As noted here, you need to make sure your system clock is fairly accurate when using the Open AIM SDK 1.6.7 in a client. This will be fixed in the next release.
Incidentally, the APIs we use for signon are clientLogin and startOSCARSession which are documented in the OSCAR protocol specifications.
A number of you are trying out the recently released AIM SDK 1.6.7. I thought it would be a good idea to answer some of the early questions. So here they are in my usual Q&A style…
Q: What SDK files do I need to run an Open AIM client or bot?
A: You need to copy some of the DLL files from the dist\release folder into your application’s folder. You can omit the jg*.dll files if you don’t need to support talk (aka voice) sessions with legacy AIM clients like AOL 9.x and AIM 5.9. You can also omit the sipxtapi.dll if you don’t need to support the newer SIP based Audio/Video sessions in AIM 6.x. You only need the accjwrap.dll and the accjwrap.jar files if your bot or client is written in Java. All other DLLs are required.
Q: What are all these new DLLs for?
A: We added support for SSL based encryption to Open AIM clients, which is based on NSS and NSPR from Mozilla. We also updated the audio/video stacks for full multimedia support in Open AIM.
Q: How do I enable SSL based encryption in my bot or client?
A: You can enable this via the boolean preference named “aimcc.connect.secure”. The default is false.
Q: What does SSL based encryption protect?
A: This encrypts all regular IM traffic between the client and the AIM host. It will not encrypt direct IMs, picture sharing sessions, A/V sessions, file transfers, buddy art retrievals and uploads, or alerts. Note: for end to end security your buddy also needs to be running a client that uses SSL encryption, like AIM 6.5.9.1.
If I did not answer your question, feel free to ask in a comment or post it in one of the forums.
With AOL’s recent announcement on Open AIM 2.0 now live and getting lots of great attention, I thought I should write a quick post on it. This is truly exciting news. We are dramatically expanding our community when we open things up like this. So with that, I want to say “Welcome” to all the great developers out there. Here is this incredible AIM network that you can now use and build on.
I have actually been a part of the AIM core team for a number of months now, so I am available to help answer questions on Open AIM. I can now claim to have written code in imapp.dll, acccore.dll, coolcoreXX.dll, and xprtX.dll. Lastly, this guy sits next to me.
There are more great things to come.
Attention AIM Phoneline users! You can now try out the new call alerts in the latest AIM 6.5 Beta.
We have integrated the incoming call alerts in the IM window. Each new call will appear as a new tab in this window if you enable grouped IMs. Here is a sample call alert for a Free AIM Phoneline user:
Free AIM Phoneline users (Did you know that you can get a free phone number from AOL?) can use the call alert to take the call or send to voice mail. If you miss the call, you can also use the alert to listen to the voice mail. NOTE: You cannot place calls from a free AIM Phoneline account, just receive them.
Unlimited AIM Phoneline ($14.95/mo) subscribers can take advantage of the extra features in the call alerts like: Forward the call, and special greetings. You can also listen in and pickup the call while it’s in voicemail. Here is a sample call alert for and Unlimited AIM Phoneline call alert:
Here is what the “Tell Caller…” menu shows:
Please help test this out since it is a brand new feature in the AIM 6.5 Beta. Let me know if you have any problems, questions or comments on this cool new feature.
Don’t forget that AOL offers free AIM Phoneline accounts. It takes about 5 minutes to get a phone number. You can even get one in any area code in the country where AOL offers this service so you can let your long-distance friends call you on a local number near them and talk all you want for free without restrictions.
From the how to support custom app development department. AOL recently launched a new web site dedicated to the showcasing of custom apps that are built from the Open AIM SDK and web APIs.
This site, called AIM Gallery, can be accessed at gallery.aim.com. It should quickly become the best place to find and share mashups, AIM Bots, AIM Custom Clients, AIM Plugins, and AIM Whimsicals. See the web site if you don’t know what these are.
The site lets you search, browse, download, rate and comment on these apps. You can also upload your own creations.
Please visit the AIM Gallery today and be sure to let us know what you think about it. Thanks.
Hope everyone is enjoying their NFL season opening Sunday.
Here is a Redskins themed ‘yell’ rule for my RX-Plugin. This is similar to the existing yell rule except that it adds a color gradient from gold to burgundy. Just add ‘@@’ to the end of you message to trigger this rule.
Click here to import the ‘Redskins Yell’ rule into your RX-Plugin settings
Enjoy, and Go Skins!
I just released an update to my RX-Plugin. This version adds support for an often requested feature: automatic translation to Leetspeak.
There are two ways to use this feature. You can send a single message that is translated into Leets by sending “/leet ” followed by your message. Or, you can turn it on and off, on a per conversation basis, by sending “/leet on” and “/leet off” respectively. These on and off commands will not be sent to you your buddy. Automatic translations occurs with each message you send when you turn it on.
