does anyone know how to interface with AOL instant messenger in Visual Basic? I want to write a program that would respond to messages send to it, but I'm not sure about how to get access to AOL's functions (will OLE automation commands work, or will I have to use something else?)

thanx all,
-dav

From very little experience, it seems that AOL IM actually installs a new protocol on your computer, ie something like HTTP or FTP, as I've seen links beginning with aol:// (or something to that affect). You'll probably need some sort of DLL interface to use it, although I'm no expert, perhaps someone else can shed more light on this.

I think that's used only for shortcuts to chat rooms, starting an IM maybe, things like that - not actual communication with the server. I believe that AOL released the AIM protocol, so you might be able to find out how to communicate with the AIM servers that way by searching the net for it. There are plenty of open-source AIM clones out there, so those might serve as a reference. But, be forewarned, that means you need to do some knee-deep socket programming.

Automation would be nice, but I don't think they've exposed anything that way.

A third idea would be to find the hWnd of the AIM windows and send windows messages to have AIM itself send the responses. This would need knee-deep Windows API. I tried that with AOL a while back. Not fun.

- taubz

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/protocol.php has a fair bit of stuff on the AOL protocols mentioned by taubz.

thanx all