A few suggestions.

[Lured]

Hello. I have a few suggestions for aMSN

1.
On MSN Messenger there is an option to stop all sounds from playing when your status is set to busy. I am not sure if aMSN has this feature as I never use busy. If this feature doesn't exist in aMSN then I would like to see it added. and if it is already added then I would like to see two busy states. "busy - sounds" on and "busy - sounds off". The reason for 2 states is its easier than going into preferences every time and its also allows you to choose which one for a custom state.
Watching TV - busy sounds off
A repeats on - busy sounds on

2.
Allow to change the order of custom states. this could be done by going to preferences>session and in the lits, allow dragging to rearrange the order of custom states. Maybe an option to change the limit of 3 custom states in the states list(on contact list>account>change state) could be on the sessions tab too.

3.
I like the idea of different auto messages for different people(I know it was mentioned before). Someone said it would be hard to configure, but i don't think it would be.
You could have a text box for each message(have a maximum limit of course, like 4) and have a button next to each text box that pops a window up with all contacts with a check box to the left of them. The only problem I can see is if someone has been selected twice. Maybe a message box to see if the choice is correct when a person has been chosen more than once to receive a message.

4.
Add an option to allow disabling changing status to no activity/away after * minutes when on a custom state so you keep your custom states state.

5.
change the history statistics so you can see the file size without names so you can see how much you have typed without the names being included. to do this a button should be added on the statistics form to remove the names(obviously not on the original history file). don't want to try and work out who said what . I just thought the would be a nice redundant feature for those days of curiosity.

6.
A button(which should be placed on the messaging window near the smiley's button) to  either view the text of a smiley or change all smiley's to text. This will sound stupid to some people and plain sense to others, depending on what contacts you have. I know that you can highlight an area and copy and paste to see the text, but this can be annoying. Some of my contacts don't know how to set emoticons properly. instead of something like "(lol)" they put "lol". so every time they say "lol" i get an annoying(yes animated) emoticon that takes 9 seconds to decipher. if you have contacts like this then you will know what I mean. its like in the matrix, where they have to read the encryption .
me:
how was your day?
them!!!:
(oh) twas (good)(.) (ows) (urs)(?)
now imagine all the stuff in brackets is an emoticon. like I said, its like deciphering the matrix.
For those of you whose solution it is to block these people...they're family...nooo!!!

As I am new I'm not really sure where to put this, because these are more errors than features. If this is the wrong place then I will edit my post and remove these and add a post in the correct section.

1.
After quiting aMSN(Account>Quit) when your name(and personal message) is changed due to a custom state, then when you next sign on, your online name(and personal message) will be your last custom states name. I think an easy solution would be to write the current custom state and default name and personal message to a file. then when next signing in you could be prompted to see if you want to login with your previous custom state or to login with the set login status and change the name and personal message back to normal.

2.
As you know from feature 6 that some of my contacts use emoticons a lot, I have found a small error in aMSN.
My text sometimes shows my contacts smiley's(so I have to decipher what I said too :lol: ). I have also had a few in my name as well. I don't think the contact sees the emoticons in my name. Ive not really asked.

EDIT:
3.
Forgot this one. When changing the display picture the email address/filename and date is to the right of the picture, but if the picture is too big then you don't see the text. Maybe all text should be underneath each picture or just underneath a picture that is too large.

[Elias]

1. This is not automatic but still you can mute all sounds using the menu from the system tray.
4. I think it is already doing that by default.
6. Go to your contact propriety windows and you can disable its emoticons (it is only in the svn version for the moment, compile it or wait until rc are out...)

I think 2 and 5 are rather useless but this is only my opinion...

2b. Animated emoticons in name are only shown amsn to amsn. Someone using msn won't be able to see your emoticons (msn doesn't have this feature).
3b. Update your amsn version you might have a bug because the DP is resized to fit the contact list (but you can see it with the original size in the tipbox).

[Lured]

Thanks for the reply. 2 and 5 are useless really, but I would to change the order of my states easier than editing them. the reason is because you have to go to “more states” to see the rest of your states after the first 3 states. It would allow me to order my states by the most commonly used, not the order I added them by.

I am using aMSN 0.97b, I think this is the most recent, so upgrading isn't a solution.
I know that I can enable/disable sounds manually, it was just a suggestion for laziness.
The reason why I mentioned feature 4 is because I have to disable both "change status to no activity/away after * minutes" when setting a custom state. So I don't think it has been implemented yet.

thanks for the hint, about disabling emoticons. I would still like to see a feature to disable emoticons for a single chat though.

about the animated icons in the name. I don't think you understood what I meant. I meant that I am seeing my contacts custom emoticons appear in my text(when I don't have their emoticon) and sometimes in my name in the message window.

