If you follow Windows Live, then you know that we have just released a new Beta of Windows Live with great new features including a new version of Messenger.  We also announced an expanded 3rd party platform called Messenger Connect that includes all previous Messenger Web Toolkit features and more.

We have started a new blog for Messenger Connect called Windows Live for Developers.  From now on, we will be giving you updates on the Messenger platform at that blog.

Thanks to everyone who has supported the Messenger Web Toolkit over the past year and a half.  We look forward to seeing you over at the new blog!

Keiji

There is a workaround that is possible for version 3.7 and continuing versions of the Messenger Web Toolkit. When a web application is using Messenger Web Toolkit and needs to use the ASP.NET Ajax Extensions (either version 3.5 or 4.0), the following steps can be taken:

For applications using ASP.NET 4.0 Ajax Extensions:

1. Add the following declarations to the Application_Start method in Global.asax:

ScriptManager.ScriptResourceMapping.AddDefinition(
  "MicrosoftAjax.js",
  null,
  new ScriptResourceDefinition
  {
    ResourceName = "MicrosoftAjax.js",
    ResourceAssembly = typeof(ScriptManager).Assembly,
    Path = "http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjax.js",
    DebugPath = "http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjax.debug.js",
    CdnPath = "http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjax.js",
    CdnDebugPath = "http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjax.debug.js" 
  });

ScriptManager.ScriptResourceMapping.AddDefinition(
  "MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js",
  null, 
  new ScriptResourceDefinition 
  { 
    ResourceName = "MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js",
    ResourceAssembly = typeof(ScriptManager).Assembly,
    Path = "http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js",
    DebugPath = "http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.debug.js",
    CdnPath = "http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js",
    CdnDebugPath = "http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.debug.js"
  }); 

2. Make sure that the <script> tag that loads the Messenger Web Toolkit loader occurs after the <scriptmanager> tag in the page.

For applications using ASP.NET 3.5 Ajax Extensions:

1. Change the <scriptmanager> tag to the following:

<asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server">
  <scripts>
    <asp:ScriptReference
      Name="MicrosoftAjax.js"
      Path=" http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjax.js" />

    <asp:ScriptReference
      Name="MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js"
      Path="http://www.wlmessenger.net/MicrosoftAjax/0911/MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js" />
  </scripts>
</asp:ScriptManager>

2. Make sure that the <script> tag that loads the Messenger Web Toolkit loader occurs after the <scriptmanager> tag in the page.

Offir Bakshitz
Software Design Engineer
Windows Live Messenger Platform Team

Going forward, fully supported browsers should behave consistently across all scenarios while limited support browsers may have minor issues including unobtrusive UI defects. Limited support browsers are determined based on market share and whether the manufacturers continue to support those browsers.

See below a list of our current full and limited support browsers:

Full Support Browsers

· Internet Explorer 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0

· Firefox 3.0, 3.5, and 3.6

· Chrome 3.0, 4.0

· Safari 4.0

Limited Support Browsers

· Firefox 1.5, 2.0

· Safari 3.2

· Chrome 2

Terry Lentz
Lead Software Dev in Test
Messenger Web Platform

We are happy to announce the immediate availability of the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit (MWT) Version 3.7 in all markets!

V3.7 improves the Messenger Web Toolkit by adding the following.

• Offline IM - Users can now IM offline contacts, just like they can in the Messenger desktop client.
• ASP.NET Ajax Library Integration – Starting in V3.7, the Messenger Web Toolkit UI Controls are built as ASP.NET Ajax Library (http://asp.net/ajaxlibrary/) controls.  This means you can add MWT Controls to your pages using standard declarative and programmatic methods of ASP.NET Ajax Library.
• Improved Application Contacts – We’ve improved application contact functionality to work better based on feedback we received in V3.5.  Application contacts defined on a page no longer are carried across to new pages.  This helps applications avoid hitting the 250 contact limit for application contacts.

We continue to add support for more browsers, with support added for Firefox 3.6 and Chrome 3. 

You can find more details about our changes in the updated documentation. 

Give it a try at http://dev.live.com/messenger, and send us any questions in our forum: http://bit.ly/AskMessenger.

Happy coding!

Messenger Web Toolkit Team

Hotmail (http://mail.live.com)
Hotmail provides users an integrated Messenger experience by re-using their existing signed-in session and providing an extra UI element in the top right corner of their page for signing into Messenger. Users can also decide if they want Hotmail to automatically sign-in to Messenger every time they visit Hotmail.

Once sign-in has completed, users can change their presence and view their contacts via the Messenger drop down menu:

Here is a view of the online contact list:

Double clicking on an available contact opens a separate window in which a conversation can occur:

MSN Canada (http://www.msn.ca)

MSN Canada is taking a slightly different approach to their UI than Hotmail. Similar to Hotmail they re-use any existing Live ID sign-in for the current session. Once sign-in has completed, a Messenger pane with the contact list of the user will appear within the page:

Double clicking on a contact opens a tabbed conversation experience within the pane:

We challenge you to push our product even harder with larger and larger scalable sites!

For more information regarding the Messenger Web Toolkit, please visit:
http://dev.live.com/messenger.

As always, if you have questions regarding the Messenger Web Toolkit, please feel free to visit our forum:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/wlmessengerapidev

Terry Lentz
Lead Software Dev in Test
Messenger Web Platform

• User experience: smoothed out the user experience, added a first run experience, expanded the browser support, increased the performance
• Developer experience: reduced the amount of code for you to implement “Share via Windows Live” and the Messenger Web Toolkit is now built on the Microsoft Ajax library.
• New scenarios: Allow people who don’t use Messenger to see display pictures and names of Messenger users.

How did we figure out what are the most important things to get in this release? We listened to and incorporated the great feedback from our partners (some award winning), and were able to come up with new and exciting scenarios.

