Here's something I've wanted in AIM for quite some time. I'd like to be able to schedule my away messages (for when I'm in class for example) to come up automatically from a certain start time to a certain end time.
I think the best way to do it would be have a similar interface to adding a Calender event in Outlook.
That's a pretty neat idea. Very useful if you just forget to put up an away message ... you could schedule messages for your classes, job, sleeping, and anything else you do at a relatively regular time.
Actually, this is already kind of a feature of AIM. If you choose to put up an "Idle Away" message, AIM will automatically respond for you if you have been idle for a set number of minutes.
The "Idle Message" is a one shot deal though, you can't set up multiple messages that change while you're gone. On top of that, it's easier to put up the 'work' away message than it is go into the AIM preferences to change the idle message to 'work.' Plus, once you change your idle message to 'work,' you also have to remember to change it back to a generic idle message for the next time you wander away from your computer without putting up an away message.
Away Message Scheduler > AIM Idle Message
AIM Idle Message DOES have it's purpose though - the generic "I wandered away from my computer message" is something I've always had it set to, so people know I'm not ignoring them - especially regular AOL users who can't see the idle status.
I think that would be great, sometimes I go to take a shower or something and leave for class, and people are waiting for me to come back and answer their messages before I leave. Another feature that would be nice would be remote away message setting, but that's another story.
Remote away message setting is another interesting idea ... you're really on top of the remote settings today! There would definitely be some security issues here, so this option could cause some problems with some users. However, back in college we always used to make people's away messages and profiles say rather amusing things, so this wouldn't be much different :).
As I said in the other "topic" before getting sent over here. It would just have to be a simple alarm clock type program that instead of starting an MP3 or WAV file starts a link to make an away message, thus telling AIM to change the away message. I like this idea.
very nice idea like aim:goaway?message=Im+not+here+right+now that would work...if you put that link in a message to another person or something it will work, and an away message will come up saying im not here right now