[Elias]

thanks for the hint, about disabling emoticons. I would still like to see a feature to disable emoticons for a single chat though.

IIRC, the policy about this bar for the moment is to keep it clean : it is already bloated... but doesn't cost anything to ask !

about the animated icons in the name. I don't think you understood what I meant. I meant that I am seeing my contacts custom emoticons appear in my text(when I don't have their emoticon) and sometimes in my name in the message window.

Then you may just have found a bug, can you please tell us more about it ?

[Lured]

I can see your point with the bar being bloated.
There isnt much else to say about the emoticons. they just sometimes show up in my text when I dont have the emoticon. The emoticon shows up in my text because I typed the word they used for the emoticon.When it happens again I will take a screenshot. Is it possible that I have an option to use others emoticons enabled without knowing it?

[vivia]

... And you use 0.97b ? We had done A LOT of bugfixing on smileys for this one, heavy testing... I don't think this could happen... unless it's a bug of couse.

First: MAKE SURE AMSN PLUS PLUGIN IS DISABLED. Really. This is known to cause a lot of troubles, also with smileys.

Second: Close aMSN, rename the ~/.amsn directory (don't delete it) and see if it works OK for a fresh profile. If it does, try to find which setting/plugin causes the problem.

[kakaroto]

I've been reading your post, I waited so long because the length of it was overwhelming...
let me comment on everything you said :
1 - it was asked many times and we intend to add a checkbox for disabling sounds in a custom state. If you searched for it in the forum, you would have probably found many posts about this.
2 - now you seem to have found a bug... I just tested and you're right, the custom states order is static, but in the early times when that feature was first added, that list's order was dynamic, the states were ordered by 'last used', so if you used a custom state, it would go up to the first place, so you won't need to look in the 'more states' submenu for it... it seems to be static now... I wonder why it was changed and which is best, maybe it was because people get lost and have difficulties in finding their states when the list's order changes constantly and becomes dynamic (it's always easier to know that state X is the 2 states before the last for example). Don't think we'll implement what you suggested because it's too much of a low priority compared to everything we have to do.
3 - you say "someone said it would be hard to configure, but I don't think it would be"... might I ask you why you say you don't think it would be hard to configure/implement ? you don't know the current code so you don't know how difficult it would be. I know how it's done and I know it would be a real hassle to make it work, without even thinking about the logical and the GUI part of it. First the GUI would become unusable, impossible, hyper-bloated if we do what you asked, and the logic is difficult and will confuse all the users. How would you set it up, what if I want a specific message per group or 1 message to one group and another message to everyone else... etc... even if it's done, it would become a huge gate for new bugs... what I suggest is to set up an alarm per user and set the autoreply message in the alarm.
4 - if you're in a state other than online, it won't change the state to no activity.. if it does for you, then is your custom state set to 'online' ? maybe you found a bug...
5 - are you kidding ?
6 - you can disable it per user in the properties window

1b - the original name is already saved in a file and should be reverted before you quit, if not, I think if you logon and it detects you have the nickname from the old custom state, it will revert it.
2b - this was a bug in an old version of amsn, it was fixed a month or two ago ... are you using a custom chat style ? if no, the irc or the msn one ?
3b - is it really necessary ? Idon't think it would be a priority to fix this, and it's not a real bug... you can live with it.

[Lured]

1.
Sorry for not searching before I posted.

2. Having states automatically change position is a god idea, but I was thinking more of letting the user manually change a states position, I'm sure that people can work out which 3 states are the highest priority.

3.
I still don't think it would be hard to configure GUI-wise, but I can see your point with coding and bugs.

4.
My custom state was set to Away ad after 5 minutes it changed to no activity. I added myself to my contact list so I would get a pop up when I changed status. I then waited and I got a pop up saying i had changed my status to no activity.

5.
I did say it was a redundant feature. I Just thought it would be cool to see how much I have written to a contact.

6.
Thanks, I did not know that.

1b.
It doesn't seem to do that for me. I change to a custom state and go Accounts>Quit, then load up aMSN and sign in as appear offline(also tried with online) and my name and personal message are the same as my custom states. I changed my status to see if it would change my name back, but that didn't work.

2b.
Never mind this, sorry I got mixed up with 0.95(off the Debian testing server) and 0.97b. this bug is in 0.95 and I haven't seen it in 0.97b.

3b.
Yea I can live with it, but it was just a suggestion to make aMSN look nicer.