RX-Plugin’s Idle Lock Q&A Roundup
I received a number of inquiries lately on how to get Idle Lock to work and some reports on it not working as well as it should. Therefore, I thought it would be a good time to gather these questions and answer them all in one place. Idle Lock is one of the more popular features in Gus Verdun’s RX-Plugin which works with AIM 6.0 and other Open AIM clients. Here is the description of it from the features list:
- Lets you immediately appear as idle while you continue to work at your computer.
- Idle Lock can be toggled via a user defined hotkey.
- A user defined initial idle time can be set when activating Idle Lock.
- Optional system tray icon can show you when Idle Lock is active.
- Can be automatically deactivated when you send an IM.
- Idle Lock can also be activated passively allowing you to continue to appear as being idle when you return.
Q: How can I tell if this plug-in is running?
A: Go to the Settings window (Press F7 from the Buddy List) and select the “Plugins” tab. From there make sure you see “Gus Verdun’s RX-Plugin” in the list and that it is checked. If you don’t see the plug-in listed, then sign-out and sign-in on AIM again to see if it loads it then. If it still does not load, then try exiting AIM and installing the plug-in again. NOTE: Make sure you are always installing the latest version since older versions may be disabled and would therefore not get loaded by AIM.
Q: Idle Lock is not working when I first sign-on. Is there a way to make it work?
A: I am working on a better solution for this. For now, you may have to toggle this on and off a few times until you see yourself as idle. You can add yourself to the Buddy List to track your own state.
Q: I still don’t see myself as Idle. What else could be the problem?
A: Make sure you have enabled the AIM option to let others see when you are idle. Go to the Settings window (Press F7 from the Buddy List) and select the “Privacy” tab. From there make sure the “I am idle” option is checked in the “Allow others to see:” section.
Q: Setting an away message first does not later show me as being idle. Do others see me as away and Idle?
A: I am looking for the cause of this. While this is happening to you on your own Buddy List, others will still see you as away and idle.
Q: How can I detect if a buddy is using Idle Lock?
A: There are other ways, but here are two: IM your buddy and see if they start typing while they are still idle or if they typed a long message and the idle state was removed when the message was sent. If you spot either of those cases, chances are they are using Idle Lock.
April 16th, 2007 at 12:14 am
First and foremost, thanks so much for this awesome plugin! I’m using AIM 6.1 and have tried everything I can think of to get idle lock to work. I’m using the latest version of your plugin–is it configured to work with AIM 6.1? Thanks again for offering this free and useful app.
April 16th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Idle lock is working nicely on AIM 6.1. Let me know if you are still having problems.
April 16th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
wow, I am embarrassed–I just remembered that I recently turned off the option to allow users to see when I was idle. When I read this faq, I skipped that step because I completely forgot that I had turned it off. It’s working perfectly now; thanks again!!!
June 12th, 2007 at 12:31 am
[...] I just released a new version of this plug-in. You can read the complete release notes here. The Idle Lock feature is now vastly improved. You should now be able to activate Idle Lock without any of the previously known problems. Idle Lock also now works when you have multiple AIM clients running with this plug-in loaded. I have also made numerous improvements to the inline commands (corrections and away messages) and IMpulse. [...]
August 19th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
how do yu even use it like turn the idle lock on?