Buddylist Picture Issue...... Again

Hi,

If there is a similar post regarding this issue, I have searched via google and across this site and haven seen much except

http://drupal.org/node/164712#comment-796371

Only question I have is, say for instance you want to have buddylist output to a block with pictures, the code below (should???)/would do that.

function phptemplate_buddylist($buddies) {
  //return theme('user_list', $buddies);
  return "X";
}

Except I haven't the faintest clue what X is and how to limit the number of pictures that are outputted.

Can anyone help? A bit critical.

Thanks.

Kahenya