User Experience: Sexier, faster, supported in more browsers

To bring more people to your site and get them to spend more time there, the user experience needs to be superb. We have made the Messenger Web Toolkit user experience better in many ways:

• Speed: In March 2009 we extended Windows Live Hotmail to use the Messenger Web Toolkit (see the post). By having our bits running at Hotmail scale we were able to gather a ton of information around performance and we’ve acted on it: the MWT will now load faster (full/first time loads and cross page navigation).
• Availability/Reach: added browser support for Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Google Chrome 2 - now more people can connect & share with their Windows Live friends on your site.
• Education: One of the most tangible UX changes we’ve made is the first run experience for the Web Bar (a single control you can use if you don’t want to build your own experience). When you first use the Web Bar on a site, a small popup will inform the user they can sign in and tell them the key things they need to know to start connecting and sharing with their friends.

• Looks: we have also updated the web controls and web bar user experience to cleaner

Developers: Easier to add sharing controls and aligned with more tech

We’ve done two things for developers 1) created a new control for sharing which reduces the amount of code required and 2) changed the underlying JavaScript libraries to the Microsoft Ajax libraries.

Sharing control: aside from in-page chat, the next most common scenario we see is sharing via instant messaging. Sharing content is important and it is often a major driver of user acquisition (or user retention). To understand the differences between sharing via a public feed, newsfeed and instant messaging read my post on user acquisition.

The gist is: a user’s friends are more likely to click through to see the content/service being shared with them if it is done via instant messaging and in a conversational way.

To make sharing via Windows Live Messenger much easier we have created a new control, msgr:share. The sharing control reduces the amount of code required to the following:

// include the JavaScript libraries
<msgr:app … insert the code for app tag here… />
<msgr:bar></msgr:bar>

<msgr:share
  message="I am sharing the Messenger Web Toolkit http://dev.live.com/messenger with you"
  picker-label="Select Contacts">
</msgr:share>

The control contains a user experience which will sign the user in (via the consent flow), show the contact selector control, and send an IM with the predefined content.

Aside from visible features such as the sharing control, we have also done some infrastructure work. The Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit is now built with the Microsoft AJAX Library. With this integration, a Messenger Web Toolkit application works with the standard browser runtime library for Microsoft web development tools. Prior to version 3.5, the Web Toolkit worked with the Script# runtime library named 'sscorlib'. See Microsoft Ajax to determine whether you need to make any changes with your application.

Something for people who don’t use or aren’t signed into Messenger

People using Windows Live Messenger generally chat with people they have ‘friended’ in Messenger. However, sometimes people who use Messenger on a web site may want to chat with other people they know from that web site (who are not their friends on Messenger). We call this feature Application Contacts. The cool thing about this is when I sign into a web site (and grant permission to sign into Windows Live Messenger) which uses Application Contacts, other site visitors can chat with me while I’m on the site, or anytime when I have Windows Live Messenger client open (all the time, like hundreds of millions of other people).

We have made a lot of enhancements to Application Contacts (more information), but the major change is that you don’t need to be signed into the Messenger Web Toolkit for all scenarios. People who are not Windows Live Messenger users (or are not signed into Messenger on the web site) can still see the profile picture and display name of user’s the web site chooses to display. This is particularly interesting for commenting and user profile scenarios. To use this functionality a new Messenger Application Key must be used. This is analogous to a service account. Our documentation on Application Contacts outlines how to get a key.

Previously, if you wanted to show the display pictures/names to a user who wasn’t signed in to Messenger the pics/display name weren’t available. Using the updated Application Contacts functionality you can now show display names and pictures to people who aren’t Windows Live Messenger users (or people who haven’t signed in yet). See the before & after:

Party on

Try out the new bits dev.live.com/messenger and if you have ideas or questions, hit us in our forum.

/Angus Logan, Technical Product Manager

After signing in to the website using their Dernek.ba credentials, the user can then sign in using the Windows Live Messenger Web Bar at the bottom of the page using their normal Windows Live ID. To make using the bar even easier, the whole experience is localized using functionality we launched earlier this year in v3.1.

Using “application contacts”, friends on Dernek.ba can chat with each other without necessarily having to add each other as Messenger buddies, or without having to be online using the desktop client. Another added bonus is that the website uses application display names, so that users can recognize each other by their display name on the website, rather than the one they have set in Messenger.

The Dernek.ba website is a great showcase for what can be done using the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit on a social website, using surprisingly very little code. By adding the toolkit, users are able to message each other, see each other’s status and … well, the possibilities are endless :-)

(Read the original announcement on Dernek.ba – Croatian!)

You can:

• Sign into the Messenger Web Toolkit
• Review the list of controls
• Change the attributes and instantly see the affect
• Interact with the controls
• Copy the code into your application

http://messenger.mslivelabs.com

Sign in

Links to MSDN / Additional documentation

Display picture control with presence

Personal Message (status) display and editing inline

Contact list view

A common misconception is that the cool functionality in the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit is only available to developers who are using the Microsoft web platform i.e. ASP.NET.  This couldn’t be further from the truth. 

The Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit is entirely client-side based using JavaScript and HTTP endpoints, it will happily run on any platform, any web server and with any scripting language.  The Web Toolkit JavaScript was created using Script# which allows you to code in C# and then compile down to JS – neat.

For PHP developers we’ve just released a couple of cool things to allow you to put Windows Live Messenger in your web apps:

• PHP Windows Live Messenger Web Tutorial
• PHP sample code
• Check out the Interactive SDK – cool for checking out samples and code snippets

This means if you code your web apps in PHP, Ruby, Perl etc. you can go ahead and use the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit to light up your apps and create cool new social scenarios for people that visit your website.

Enjoy, and let me know how you get on!