LJ.. I sent you a message about that earlier today.

Yes, that's the file you need to change, particularly the (send_to) input.

-Carlos

I'm looking at the following code:

  foreach($vars['friends'] as $friend){
                      
                    //populate the send to box with a user's friends
                    echo "<option value='{$friend->guid}'>" . $friend->name . "</option>";
                       
                }

Somehow, I need to change the friend variable to a 'user' variable.  Do I need to create that, or is there a built-in one I can use?

Hi Long John,

As you can see, the $friend is populated by iterating over an array that's passed in as $vars['friends']. The elgg framework usually populates the $vars associative array, so you would need to find out what is being passed in $vars['friends']. 

Trace the code upwards and figure it out.

If it's a view, you will have to override the view.

FINALLY figured it out.  Here's the solution (edit /mod/messages/views/default/messages/forms/message.php):

                //make the first option blank
                echo "<option value=''></option>";

//The following returns the 25 newest members; the number can be changed

        $users = get_entities('user', '', 0, '', 25, 0, false, 0, null);
                foreach($users as $user){
                      
                    //populate the send to box with a user's friends the members of the site :)
                    echo "<option value='{$user->guid}'>" . $user->name . "</option>";
                       
                }

In case anyone stumples upon this like I did: I just made a simple Elgg 1.8 plugin out of these ideas. (the code above seems like for Elgg 1.7 (?)