Hello people!

first of all... sorry!!!!!!!! I know, I'm not a real help to this forum but I'm busy with so many things... anyway, I wanted to let you know that I'm still alive and that I still want to develop a version 2.0 of Messenger Plus! ... some tiem ago I received a well formated documents with the most popular suggestions... added to that, I want to add scripting..... that will ne grrrreat! keep in touch....

Patchou.

Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou !Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou ! Patchou !  OMG !!!!

Finally !!!! u are still alive !!!!
Thanks god !!!

We are hoping to have a version 2.0 soon

Damn, I almost die when I have seen "patchou"

Can´t think on anything else to type 
Maybe later...

My goodness....atlast....

Hi Patchou... u've done a great job..Thanks a lot.. 

I don't believe it... Patchou has returned after all this time... I dunno what to say...

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Originally posted by WDZ


I don't believe it... Patchou has returned after all this time... I dunno what to say...

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Hey, Patchou, have you seen the suggestion list? You can add that stuff to Plus, if you want...

http://shoutbox.menthix.net/suggestions.php

Don't get to pushy DZ, he has only just came back.


Although he says he is alive, he must have died and come back so let him get teh blood flowign through the viens again

yippie i can b happy again    

glad you see you're alive Patchou 

Wow, I'm not worthy of so much praise! Thanks a lot  ... most of all, big thanks to Muss, WDZ, Chrono and Jae for still being here and still supporting Messenger Plus!.... be sure that all your past suggestions have not been lost... I'll go take a good look in the suggestion forum as soon as I start the real work.... hopefully... this week.... yahoo!

Yahoo....?   I thought MSN..   Just kidding patchou

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Originally posted by shine
Yahoo....?   I thought MSN..   Just kidding patchou

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Hez still making fun of us! Guys I say he won't do a thing! kinda sucks you see, I visited this site for more then 100 times by now.... Nothing new and there won't ever be! Patchou is just patching us again!

Besides its his words "I'm not worthy of so much praise!"

Haaa oxtie.... well, I'm sorry if I had to live for the past monthes ... yes, I'm going to start developing Plus! again, and you want to know why? the main reason is that I have a lot of personal problems for a couple of monthes now and I'm searching for something to do to change my mind... programming is a very good thing.. I reinstalled Windows XP this WE, along with Visual Studio and I tried Messenger 5. This week I'm gonna go in File\New\Project and enter "Messenger Plus! 2.0"... it will be a whole new program made from scratch.

Hope you'll enjoy it when it will be released.

-hi !
-coooool !!!
-thank u come again      

oxtie Patchou doesn't have to explain anything to you or anyone else.  He has the right to have a life too.  He doesn't get paid to make this program he does it because he wants to. 

Wow...

Bow to patchou

Really great to hear from you again... kinda speechless....

Ok... read the topic fully now...

1st.. Patchou, altough i still visit here from time to time... i ain't officially giving support here on the forum. I'm not a admin/moderator anymore, just a normal member.... i stopped being a admin here on the foorum because i wanted todo other things, which is not meaning i don't like Plus! anymore.
More info: http://shoutbox.menthix.net/viewthread.php?tid=355

2nd.. v2.0... yeah.... can say nothing but goodieness about that

3rd.. scripting... , do you still have those documents about scripting we send you like 4 months ago??

4.. building it from scratch.... sound like a good thing todo, but please be sure to keep all the good old features in it
Owww... and make it compitable with MSN 5.x (just browsed over a dutch site where they discussed MSN 5.0 beta... more then 20 people asked why Plus! didn't work )

5... adding new features... great (especialy my personal favourite... scripting!) but when yur gonna build from scratch... get the old features back first/ MSN5 compitible after that... new features are very welcome
( http://shoutbox.menthix.net/suggestions.php )

Oxtie....
- Patchou has the right to make fun of you.
- Patchou has the right to not do a thing.
- Patchou has the right to kinda suck
- Patchou has the right to make nothing new.
- Patchou has the right to kick your ass
You don't like it?? Fine, buy the right to criticize him... Pay Patchou $20,000 (just like SmarterChild did) and he will make a special new version, just for you
Wut!? you don't have $20,000... hmmm... in that case, be patient, remember, Plus! is free, it's a gift


Ok, enough talking.... welcome back Patchou!

