Change buddy nickname display

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Dec 13, 2001 1:22 pm

Lets say someone on your list has a buddy nickname of "A3921FG"

Is it possible to make it so that you can assign that person a meaningful name such as Harry and have that show up in buddy list and IM, instead of talking with what seems like a robot, A3921FG?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 3:09 pm

Is this possible?

Post by **Big-O Mark** » Mon Feb 25, 2002 6:11 am

I'm gonna go on record here and say no.

This feature is available in ICQ. However, ICQ uses a unique number for each user, so changing their name to whatever you want isn't a big deal. In AIM each user is identified by their unique name ... you can't have 2 "John"s like you can in ICQ. Masking a name with another in the buddy list and chat windows would be pretty difficult.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 1:26 am

forget about the chat window, do the name trick just on the buddy list.

I need this BIG TIME.

Maybe you can make the buddy list 100% transparetn and have a non transparent thing sit right over it and THAt have new names. When you click you actually are clicking on teh ugly aol name underneath.

You like my HACK idea?

phsiii · Post by **phsiii** » Thu Mar 14, 2002 3:33 pm

I, too, would love this feature. I don't see why a namespace collision needs to be an issue -- just don't allow two "John"s: one would need to be "John Jones" and the other "John Smith".

It's a pretty serious usability issue, since so many folks have such "cute" IDs!

In any case, AIM+ rules!!!!

sn0n · Post by **sn0n** » Fri Mar 15, 2002 12:03 am

there is actually a workin program that does this.. allthou for the life of me i cant find it.. allways when ya need somethin.. cant find it.. ill post back when i do..

it messes up your actual buddy list thou.. so you need to Save and ReLoad yer actual buddy list everytime.. (he was workin on a automatic type thing last i heard)

BeckyWPI · Post by **BeckyWPI** » Sun Mar 17, 2002 1:44 pm

There is a service that can rename people in AIM. It\'s called extreme messenger. Found at http://www.extrememessenger.com It has awesome font color possiblities too, and opens one window with tabed IM windows for different conversations. The major downside is that it\'s not free, but you can download a trial. I also had some technical problems with the tabed windows. (Not sure if it was the program or just me) AIM+ is a much better integrated program, but i you are really desperate to rename users then check out the demo copy.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 6:54 pm

along with allowing custom names, what about also allowing a folder within a folder. that would allow for even greater customization of the buddy list. i have several groups of buddies who i don't talk to on a regular basis and it would be nice to hide them into a nice consolidated list

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Mar 31, 2002 4:00 am

this renaming feature would be AWESOME!

Post by **Big-O Mark** » Thu Apr 04, 2002 11:21 pm

I think this would be a great feature, it just has to be done right. I know there are currently other programs out there that allow you to rename your buddies, but I'm not so sure they do it in the best possible way. You don't want AIM+ to permanently screw up your buddy list trying to rename your buddies, now do you? When/if this feature makes it into a future version of AIM+, it will be premium, or it won't be there :).

guest · Post by **guest** » Sun Apr 14, 2002 10:54 am

look, why not just make a separate group for each screenname? the group name being the name you want the person called? example:
John (1/1)
skd356

Post by **Big-O Mark** » Sun Apr 14, 2002 12:50 pm

That's a good idea for 1 or 2 tricky screennames, but would get out of control very quickly. Some people want to exceed the 200 buddy limit, imagine having over 200 groups each with one or two screennames!

I think the buddy renaming feature will be a little tricky to implement really well, but we are confident that we'll figure out a way to make it work :).

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 10:13 am

You can have this feature with a program called trillian (www.trillian.cc). but i don't really like that program. in order for this feature the programmers would either have to make a new buddy list entirely, or totally hack up the client one. i don't see this feature being possible without taking away the whole "add-on" scheme.

Monoman · Post by **Monoman** » Wed May 08, 2002 9:36 pm

In addition to the "aliasing" being discussed, I think it would be great to have multiple screen names associated with a single alias. Example:

"John Doe" is really:
screenname1
screenname2
...

This is probably much more difficult than 1:1 aliasing but would be very cool. I know many people have multiple screen names.

GigaRoc · Post by **GigaRoc** » Wed May 08, 2002 10:07 pm

or just a text feild in that yellow box that comes up were you can enter infromation about the person

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Change buddy nickname display

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