231265 - AIM Icon offline/online status url broken

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(MailNews Core :: Address Book, defect)

Description

[Robert Accettura [:raccettura]]

In the address book, we have an AIM icon, that connects to oscar.aol.com 
Historically, based on the parameters, it would display 1 icon if the screenname
was online, and one (in our case grayed out) if offline.  

It hasn't worked in about a year now.  So I suggest removing it and defaulting
to on, so not every user appears offline.  Perhaps now someone will IM me ;-)

If I could get myself to sit down and understand how to interact with prefs, I
would make the URL Itself a pref, hence defeating bug:
Bug 176969
Bug 169253
Bug 214225
Bug 216214

So it's still pinging the server for now, but at least that will make it appear
"online", or "standard" until either myself, or someone else can make it a pref
(I would assume we stick with AIM as the default, since it's the dominant IM
service).

Patch forthcoming

Comment 1

[Robert Accettura [:raccettura]]

Attachment: Temporary Patch

This is perhaps the most trivial patch, but fixes the issue at least temporary.


It does still ping the netscape server, but no longer interacts with AOL, since
it wasn't working anyway.

Ideally, it would use a client side image, but we aren't regressing at all,
just progressing slowly.

(that might be the quote of the day).

Comment 2

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Um...this URL still works for me :) (just tested it with my own AIM account)

Comment 3

[Robert Accettura [:raccettura]]

It's not a "broken Image"

But it reports "offline" now for all non-AOL users, rather than giving the
online status of "AIM" users.  Making it a highly inaccurate indicator.  It 
used to work for the "AIM service" in general.

Open up instant messenger, and check that I'm online (DIGITALgimpus)

Now load the URL:
http://big.oscar.aol.com:80/DIGITALgimpus?on_url=http://ncmail.netscape.com/include/nc/images/online.gif&off_url=http://ncmail.netscape.com/include/nc/images/offline.gif


An AOL user will still be reported correctly.  

This is the firt step to making this address book field more neutral.  

What I want to do is utalize some of the bugs mentioned above:

Make link generated by field adjustable via pref command for other protocols
Image URL adjustable via pref.

That way, someone could use the field for their prefered IM protocol (AIM, MSN,
ICQ).

That's the goal of this bug (ultimately).  The above patch is an interm solution
to make sure the image doesn't tell users something that isn't true.

Comment 4

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

I tested it with the Netscape 7.1 Instant Messanger and Miranda 0.3.2. I
appeared online/offline correctly, i am _not_ using AOL as my ISP, i registered
my account over aim.com

Comment 5

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

Comment on attachment 139279 [details] [diff] [review]
Temporary Patch

(Old and) New URL does not work (anymore).

Comment 6

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

http://big.oscar.aol.com:80/ works fine. http://ncmail.netscape.com/include/nc/images/online.gif doesn't.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

AIM is gone