Would it be too much to ask for IM protocols to support positive confirmation that a message has been receieved? It’s a two-way communication, so it shouldn’t be that hard. It wouldn’t even necessarily have to add much overhead or delay. After every X number of bytes receievd or Y minutes, each client could send an ACK message to the other with the IDs of the messages it has receieved and maybe a checksum. Messages that you type would initially be displayed in a “pending” color, and would only be changed to a “receieved” color once positive confirmation was received. This is not rocket science. With this simple feature, there would be no more tedious “are you receiving me?” exchanges.

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4 Comments

  1. ICQ had (or has) a fature like this, though ICQ is abysmally slow and junkier then aim or other popular IM programs. At least in my experience.

  2. that sounded to complicated, but it would be a nice feature, like right waiting to hear back from someone i am iming, to responed, wondering if i need to open a new connection.

    1. It’s less complicated than it sounds. Trust me, I do this for a living. The fact that all IM clients don’t do this automatically is pathetic. If I had more time…. *sigh*

      1. Hmm… Hey! Stella “fixed” the mouse, and she says Dudley has a trackball he doesn’t use and she’s going to see if he’ll give it up to us. Apparently Dudley doesn’t like trackballs. She says it’s only a couple years old.

        blah blah blah yadda yadda blah blah

        feeling a little gibbery today.

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