open an IM client

[ftriantos]

Hello, I am looking for code to open an AOL, MSN, and Yahoo IM client using HTML. I think it is <a href=aol..., but that is not appearing to work for me now. Any help out there? Thanks in advance.

[Twey]

Reliably, you can't. I think AIM installs an aim:// URL handler into Internet Explorer, and I think Yahoo's is yim://, but this is not advisable, as some people won't use IE and I'm not sure about any of this anyway.

[ftriantos]

Well, for this app it is only IE...luckily. Thanks for the reply...yim is one of things I was looking for. Do you have an example?

[drosen24]

hey, i dont know the code for yahoo but here it is for aim

aim:goim?screenname=YOUR_SCREEN_NAME&message=add+your+message+here+seperated+by+the+plus+signs

the message section of the code is what will appear in the section of the IM that someone will send to you. I usually have "got+your+screen+name+from+your+site"

Hope this helps,
David

[Twey]

For AIM:

<!-- Add a buddy -->
<a href="aim:addbuddy?screenname=me">Add me!</a>

Send a message
<a href="aim:goim?screenname=me&amp;message=Hello,+me!">Message me!</a>

See http://www.helpbytes.co.uk/messylinks.php for info on the ymsgr: URL schema (yes, I was wrong ). MSN requires the use of an object. Examples:

<!-- Initialize the MSN Messenger object -->
<object classid="clsid:B69003B3-C55E-4B48-836C-BC5946FC3B28" codetype="application/x-oleobject" id="MsgrObj" width="0" height="0"></object>

<!-- Add a contact -->
<a href="#" onclick="MsgrObj.AddContact(0, 'me@msn.com'); return false;">Add Me!</a>

<!-- Send a message -->
<a href="#" onclick="MsgrObj.InstantMessage('me@msn.com'); return false;">Message me!</a>

Examples ripped wholesale from the forum systems here at DD.

[ftriantos]

That helped a lot. Thanks for posting.