contacts for different things in my life, i want them like that, i dont want to log into msn and then have all my contacts from yahoo talking to me. I know i can add my contacts from yahoo to msn or vice versa but thats why i use different products, i dont care if they are the same protcol. different products, different custom fields.

So eg: you provide you MSN account for you friends and Yahoo for some "random guys from Internet", right? Yes i know what you mean, but my solution won't change anything: you still can post MSN account in "MSN/WL/Yahho Messenger" field at some sites with you friends and Yahoo account in "MSN/WL/Yahho Messenger" field at some "random boards". My solution don't change anything. You can still have choice what do you want to post in those fields at specific boards.

[Andrej]

There is no point in merging the fields since they are different products (MSN, WLM,Yahoo, etc). Also, not everyone makes a account for every chatting software service, some do, some not. Besides, the fields arent required to be filled out by default, so I dont think many will care about the multiple fields for each instant message service.

Just my opinion, heh.

[edcxdr]

There is no point in merging the fields since they are different products (MSN, WLM,Yahoo, etc).

You are wrong, MSN, WLM,Yahoo are the same protocol now, AIM and ICQ also, since i can communicate over those two services using one account from AIM+ICQ and one for MSN/WLM+Yahoo. You can check this by yourself if you don't believe me.

Also, not everyone makes a account for every chatting software service, some do, some not.

The whole point of this post is that my changes tell people that they don't need to create account for every chatting software service if they want to eg: having an AIM account and want to communicate with people that have only ICQ.

[Andrej]

You are wrong, MSN, WLM,Yahoo are the same protocol now, AIM and ICQ also, since i can communicate over those two services using one account from AIM+ICQ and one for MSN/WLM+Yahoo. You can check this by yourself if you don't believe me.

I might misunderstand, but I believe only MSN and WLM is the same protocol, since MSN is now renamed into WLM. About that you can login to other service using one of those software is just a interoperate thing, and not related to @Same Protocol

[edcxdr]

I might misunderstand, but I believe only MSN and WLM is the same protocol, since MSN is now renamed into WLM. About that you can login to other service using one of those software is just a interoperate thing, and not related to @Same Protocol

WLM(old MSN, it's just a name change) and Yahoo are the same protocol. Use edcxdrtest@yahoo.com Password: asdzxc for test if you want to check. You can chat with any MSN/WLM buddy without having MSN/WLM account and directly from Yahoo Messenger 10 Client, using edcxdrtest@yahoo.com.

[.Peter]

No no I like this idea.. I'd like a way to put my facebook, skype, twitter, myspace (granted I don't use it but it'd be nice), orkut, etc. Meh... I'm feeling a hook coming on.

[edcxdr]

No no I like this idea.. I'd like a way to put my facebook, skype, twitter, myspace (granted I don't use it but it'd be nice), orkut, etc. Meh... I'm feeling a hook coming on.

Is there anything in my changes that stops you from doing that ?

I agree that Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are also very popular, so let's add it too. Orkut is used only in Brazil(more than 60%) so it should not be added as default.

[Michael]

You are free to change these fields however you see fit. I don't agree with the way you decided they should be merged, so I want to keep them the way they are. Since they are custom fields, we can both have them setup the way we want. This is a non-issue.

[Jaggi]

you don't have to write a mod, you login to the acp got to members > the click custom profile fields, from here you can edit existing ones or add new ones, what's the problem?!!?

No no I like this idea.. I'd like a way to put my facebook, skype, twitter, myspace (granted I don't use it but it'd be nice), orkut, etc. Meh... I'm feeling a hook coming on.

you don't need hooks. you can do this by default inside ipb! don't see what the big fuss is about this. Seems very trivial and considering it so easy to change and not a lot of people care enough to have it changed by default why this is such a big deal.