BTW: When Plus! gets devoped again... i'll be happy to betatest.
And when a new version gets released (read: forum starts getting crowded again) i might come back here to be moderator/admin again and give tech support, ideas and stuff

quote:

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Originally posted by Patchou
Wow, I'm not worthy of so much praise! Thanks a lot  ... most of all, big thanks to Muss, WDZ, Chrono and Jae for still being here and still supporting Messenger Plus

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Originally posted by Patchou
I'm going to start developing Plus! again

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it will be a whole new program made from scratch

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Originally posted by Johnny_Mac
Not forgetting your new mod, obviously.

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TO EVERYONE THAT DOUBTED: Johnny_Mac told you never to give up hope. 

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dont pester Patchou to something... Its his wish, his time, his effort... leave him alone and wish him the best.... Only thing at the moment we can give  is that..... and may be our suggestions too.... its his choice to incorporate it. Got it Oxtie.

Hes not making fun of us.. Atleast i think they have already developed the design for 2.00.. sholin may have posted it just to create interest. (BTW there were some negative posts in the forum recently)

So give patchou his time... let him do whatever he want. We dont have the right to bother him.

quote:

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Originally posted by Patchou
Wow, I'm not worthy of so much praise! Thanks a lot  ... most of all, big thanks to Muss, WDZ, Chrono and Jae ...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Muss

*ChroMo post*

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Well Chrono, if you want it, how could I ignore your wish? ... in fact, yes, I plan to add multi-language support in MP 2.0, but I think it won't be public.. what I mean is that you'll have to contact me, I'll send you some files to translate and then I'll integrate it in the software myself. In any case, I promise, it will be there in the new version.

quote:

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Originally posted by Patchou
Well Chrono, if you want it, how could I ignore your wish? ... in fact, yes, I plan to add multi-language support in MP 2.0, but I think it won't be public.. what I mean is that you'll have to contact me, I'll send you some files to translate and then I'll integrate it in the software myself. In any case, I promise, it will be there in the new version.

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* Chrono would enjoy a spanish messenger Plus! version

* Menthix want's todo a translation to dutch... but patchou, i forgot yur adress

(i sended a private message to you)

Happy to see that you're still here Jae. The document you sent me some monthes ago is very helpful to me. I already started to code the new version and I already added the multi-lungual support. Basically, all you'll have to do is request the file to translate, it's like a big txt file... when it's done, you send it back to me and it's part of the software! of course, we won't do that before the final version is ready to be released, you don't want to translate the same stuff again and again right? ... also, when you versions will be released, I'll send you only the differences between the two versions so that you don't have to translate it again.

Just a proof that I'm working.... It's now working in Messenger 5 .

Have a good WE... mine will be entirely devoted to MP2.

Coool .... Getting exited     

Cool.

Patchou... they is already a Crack out to remove the ad banner at the bottom of the Msg Window on version 5...

It does crack the messenger exe file, so I dont suggest you add it, but if you want to look at it (dont know how) or use it.

It only works with this version of what I know of:

Download MSN Messenger 5

Download Ad Banner Remover for MSN 5

Scrrenshot to prove it works:



Johnny.

Thanks for the link, however, don't worry, removing the banner is trivial, I just didn't added the code back in MP2. Note: if someone as the time to create a poll for this forum, I would really appreciate it... it would be to ask people what feature they like most and what feature they would prefer to see improved.

Thanks!
PS: I would post some other screenshots but... I gotta keep some surprizes right?

quote:

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Originally posted by Patchou
Note: if someone as the time to create a poll for this forum, I would really appreciate it... it would be to ask people what feature they like most and what feature they would prefer to see improved.

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WDZ make a poll in a section anyone can vote in and dont have to sign up to be members more results then wider range

Yeah, I know... the results will be better if guests can vote. I'll have to make sure that they can't vote multiple times too.

I'm about 1/4 of the way done with the poll script now...

