For me, this is a very welcome modification. I don't know when having the member menu enabled, became necessary if you wanted to use the simple messenger on your site, but I didn't like it one bit. In my opinion, the member menu just adds more screen clutter to new generation laptops screens, where vertical space is already at a premium. There's nothing on the member menu that your members can't get to from the main menu.... other than the simple messenger window, that is. The majority of today's see more laptop screens are a wide screen format, and websites need to make efficient use of vertical space. I wanted the simple messenger, but I couldn't stand the thought of having the member menu constantly cluttering up the screen for every single member.

This small, but clever mod by AndreyP, allows me to use the simple messenger on my site, without having to clutter up the screen with that huge member menu. This adds an unobtrusive button on the left side of the screen, where you can access the messenger in the same way as you can on the member menu. The button will change color when someone messages you.

If you don't like the look of the button, don't worry.... you can change everything about it in css to match your custom templates. You can make the button text smaller, change colors, make the entire button smaller, give it less opacity so it's less obvious... anything you want to do. The space on the sides of the screen is unused anyway, so this is a great place to put something like this. Boonex probably should have done the entire member menu this way, so that it slides out from the side, but until they do, this is a good solution for those that want the simple messenger, but do not want to use the member menu.

Nice work Andrey!