What's New in the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit

Starting with version 3.7, Messenger Web Toolkit controls are built as ASP.NET Ajax Library controls. You can create Messenger Web Toolkit controls by using standard declarative and imperative methods of the ASP.NET Ajax Library. See ASP.NET Ajax Library for more details.

Users can now send instant messages (IM) to offline contacts just as they can with the Windows Live Messenger desktop client.

Starting with version 3.7, application contacts must be declared explicitly on every page by default. Application contacts no longer carry over from page to page automatically. If a user is having an IM conversation with an application contact, that application contact does carry over automatically along with the conversation. This makes application behavior more predictable. It helps the user avoid the 250 contact limit. Version 3.7 also enables applications to define whether an application contact should appear in the contact list by default.

The Messenger Web Toolkit now supports the following browsers:

• Google Chrome 3
  

In addition, the Messenger Web Toolkit has improved compatibility with all supported browsers.

The updated UI Controls have a more streamlined look. The Web Bar displays the number of unread messages in a user's Hotmail inbox, as shown in the following picture.

The Web Bar displays a set of prompts on the Web Bar user experience for first-time users, as shown in the following picture. This experience is displayed exactly one time for each user.

The new Sharing Control lets your application users share content on your site with their Windows Live contacts. Site users can select Windows Live contacts and send them a message containing a link to your site. For more information, see Sharing Control.

Messenger Web Toolkit has enhancements for applications that use application contacts.

• Application contacts are supported, regardless of the sign-in status of the site visitor. If a site visitor is unknown, or is not signed in to Messenger from the site, an application can still show basic profile data of other site users who are Messenger Web Toolkit users.
  
• A new Messenger Application Key makes it possible to use application contacts without a current user.
  
• New application-specific contact properties such as the application display picture URL.
  
• A new app-contact tag to define application contact properties without programming with the Windows Live Messenger Library.
  
• The ability to define which application contacts appear in the Contact List control and the Web Bar contact list.
  
• An option to omit application contact list signatures.
  

For more information, see Application Contacts.

The Messenger Web Toolkit is now built with the Microsoft AJAX Library, the ASP.NET AJAX client runtime 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 ASP.NET Ajax Library and Script# to determine whether you need to make any changes with your application.

The Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit supports the following browsers:

• Mozilla Firefox 3.5
  
• Safari 4
  
• Google Chrome 2
  

Users of Messenger Web Toolkit applications should see faster page loads, sign-ins, and cross-page navigation.

As part of the 3.1 update to the Messenger Web Toolkit, the UI Controls are localized into all supported languages.

For more information on the supported languages, see Appendix A: Supported Languages. For more information about how to display a localized version of the UI Controls on your site, see Displaying Localized UI Controls.

The Messenger Web Toolkit uses the postMessage feature of HTML5-enabled browsers, such as Internet Explorer 8, for improved performance. The Messenger Web Toolkit supports Google Chrome.

The Messenger Web Toolkit uses the browser’s local storage, so that the user does not have to sign in again when switching between pages of the same site. This provides a seamless single sign-in experience. In addition, conversations and other activities are persisted between browser pages. For details, see Cross-page Navigation.

The Messenger Web Toolkit supports Windows Live ID Delegated Authentication. After an application acquires user consent for the Messenger offer, it can sign the user in to Messenger by using a delegation token. To learn more about this feature, see Delegated Authentication for the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit.

An application can define a list of contacts within the site, so that Messenger activities can be performed between users. The Messenger Web Toolkit provides this functionality through the User.ApplicationContacts collection. This functionality requires Delegated Authentication to associate the application users with Windows Live IDs. For more information about this functionality, see Application Contacts.

A script loader has been added as part of the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit. You can use the script loader to load Messenger Library functionality dynamically or your own script code into the page without using <script> tags. The loader loads scripts asynchronously, which means the load time of your application is not affected. For details, see Loading the Windows Live Messenger Web Toolkit.

You can add Messenger UI Controls to the site by adding a script include and by inserting custom tags on HTML pages. You can also provide your own CSS to customize the style of the controls. This includes the Windows Live Messenger Web Bar control.

Note:
The UI Controls are available in all languages as listed in Appendix A: Supported Languages.

For more information about the UI Controls, see Windows Live Messenger UI Controls.

Previously, you had to manipulate Microsoft.Live.Messenger.IMAddress objects to obtain presence information for users. In this release, you can obtain presence information by using the Microsoft.Live.Messenger.Contact object directly. The IMAddress currently in use by the Contact object is used to set the corresponding properties. For more information about these properties, see What's New in the Windows Live Messenger Library.

In version 3.0, the Microsoft.Live.Messenger.AuthenticationCompletedEventArgs object exposes additional properties to make it easier to handle different authentication states. For more information about these properties, see What's New in the Windows Live Messenger Library.