Thanks a lot! for the features that people would like to see, put anything you have seen regulary in the past monthes on the Suggestion section, along with what you have in mind yourself. I promize that: any feature requested by a lot of people will be in MP2... of course... it has to be doable

Oh, I thought you wanted the current features of Plus as poll options. Let me get this straight... you want a list of suggested features and a list of existing features that need to be improved?

I've already got a rating system on the suggestion list... you can see how many stars there are and hover over the stars to see the number of votes. http://shoutbox.menthix.net/suggestions.php?

Anyway, I guess I'll make a list of the most wanted features and put them on the poll. I'll do it tomorrow because I'm too tired now...

maybe i can make a complete french translation of messenger plus!

Misterjad, that is great. I added you to a list i'm creating. It contains the names and emailadresses of people, and the language the can translate Plus! into.
When more details about translating Plus! come availible, you will be mailed.

WDZ, if you can, make the poll so that users can choose more then one thing.
I think that when users could choose their top three of things they want would be the best. (and maybe, when your counting votes of their top three... count their most wanted thing tripple, the second most wanted thing double, the 3rd just once )
I think you can add most of the things from the suggestion list into it except from the really minor thingies and bugs, because that will most likely already be fixed in 2.0 And ofcourse scripting an multi-language aren't needed in the list because they are already comfirmed.
And everybody should be able to vote... then me can make it to the mess.be and msnfanatic.com frontpages, and lots of votes are garanteed  (poor ZeonHost server )

Thanks for your efforts, the poll is great. I'll check the results in about a weeks. Could you add a counter on the page that shows the total number of user that voted?

Again, thx,
Patchou

hum
will it be some beta releases like, hum, every sundays evening (in france it's 20h35) for some beta testers???

Hmmm..... you mean like some kind of dump every day... so people can see Patchou's progress?

Sound funny... but you'll get dumps which are very unstable, and might in some cases not even startup..... but interesting tough, i would wanna see that every day.. i'm bored anyway

But i guess that if Patchou does that, it will be to a very small group of trusted people

Patchou, Patchou, Patchou.... make me hapy

Releasing beta copies to a timetable almost guarantees they will be broken and also hampers progress because he would have to fix things on Sunday, whereas when developing its often a lot better break things in the short term to get them working better in the long term.

Also they probably wouldn't be around for a while - programming takes time.

Having said that I would love to get some weekly (or whenever the program feels like releasing itself) betas to try.

ME would like that to

Patchou said he wants to "keep some surprises" so he probably won't make those weekly releases... we could keep track of all the progress he makes...

quote:

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Originally posted by Misterjad
maybe i can make a complete french translation of messenger plus! 

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yeah i know that, but in the last release just the head menu and the ad were traduce and the other things were in english so as patchou is developing plus! in english, i'll traduce it in frenc

Plus! was only avaliable in english, the new multi language thing will be new to MP2.00.

I assume as Patchou writes the thing, as french is his tounge language he'll just do it straight off. Saving time n all.

No, the partial French translation already existed... Patchou did that, but you wont noticed if you're not french.

Well, yes, in Messenger Plus! currently, if you have Messenger french installed your menus are in french, but that's all. As I said, the new version will (in fact, it already does  ) support multi language. Concerning the french translation.... I'm a little lazy so I suppose I will ask someone to do it for me ... when you program, you are used to do it in english, event the comments in the code are in english.

I'll release an alpha version of MP2 as soon as I feel it's good enough for you to see it. The Alpha program will be available only to a small group of people who I know will make a difference. When we're sure that the new version has everything we want in it, that the scripting feature is poweful enough, etc... I'll release a public beta version which will be freely redistributable and which will expire after some time. I just want to be sure I'm not forced to released too many "patch-releases" after the official release of 2.00 as it would bother most of the people.

By the way, maybe you'll be interested to know that except for the first installation, subsequent installations of MP2 won't require a reboot. I've worked a lot on this with the Interactive Agent plugin so there is no reason why I wouldn't include that capability in MP.

Concerning scripting now... I'm doing a lot of research today about it. I'm still wondering how I'm going to allow scripts to change the program, what kind of thing I should offer, etc... for example, I saw that neither VBScript or JScript are capable of calling API functions... I've found some stuff on the internet to do it (aka DynaWrap, if you know about it...) but the fact is that even if it's good for some method calls, it's not really interesting to make all kind of tricks just to be able to create and manipulate windows.... so... well.... I don't know... that's the big dilema: if the script capability is weak, nobody will wan't to use it; if I add complicated stuff, then most of the people won't understand how to use it.

