Computersight -

In the new release of Live Messenger (version 2009) the sharing of images has undergone some changes.In the previous version of Messenger you could send images by one of the following ways:

• Choose to send a file and browse for your image.
• Copy the image to your clipboard and paste it in the input field (either by explicitly choosing copy in Windows explorer, by pressing the print screen button or just dragging a bunch of images into the input field)

Both of these ways would initiate a file transfer to your contact.

So What’s The Problem?

In the new 2009 version of Messenger PhotoShare was introduced.
You can initiate a transfer of an image in the same ways as you did with the older version of Messenger but after that is when the annoyance begins.

The most obvious aggravation is that the photo view area occupies.., no.. lets say that differently, leaves you with only 2 lines of message history.

Enlarge your message window you say?

Still 2 lines.

And the possibly most annoying thing about this is that if the photo is a large one, you can’t even view it full size, unless you maximize your Messenger window. The only solution to viewing photos full size is pressing the small floppy icon,browse to where you want to save your image, then go there with windows explorer and opening the image in the image viewer if your choice.
Quite a tedious task just to be able to view an image in full size.

Another problem is that you can’t stop sharing single photos.
Either you need to leave all the photos shared or you need to unshare them all.

That is the only option you have when right clicking a photo you shared. (’Foto opslaan’ means ‘Save photo’)

Then something that has bothered me for quite a while (even in the previous versions of Messenger), you can’t share images in a multi conversation.

How Can This Be Fixed?

First, get rid of that lousy way to view images in “full size”.
Replace it with how it was done in the old version of Messenger.
Double click means open in my preferred image viewer. This way I can easily see every detail of the screenshot my buddy just made and it won’t take me as long to fix his problem or check out his new purple.
Or at least give people the option to choose between the current way and the standard image viewer.

Then the removal of shared photos. This should be an easy fix, just add an option in the right click menu of the images in the thumbnail strip.

So for a complete run through of what should happen:

1. I choose to share a photo (same way as it is being done now, see the 3 possibilities explained at the beginning)
2. Me and my contact(s)[Multi chat!] see a message in the chat log that I started sharing some images and a small icon appears on which they can click to show the thumbnail strip (the bar with the small previews of images).
3. I can then right click on one on the thumbnails to stop sharing that particular image. (Maybe include an option for selecting multiple thumbnails and stop sharing the corresponding images?)
4. My contact(s) can then double click those thumbnails and the image will open in their preferred image viewer.

The uploading if images should preferably be like this:

I upload the images once to Microsoft’s servers and my contacts can then download the images from there, saving me bandwidth.
But I might be pushing my luck there