Smiles and TOC and Bots

This might only be of interest to developers, but I’ve included an experiment that any user can try.

Background:
a) There are two protocols that can be used to connect to the AIM servers. OSCAR is the protocol that most of the Official AIM clients use and many of the third party applications use. This protocol includes all the familiar AIM features, and all new AIM functions have been implemented in OSCAR. There is a second protocol called TOC, which is a bare bones protocol which has been used by some third party applications, and AOL’s own Java based clients and TiK. TOC supports basic functions like IM, Chat, Buddy List and limited File Transfer. If you are running a current AIM client that supports Smileys, you are running on OSCAR.
b) When a TOC user receives one of the “new smilies” from an OSCAR user nothing special happens. The magic FONT SML codes are sent, but the smiley images are not. Currently I know of no way to ask the TOC server to send those images.
c) When a TOC user sends on of the “new smilies” it appears as a TEXT smiley instead of the “new smiley” or the “default smiley” pictures.

OK, if you have followed so far you are likely saying “So What ? You Haven’t Pointed Out Anything That Can Be Used By Me”

It turns out that the TEXT smiley that you receive can be cut/pasted into a window and it will then turn into the “New Smiley”. What this implies is that an AIMbot could be written using the TOC protocol (much easier than an OSCAR bot, in my opinion) that could be asked to send you smiley codes which you can then cut and paste with ease into other windows. This could be a future direction for the Big Blue Smiler or other folks who want to provide smiley support.

OK, here is the example… try it out and let me know here whether it works for you and what you think of the idea.

1) Send the message “bbb” (without the quotes, case sensitive) to “fuzzface00”. That is one of my screen names, and it is currently running a bot.
2) You should receive two messages back. The first will be a text smiley “:-)”. The second will be the default smiley image.
3) Copy/Paste the text smiley into an IM window to another user. It SHOULD turn into the Bird/Parrot smiley. When you send it, the receiver SHOULD get the Bird/Parrot smiley.
4) Let me know if this works for you. You can post ideas here, ot IM me at FuzzFace000.

Caveats:
a) Both the sender and receiver have to be able to get new smilies. Basically that means you are running a recent AOL-supplied AIM Windows client.
b) If you have the Bird/Parrot smiley loaded as part of an AIM Expression already, it WILL appear in step 2 above. However, you don’t need to cut and paste to send the smiley… you can just access the pull down menu from the loaded expression.
c) This is an experiment, I’m not providing this as a general service yet. Anyway, the font code for one smiley isn’t very useful.