Let me know what you think about it.... are you all familiar with window procedures, message loops, etc...? how would you create a window in VBScript if you had to?

Patchou.

In fact, I'm really wondering this: is it better to concentrate on scripts even if it's not very friendly to use at the end or should I forget about the scripting feature and make a new version of Messenger Plus! with most of the stuff I see in the Suggestion page of this forum.... I definitively need your input on this, that's a damn important question. Again, my main problem is the limitations of scripting languages when we want to create windows, modify windows, create bitmaps, etc etc...

Patchou.

Well, what if you do all the advanced features yourself, in C++, then have scripting as just an extra feature that people can use to make simple stuff?

quote:

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Originally posted by Patchou
I already added the multi-lungual support. Basically, all you'll have to do is request the file to translate, it's like a big txt file... when it's done, you send it back to me and it's part of the software!

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Well, might be more work for you but is a suggestion, you could release two versions.

One with the scripting, and one with just the basic features. That way the people who wouldn't understand how the scripting would work can get the basic version, and the others can get the one with scripting enabled

hmmmmmm ... i guess i should also follow the pack and say welcome back *waves* ... 

The 2 releases idea sounds alright... I dont know how confusing that might get for some people...

How about make an add-in to MP!2.00? The add-in could be the scripting thing...

so you have the basic package (the new messenger plus!) and then download add-ins, hence the scripting... therefore only advanced people will download and use it.

Could be and Optional Installation

Scripting should NOT be optional in anyway - it defeats the whole point of doing scripting and moving many functions of Plus! into script. Either have script or don't, but just as a program wide decision.

To create a script in VBScript or JScript that uses a GUI you would need create your own GUI COM object that supplies all the methods you want - calling the Windows API doesn't work too well, and creating a message loop would make most people give up and shoot themselves.

One solution I have used before is to supply a COM object with the necessary functionality to create a window object that is actually an instance of IE's HTML object. This way you can use CSS, DHTML and HTML as the GUI, which is pretty much all powerful, and users can apply their own styles, which always looks nice.


//Sample of how to display a dialog
var NewWindow = Patchou.CreateWindow(100, 200); //100px by 200px
NewWindow.Write("<html><body>MSN Plus! Dialog box</body></html>");


The other way is to completely encapsultate all the window functionality you need in a COM object, or find one that has this already done this (I know the Forms 2 library with Office has already done this, but I think you can only access it from Office).

Maybe the middle ground is too have a C++/C binding for MP, and have it look for all dll files in some directory on startup or when you press "find new plugins". From this you could then write a script plugin, just as a C++ plugin, and leave the GUI decisions for later.

Then again you could give up on scripting as just too hard - depends how much you like playing with COM really.

Well ginge, personally I really love COM, I'm just thinking about all the others . There's a big difference between telling people that they can do scritps and telling people that for most stuff they'll have to create COM objects. Also, I disagree with the idea of two different versions, it would make scripts useless for most people.

I hope there will be a mximum number of posts today about this matter, I can't develop anything until we've decided somthing final on this important question. Also, I think that some of you didn't understood the problem correctly.... my firs goal was to move most of my built-in features (QuickTexts, loggin, different text transformations, etc...) into scripts. Now that I see the limitations, I'm not sure I want to do that anymore. Of course, I could do as ginge says and create COM objects (for those who do not know really what it means... it's ActiveX, or any kind of object you generally use in VB). If I do that, however, the script will contain pratically nothing except for an object creation and a mthod call, as all the code will be encapsulated in the COM object itself. So... what's the point? If I do that, I'd better expose com COM interfaces directly so that people can interact with them using VB, as they already do with Messenger itself.

Waiting for your posts and ideas,
Patchou.

