Protocols/MSNP/Activities

MSNP Protocol

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MSNC

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Scenarios

Microsoft Messenger for Mac

MSNP on WebTV (MSNTV)

Here is some information on the inner workings of MSN Messenger Activities.

How it works

The MsgrConfig XML that is retrieved from the Escargot server contains 3 Activity-related URLs:

<AppDirConfig>
  <AppDirPageURL>
    http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com/AppDirectory/Directory.aspx?L=en-us
  </AppDirPageURL>
  <AppDirSeviceURL>
    http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com/AppDirectory/AppDirectory.asmx
  </AppDirSeviceURL>
  <AppDirVersionURL>
    http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com/AppDirectory/GetAppdirVersion.aspx
  </AppDirVersionURL>
</AppDirConfig>

The App Directory Service is a SOAP service. It’s mainly used for loading Activity info and starting with MSN 7.0, loading featured Activities. Along with that, its WSDL (the XML interface definition XML that describes the SOAP service’s requests and responses) is available to read at this archived link from the Wayback Machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050311202052id_/http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com:80/AppDirectory/AppDirectory.asmx?WSDL

There is also some information regarding the Entry node defined by the WSDL here: http://web.archive.org/web/20110424131207/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa751073.aspx

Here’s part of the Activity documentation from the “Windows Live Messenger Activity SDK” MSDN page: http://web.archive.org/web/20110905024714/http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa751024.aspx

The SDK itself is available here, archived on the Wayback Machine too: http://web.archive.org/web/20051104052000/http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/c/3/2c300000-e774-4e80-9682-9a01109fd309/messengerActivitySDK.zip

The App Directory

MSN 6

The App Directory page (The pane that was loaded when you clicked on the “Activities” button in 6.0 - 6.2) is archived on the Wayback Machine as well: http://web.archive.org/web/20051220110746id_/http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com:80/AppDirectory/Directory.aspx?L=en-us

Speaking of which, it needs 5 images it uses for its layout:

• http://web.archive.org/web/20051220110746id_/http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com:80/AppDirectory/images/spacer.gif
• http://web.archive.org/web/20051220110746id_/http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com:80/AppDirectory/images/icon_star.png
• http://web.archive.org/web/20051220110746id_/http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com:80/AppDirectory/images/defentry.png
• http://web.archive.org/web/20051220110746id_/http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com:80/AppDirectory/images/icon_arrow.png
• http://web.archive.org/web/20051220110746id_/http://appdirectory.messenger.msn.com:80/AppDirectory/images/defentry.png

Our understanding of how this page worked is when a user clicked on the “Activities” menu:

1. Because the Activities menu is actually an HTML page, a JavaScript function would transmit the Activity ID to MSN Messenger (via window.external).
2. MSN Messenger would query the App Directory SOAP Service using the GetAppEntry method with the requested Activity ID as a par