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Windows Live Messenger Library Application Design Guidelines

The Application Design Guidelines presented here are the required and best practices for building an effective application with the Windows Live™ Messenger Library.

Term Definition

Contact

A person for whom the user has subscribed to presence updates.

Display Name

A name that a user presents to his or her contacts.

Pending Contact

A person who has subscribed to the user and is not on the user’s contact list.

Personal Message

An expressive message that a user presents to his or her contacts.

Presence

The collection of data exposed by a user to his or her contacts. Presence is comprised of status, display name, personal message, and other content.

Status

The basic presence state indicating a user's availability. Potential values include:

  • AppearOffline
  • Away
  • BeRightBack
  • Busy
  • Idle
  • InACall
  • Offline
  • Online
  • OutToLunch

Sign-in Control

The visual element rendered within the application that enables the user to sign in to the Windows Live Messenger Library.

User

The person signing in to the Messenger Service via Windows Live Messenger Library.

The following key words are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119: Must, Must Not, Required, Shall, Shall Not, Should, Should Not, Recommended, May, and Optional.

The following sections outline required and recommended guidelines for all Messenger Library applications.

Messenger Library applications must do the following

  • Display links to various Messenger Library options prominently within the user interface when a user is signed in via the library. This requirement can be met either by rendering the Sign-in Control, or rendering the links with Windows Live Messenger Library icon directly within the application user interface (see the Windows Live SDK License Agreement for information about licensing the icon). If the Windows Live Messenger Library icon is used, it must link to http://messenger.live.com. The following links are required.
    • Sign out
    • Change settings
    • Privacy statement
    • Terms of use
    • Send feedback
    • About Windows Live Messenger
Cc303092.note(en-us,MSDN.10).gifNote:
You can get the URLs for these links by using the SignInControlLinks property of the Sign-in Control.
  • Accurately represent information about a Messenger Library user, a Messenger Library user’s contacts, and sent and received messages. These elements include display names, user identifiers, status, personal messages, and instant message content.
  • Clearly indicate to the Messenger Library application user when undertaking the following actions.
    • Signing in and signing out
    • Updating presence
    • Adding, allowing, blocking, or removing contacts from the user’s contact list
    • Sending messages
  • Display status of a Messenger Library user.
    • A Messenger user can be signed in from multiple places simultaneously. All places must show the same status for the user. For example, if the user changes from Online to Away in one place, all Messenger clients and applications must update that user’s status to Away. This can be done by registering for appropriate presence events in the Messenger Library.
    • The user’s status must be displayed using standard Messenger terminology.
  • Refer to a user’s Messenger contacts as Contacts.
  • Display incoming messages from Messenger contacts and enable the user to respond.
  • Ensure that text messages sent with the Messenger Library are displayed in the Windows Live Messenger client.

Messenger Library applications should do the following

  • Show the display name of the user currently signed in.
  • Support adding new Messenger contacts by e-mail address.
  • Support adding pending Messenger contacts to the user’s contact list.
  • Use standard Windows Live presence icons for both user and contacts. An example follows.
Cc303092.f65ca551-a6b8-4b2d-a3b1-2ac45fff6ecc(en-us,MSDN.10).jpg

Messenger Library applications may do the following

  • Use Windows Live Messenger standard emoticons in instant messages, display names, personal messages, and other personal expressions in user content.
  • Render the user’s contacts within the user's respective groups.
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