Well speakin from a non computer techie brain as myself i figure you will all make the best decisions you can for the forum ... i have no suggestions really so i shall just leave it at that but im sure like i said above you will all come to some reasonable setup ... i will just sit back and watch it happen ... good luck deciding on a solution to make this forum the best it can be :thedevil: ...  i really shouldn't b up so damn late ... i am actually starting to make sense lol ... well i am to me making sense lol

As far as I understood, ginge is proposing something like the header files in C++, so that users could use it to have custom GUI's etsc.....(So far I have not gone throughly into  the COM-scripting and cannot comment on that.) And ginge's Idea (if my undestanding is right) is acceptable. Otherwise as he said most of the users will get fed up ultimately.

But sure,  many are going to share their successful scripts, and it could work for even those who are beginners. (BTW could arise many a bug reports due to conflicts in shared scripts ) So if its going to be some kind of library files (like i said above)  its would be pretty easy.

But as Patchou said there will be less flexibility for scripting if you do the above. We sould also keep in mind that most users of plus are not literate in scripts.

The program could have a scripting option, with a choice for the user to install and/or enable (By default disabled)

If scripting is just a way of opening the power of Plus! up to the more advanced users then why not just make it open source? (possibly to a small group of people - there aren't that many who can actually do C++) This would also give you people submitting patches and enhancements with code (alright, that's not really true, but it is possible )

Otherwise I think you run the risk of completely duplicating the existing MSN object model, but in a harder to use way, Plus! should just be an MSN addon, not a programming environment.

There are a few advantages to scripting, but not enough to outweigh the pain and number of complaints/questions about it.

The other factor is stability, I use Plus! on a server that runs 10 weeks at a time, if someone contributes a script that starts to leak resources then resource managers will just see Plus! as the culprit.

The final point is virus's, when someone writes a Plus! virus, people will blame you (wrongly, but hey, thats life). Not everyone who uses MSN seems to be nice (a worryingly large number seem to be pure evil... )

When I said you would have to like COM I just meant that COM in C++ never made sense to me (I use VB if I need COM) but you would need lots of it, for VBScript and JScript it is simple. All a VB/Jscript ever does is create an manipulate COM objects - that's all they can do, but that's all a VB program does also.

As i don't understand things like COM etc. i can't go into a real technical discussion, i'm not a coder. But let's see what i can add tho this...

I guess we'll have to look to what scripting supposed to be in the first place. Sure it's ment for the some more advanced user which are smart enough to learn some basic programming, but where do you draw the line? If people would be able to do highly advanced things... then why would they not program their own add-on their selves?

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Plus! should just be an MSN addon, not a programming environment.

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do all the advanced features yourself, in C++, then have scripting as just an extra feature that people can use to make simple stuff

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Jae ... Chrono17@hotmail... Spanish

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I suppose I'm begnning to have a better idea of what I'm going to, thanks to your posts. As Jae and Ginge said, if the script was to give real advanecd features, then why use Plus!... just do your own addon!

So, here is the idea I have now... there will be script capabilities but they will be limited to whatever I decide to offer... during beta testing you'll have to tell me what you think I should add etc... for now, I'm just thinking about basic stuff, like giving an entry point everytime some text is received or everytime that a text is sent. When text is *sent*, I'll give the ability to modify the text to whatever you want.

We shall see then.... I'll continue my work in C++ from now on. Scripting will be an additional feature, as many other.

Patchou

I think yur right, having a simple scripting engine is probaly the best.

You won't dissapoint people to much with that.
And on the other hand the normal Plus! features will not be f**cked up because your focusing on scripting.


Nice

Patchou, I just BEG you: Do NOT turn Messenger Plus into bloatware. Please. I hate programs like Winamp 3 and Windows XP because of that. I'd like to have a fast program.

Mozilla has an XML-based user interface in order to make it easier to port and, still, it has a [somewhat ] acceptable speed. Messenger Plus is only an add-on to Messenger. I trust you on this.

Speed issues concern me a lot too... heover I have a Pentium III so I'll wait for the result of the beta tests to know if MP slows down your computer.... normally, with scripting disabled, the new version of Messenger Plus! should even be a little faster. Enabling scripting won't slow down the system by itself, however, your scripts might so be careful

By the way, I've added a page on my web site so that you can be aware of the progresses in the developement of MP2.... if you're interested... http://www.patchou.com/msgplus/mp2.htm

Patchou... on your progress page you say can’t complete (or whatever) until official release from Microsoft of MSN 5.

