Yahoo! Messenger just released a new beta this week with a plugin SDK so that you can customize messenger and build your own single or multi-user application. Messenger plugins are based on HTML, so you can write them just like a regular web page. Since we all know the best sites are built in Flash, I fully expect the best plugins to go the same direction. 
Once you get the beta, you will find two places for plugins. The first is the tab area of your friends list. For any Flash Lite developers, I think this should be an interesting area. The space your get for a tab is not too far off from the screen real estate for a Flash Lite app. While we are waiting for the OEMs to deploy the Flash Lite player, Messenger should be a good area to showcase your content.
You can also add plugins to your IM window. If you are a game developer, this is an ideal way to get to work with multiplayer concepts, and actually get your game played by a network of millions of users. Messenger gives you a LOT of hooks to pass data, do permissioning, and otherwise deeply integrate into the Messenger experience. Even if you aren’t into games, there are a lot opportunities for creating multi user and collaborative applications.
Since I first heard about the feature I’ve been biting my tongue from wanting to tell all the Flash developers I know about this.
Now, for the really cool part: let’s talk Flash versions. Use filters, blend modes, the external Interface; they will always be available. The Y! Messenger install process is now installing the latest version of Flash for those that don’t have it. Now it is up to you to get all of your friends on Yahoo! to show them your cool plugins and help Flash Player penetration at the same time.
OMFG, this is crazy. If this thing does what it says it does, it’s encapsulating all the details about running, operating, and configuring a chat server… for like free!(?)
So are all the messenger APIs that are available to Javascript and C++ based plug-ins available to Flash? I don’t know Flash at all, I’m just curious how it works – is it like you’re calling the browser or an ActiveX control, or is it more seamless?
-Russ
>Since I first heard about the feature I’ve been
>biting my tongue from wanting to tell all the
>Flash developers I know about this.
Same here Justin. I got to know about it when I was in Yahoo! and I got so excited that I came up with some ideas.
But now I can tell everyone that there is feature like that
-abdul
So I am trying to get a Hello World Flash 8 Player to work. But according to the docs, the only thing available as a Module-type is HTML.
So what does this mean? Yahoo! Plugin cannot wrap a swf directly unless it is wrapped with HTML. In which case if the swf makes a call to it’s hosting web page via External API. Then the web page makes has to make a call to window.external?
Surely the Conversation/Tab plug-in could collaborate with the Flash Player better.
Russ: From what I’ve read so far (and please someone point me in the right direction), the Messenger API cannot be directly accessed from Flash however communication must be proxied through Javascript.
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Is there any plugin to forward incoming messages automatically to other predesided yahoo ids ..
please inform me about that ..i need it urgently
Good post!!!!!!
From what I’ve read so far (and please someone point me in the right direction), the Messenger API cannot be directly accessed from Flash however communication must be proxied through Javascript.
You are right!!
Plugin cannot wrap a swf directly unless it is wrapped with HTML. In which case if the swf makes a call to it’s hosting web page via External API. Then the web page makes has to make a call to window.
Great!!
Hello! Can you upload Flash lite plugin for mobilephone in my e-mail adress supermiko@mail.ru
Thank you
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iran
Is the messenger able to load flash plugin into it’s window?
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