A new Contact Information window is accessible when you right click on a contact in your list or use the "/info" command. This window displays several useful information about a contact: name, raw name (with color codes for example), email, last seen online time, last chat time... you even have a space where you can enter whatever custom information you want to remember about this contact.

Added to that you'll find a list containing the most recent events associated with the contact (status change, name change, etc...) and this window also lets you see and check if the contact has Messenger Plus! installed or not.

You asked for it, here it is! The POP3 E-Mail feature has been improved to display a toast window when you receive new emails... just like Messenger does for Hotmail accounts (even the sound is there)! The toast displays the total count of emails and the number of emails in each account (if applicable). Clicking on the toast opens the associated e-mail client or the web page of your choice.

Many tools exist to give you more options for your message colors. These tools work very well but all have a major flaw: in addition of having to be launched separately, they require that you restart Messenger for the new color to be applied. Messenger Plus! now brings you the ultimate convenience of integrating a custom color changer directly into the default font selection window of MSN Messenger (that you get when you click on the Font button). An Enhanced Color section now replaces the simple default Color section of Messenger. The selected color is applied immediately, you don't even need to reopen the chat! Any color can be selected and you can store up to 16 predefined colors of your choice for quick future access.

Messenger Plus! now has the ability to add entries into the various Messenger popup menus in order to let you access some features more quickly. Personalised Statuses are integrated in the main status menu (the one displayed when you click on your name) and contact/group related features are listed in a new "Messenger Plus! Extras" sub-menu. You can block every contact in a group, change the display name of someone, assign notifications, copy contact e-mails to the clipboard and more!

Popup notifications is one of the new great things Messenger Plus! 2.50 has to offer. You can now individually assign notifications to your contacts to be informed when they go offline, when they change their name or their status. You can chose to be notified either once (if you're waiting for someone to come back online for example) or for ever (you may like to know when any of your contacts goes offline). Notifications are displayed as Messenger Plus! toasts (see screenshot for POP3 feature) and a custom sound can be associated if you really don't want to miss the one you're waiting for :).

Many new commands are available and bad commands are now filtered out by Messenger Plus! (goodbye the "/blcko I@hate.you"). One of the most interesting new commands is "/ping" and it serves many purposes. Firstly, it lets you check if your contact is still there to talk to you (some people have some internet connection problems and Messenger doesn't always notify you when a message is not sent). Secondly, it tells you how much time is required for your contact to receive your message and thirdly, the Ping command lets you check easily if your contact has Messenger Plus! installed (2.50 or above). This information is silently internaly recorded to be reviewed at any time in the Contact Information window (see above).

You may also want to know that a "/pic" command has been added. Use the name (or partial name) of a picture as parameter to quickly change your Display Picture. This is mostly useful in Quick Texts to make combinations, like changing your status and your display picture in one single operation.

Another big new feature that you won't be able to miss: the Scheduler! this feature offers many possibilities. Firstly, it lets you quickly set reminders for important events. Toast popups are displayed when the time is right and a custom program or web link can be be launched when you click on the toast (like www.ebay.com if you want to quickly go bid on something before the auction ends). Secondly, the Scheduler lets you change your status depending on what time it is. As every schedule can be automatically repeated daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, you can add schedules so that, for example, your status is changed to "Away - Sleeping" everyday between 23:00 and 06:00 .