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How can I create a MySpace Message Me button?

I read your article about how to create a nice MySpace "add me" button on my Web site and am wondering, is it possible to create those buttons, but for Message Me and Block Me?


Dave's Answer:

It certainly seems to me that it should be doable, though I'm a bit baffled why you would want to have a nice button for "block me". I mean, do you find that your friends, or, um, former friends, are blocking you that frequently that you'd want a button for that particular task available?

To quote the MySpace help, "Blocked users can still view your profile, but they cannot send you a message or communicate with you. If you do not want them to see your profile, you can adjust your privacy settings." I'll assume you have some reason to make it easy for people to want to block you.

One thing to correct here in the beginning is that the button you want to create is "Block User", not "Block Me", though once you are almost done tweaking the code I'll show shortly, you'll be able to change the label as desired.

The first step, once you've logged in to your MySpace account, is to click on "Profile" in your MySpace Control Panel:

MySpace Control Panel

The next page you see will have a lot of edit boxes, but the link you want is on the top right, the View My Profile link:

MySpace: Profile Edit

Now you should be viewing your profile as someone else would see it, and just below your picture should be a "Contacting" box, like this:

MySpace: Contact Dave Panel

(well, your contact box might not be quite the same as mine. Quite likely it has a white background rather than my fancy profile. The good news is that you can learn how to customize your profile too with the myspace help offered throughout this site)

Just about there. The next step is to right click (or, if you're a Mac user, option-click) on the "Send Message" link and choose Copy Link. The URL you get will look something like this:

http://messaging.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=mail.message&friendID=65108791&
MyToken=965145b3-9e04-467e-8d72-a6a72ed5ab95

You can axe out the junk after "MyToken=", so in fact the trimmed URL looks like this:

http://messaging.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=mail.message&friendID=65108791

While we're here, scribble down or otherwise save your friendID. Mine, as you can see here, is 65108791.

To produce a button like what I showed in my earlier article you need to unwrap the link and make it a little HTML form. Or just let me do the work!

Here's what you need:

<form method="get" action="http://messaging.myspace.com/index.cfm">
  <input type="hidden" name="fuseaction" value="mail.message" />
  <input type="hidden" name="friendID" value="65108791" />
  <input type="submit" value="Message Me!" />
</form>

Simply substitute your own friendID value and paste the modified code onto your Web page, Facebook profile, or whereever else you might like.

Now, back to that Block User link. Turns out that this exact same technique will work fine and the code above is almost exactly what you need. Instead of it invoking "mail.message" as the "fuseaction", however, we need "block.BlockUser":

<form method="get" action="http://messaging.myspace.com/index.cfm">
  <input type="hidden" name="fuseaction" value="block.BlockUser" />
  <input type="hidden" name="friendID" value="65108791" />
  <input type="submit" value="Block Me!" />
</form>

That's all there is to it. Good luck with your tweaks. Curious about the other options? Looks like fuseaction could also be "invite.addfriend_verify", "groups.addtogroup", "mail.forward", "user.addToFavorite" and RateImage.UserRating". Hack away. :-)

Oh, and if you'd like, I invite you to check out my own MySpace profile too.



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Comments

how do u write your about me with the words goin on the side and at the bottom of the picture

Posted by: tyler dantzler at January 20, 2008 12:48 PM

hey,
um, i got your message link,
but how do i get a comment one?

like, ive copied the code for the messgeing and block....
and then i tried the same with the comment thing.
like i placed thee http:// for my add comment
but the value at the bottom,
i couldnt get it.


so could you please send me the code for commenting?
thankyou

tieran
x

Posted by: tieran at January 25, 2008 7:33 AM

I have a lot to say, but ...
Starbucks coffee cup I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!









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