Contact Alerts for Skype App Reviews

APP is bugging … Support is bugging 2,39 euros for Nothing ….

Just installed this and it works as promoted. Tested it and it gave a pop-up notification when a certain user logged in, one of a few that I had specified to be notified about. One issue that should be fixed: I checked the box to tell this program to launch automatically when I start up my computer. However this program takes just a second to launch, BUT skype (which is also in my launch-automatically list) takes a long time to launch. So, what happened when I logged in? This contact-alerts program launched immediately and gave an error message "unable to connect to skype." Because skype had not launched yet. therefore, every time I start up my computer, I have to launch this program manually after skype has finished launching. I can imagine a short-term partial fix and a long-term real fix: -- short term: please make it so that the error message alert does not simply have a "QUIT" button on it, but instead has a button that basically says "Try again now." That way the user can just wait 10 seconds until skype launches, and then click that button. -- another short term fix -- simply have a preferences configuration option to tell this program to wait XXX seconds before truly running and trying to connect to skype. That would then make it launch correctly when the computer starts up. -- long term fix -- have the thing intelligently figure out that skype is not "available" but however is trying to launch, and therefore have it wait 15 seconds and try again itself. anyway -- good program with that one flaw. thx

The idea that I dont have to be on Skype and I can know when my sister (who lives in Italy) comes on sounded great, but as it turns out this app is just so basic its disappointing. $3.99 is VERY expensive in the App world, and to realize you get NO options and features makes me really upset I purchased this at all. There are the problems mentioned by another user, such as the fact that Skype takes a while to start, which makes this app send you an error message and it doesnt re-try to connect on its own once Skype has started. For myself I didnt realize that Skype had to be on 24/7 for this to serve any purpose at all. I dont know to use power and space having Skype on AT ALL TIMES, and I just assumed that it could do the job while having Skype off or at least "dormant." But now I see that I basically have to have the app on for the rest of my life for this to serve any purpose. It doesnt seem either like the developers take suggestions and work on them, because the same problem the other user mentioned are still there. This isnt worth 4 bucks, dont buy it!

i bought it yesterday,now i am spending half an hour try to get refund, still, apple wouldnt let me report a problem, it is very frastrusting.

This app dod not work for me either, but I changed a few things and now it seems to work. Question: Does it use the Growl Framework? Reason I ask is Im on Lion, and the latest Skype does not work with the older Growl Framework. You need to upgrade to Growl 1.3.x and upgrade the framework for Skyp as well. See the Growl website for details. After I did all of that then this app started working. But not enough visual notification for me: Changing the menu icon, bouncing an icon in the dock, etc. would be more useful to me.

I have several hundred Skype contacts and use Skype all day for IM and phone. Its very useful to me to know when some contacts become available, but its extremely annoying to be notified about online presence when I dont care. Contact-specific online presence notification _should_ be built into Skype, but in its absence this app, though far from perfect, does that job. Ive used it for just a week with both Skype 5.3 and 5.5 and it works fine, once I got it going. First, it uses the Skype Desktop API, so Skype must be running when Contact Alerts starts and stay running. It would be great if Contact Alerts were sophisticated enough to access your account without a Skype client running, but that would require a very different piece of software. The first time Contact Alerts is run, Skype will ask your permission for it to access your data and register it with the API. Unfortunately, this permissions window is not in front and hidden by Contact Alerts, so youll have to move Contact Alerts aside to see it. If you dont explicitly grant permission, Contact Alerts wont work. In its preferences, Contact Alerts offers to load on startup. While this would normally be a good thing, it doesnt register its Skype client requirement with the OS, so it loads before the Skype Client and then complains that the client isnt loaded until the Client loads. As someone who will often spend $10-15 for a special purpose app that saves me a few minutes here and there, the price of Contact Alerts doesnt bother me at all. Note to the developers: Optional Growl integration would be a very welcome addition, and a short FAQ on your product support page addressing some of the limitations might help make people happier with the product.

I also have a large number of Skype and Facebook contacts, and the built-in Skype notifications are excessive when Im only interested in being alerted for a handful of contacts. With Skype 5.7, Contact Alerts works well and the Growl integration makes it a useful tool for keeping in touch without getting in the way. The only caveat Id say is that the Skype API permissions dialog can get lost the first time the app is started - it took me a moment to find the permissions window in the background. Im not sure if this is something the developer could look at?

I have been frustrated with Skype for years, having hundreds of contacts, but only wanting to get notifications for about 15 of them when they come online. This solves that problem. It could be more elegant in how it delivers notifications. One feature that is nice is "close all" so that when you have been away for awhile, you can close them all at once.

Version 1.0.6 of Contact Alerts for Skype seems to have resolved all of the issues. Most importantly, the "About" window now has a link to "Email the Developer". Contact Alerts For Skype works at least as good as Skype does. Of course, it cant do any better than that. I would say that if you turn on Skype notifications, and get the notifications you expect, and more, that Contact Alerts for Skype will give you the same notifications, or less, if you desire. One semi-obvious usage tip: Contact Alerts for Skype is somewhat independent of Skype. If you are using Contact Alerts for Skype, in Skype > Preferences > Notifications > Details, you switch off "when contact becomes available". Otherwise youre defeating the purpose ;O

I had to update my Skype and it works fine

I am disappointed, because I didnt realize Skype needs to be running. That was my whole purpose for buying this—to not have to have Skype running constantly, just to see if someone had pinged me.

This app hasn’t been updated in years.