Here is a screen shot of me sending a message using /leet:
This release also adds support for the Open AIM SDK 1.3.0 and later.
You can download this plug-in and read more about it here.
Enjoy.
A number of you have communicated with me indicating that you are seeing the “Disclose idle preference is off. Idle Lock is disabled.” message pop up when you sign in to AIM and don’t know how to enable this.
Idle Lock requires that you disclose your idle status to others. This is a privacy preference in AIM.
To enable this, open the AIM Settings window by pressing F7 from the Buddy List.
Click on the Privacy tab. Then, at the bottom, make sure the “I am idle” option is checked in the “Allow others to see:”… section.
Click on Save, if you made any changes.
Idle Lock should now be available for use. Press the hot key (CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+I is the default) to toggle it.
I have seen a number of questions come up in searches to my blog. Here are a few answers. Unless noted, these apply to AIM 6.x, including AIM Triton.
Q: How do I get the black theme to work in the AIM 6.5 Beta?
A: We have integrated the black them and you no longer have to modify any files to get it. Just click on the beach ball icon at the right of the menu bar in the Buddy List and select it.
Q: How can I transfer (or export or copy or move or send) my buddy list from one screen name to another?
A: You need to install the AIM Buddy Options plugin. See the posts on this subject at the AIM Buddy Blog and on tek. You can get the Buddy List Options plugin here. This plug works on all versions of AIM Triton, AIM 6.0, 6.1 and 6.5. [Update: I covered this before in my previous AIM 6.0 Q&A Volume VI post but this post has the latest links.]
Q: Why do my AIM buddies disappear when they go away?
A: Go to the View menu of the Buddy List. This menu is all about what and how you “see” things. Make sure the “Away/Idle Buddies” option is checked.
Q: Why is my buddy list alphabetical?
A: Go to the View menu of the Buddy List. Open the “Sort Buddy List By” Submenu and make the appropriate selection in there.
Q: How to go invisible before you sign on?
A: See my IM Tweaks plugin. It has several features on this.
Q: How to make yourself idle on AIM?
A: See my RX-plugin. Checkout the Idle Lock feature.
Q: Why does AIM not go idle?
A: Go to the Settings window in AIM (Press F7 from the Buddy List.) Select the Privacy Tab. Make sure the “I am idle” is checked in the “Allow other to see:” Section at the bottom.
While I won’t post a rule with actual profanity in it, I will help you get started on creating your own profanity filter. This won’t get rid of all the profanity in the world, but at least it lets you control what comes in through your AIM client. It can even help you in your own moments of angst by filtering what you send.
For starters, you need to have the RX-Plugin installed and running on your AIM 6.x client.
The rule lets you define a list of “bad-words” that will be replaced with “**EXPLETIVE**” in your IMs. Each “bad-word” is actually a sequence of bad characters. For example, if I filter out the sequence “test” then “testing” will show up as “**EXPLETIVE**ing”. So, choose your words carefully. 
The idea is that you don’t want to send or receive any of these “sequences of bad characters”.
Click here to import the ‘Profanity Filter Starter’ rule into your RX-Plugin settings
When you click on the above link, you will see the RX-Plugin Settings… window appear and show the rule. Here is a screen shot of part of that window:
First, for neatness, change the rule’s name by removing the “Starter” part. You can give it any name you like.
Let me explain the options in the Match section. Starting with the Scope options, I chose “Text only” because we are only concerned about the text and not the markup (HTML). Next is is the “Apply to” option. Here I chose “Both”, but feel free to set it to Incoming our Outgoing IMs only. Lastly, are the options. I want this rule to apply everywhere, so I unchecked “Skip in Chat rooms”. I could have chosen “Word boundary”, but that would limit me to matching “bad” and not “bad1″ or “1bad”. Ignore case is needed for obvious reasons. Global is needed to make sure it replaces all instances of any of the “bad-words”. Finally, skip in <a> tags is not needed in this case since I am not trying to insert a hyperlink.
The Replace section is pretty straight forward. I simply replace what was matched with the markup in there. Since this is actual markup, I left the “Escape all…” option unchecked.
Now, back to the Regular Expression in the Match section. This is just a list of words delimited with | bars which means OR in regex ease. One thing to note is that you need watch out for sub-words. If you want to filter out “bad” and “reallybad” then you need to make sure that “bad” follows “reallybad” in your regular expression.
You can have spaces if you want to filter out word phrases, but I find that it’s better to filter out specific words. Besides, you will need to do it in a way that accounts for multiple spaces and perhaps some punctuation marks between words.
Once you have the rule the way you like it, just hit Apply or OK.
The best way to test this rule is to send yourself the entire contents of the regular expression in an IM. Everyone of them should be shown as **EXPLETIVE** with the | bars between them.
That’s it. I hope this helps you sanitize your AIM experience.