Don't know if you know this or not, but the rumoured date is October 24th for MSN 5.

Just in case you cared.

Nice, page bookmarked.
But be sure to keep some suprises for us on release, don't tell every new feature already.

Well, Sholin just told me about the release date... I just hope that the API documentation will be released the same day because that's what I need . Anyway, the code will be ready so it will be a one night work for full Messenger 5 compatibility.

Concerning surprises... well, I don't know... you could not go on the page lol. The only real surprise will be to see if X or Y feature is now available because in most cases, all the possible new features are listed in the Suggestion page.

Patchou.

give the option of advanced or basic scripting a tick box or one version with one with out. Please

Uhh... you mean, give it a option to disable scripting?

I think Patchou was already planning that... almost anything in Plus is optional.
Wich is good, becaus if you like it or not, scripting will allow users to create their own thing... some users just do create evil thing... you can't  stop that... but you can stop those evil scripts from executing on your pc if it's optionally

But please, not two seperate versions of Plus or any.

As i know nothing about VBscript... can someone tell me, how damaging scripts can be to your computer? For example, someone sends yu a script "hey try this one, its cool!" and you load it onto messenger, and god knows what... would something like that be possible? or not?

Hey Patchou! im glad to see that your back, but there is ONE thing i request of you, EASTER EGGS!!! hehe, who knows, just keep up the great work, and please dont release it before it should be released, which im sure you will do! ya, about the scripting, its your choice, i really dont think that scripting would be too usefull at all!

Another thing, Ginge, you think you will be up to another chat log reader, or a modification, if its kept the same, and there is no reader?

thanks!
Gergith!

I've seen that reader, it's really a nice work and it's funny because my first public software was a log viewer for IRC logs. Anyway, for scripting, yes it will be an option (I suppose, disabled by default so you don't have to worry) and no there won't be two different versions of MP2. However, for the scripting dependies (the Windows Scripting Host), I still don't know what to do... do you think I should install it everytime on any system (it won't damage your system.. it will just update it so it's good for security, my concern is that the package is 750Kb) or should I put is as an install option? if it'S an install option, the problem is that you won't be able to enable scripting after install or you will have to go and download the package by yourself on Microsoft web site.. I could jsut give the link... well, tell me what you think.

Concerning the fact that "almost" everything is an option in Plus!, be happy, in the new version you can say that "everything" is an option

quote:

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Originally posted by Patchou
Concerning the fact that "almost" everything is an option in Plus!, be happy, in the new version you can say that "everything" is an option

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Patchou, about the progress thing, wouldn't it be better to have it here on the board

Werent' you getting too much traffic through your site as it was, with that on there alot more people will go there 

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Originally posted by Patchou
However, for the scripting dependies (the Windows Scripting Host), I still don't know what to do... do you think I should install it everytime on any system (it won't damage your system.. it will just update it so it's good for security, my concern is that the package is 750Kb) or should I put is as an install option? if it'S an install option, the problem is that you won't be able to enable scripting after install or you will have to go and download the package by yourself on Microsoft web site.. I could jsut give the link... well, tell me what you think.

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Originally posted by Johnny_Mac
As i know nothing about VBscript... can someone tell me, how damaging scripts can be to your computer? For example, someone sends yu a script "hey try this one, its cool!" and you load it onto messenger, and god knows what... would something like that be possible? or not?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Patchou
do you think I should install it everytime on any system (it won't damage your system.. it will just update it so it's good for security, my concern is that the package is 750Kb)

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Someone want to make an official comment on what me and shine said? Or is this an issue not worth worrying about?

The same riscs are also the when people are just excuting VBsript thereselves whitout Plus. So there won't be more riscs then you had before, only with scripting, less experienced people will be using it, that's why it is a good idea to disable scripting by default, so the user can optionaly enable it if he thinks he's experienced enough.

About being able to get somebody's password... yes probaly.. but be aware that a sctipt that runs on your own PC will only be able to steal YOUR OWN password, because the script itself won't exexute on the PC from the one you're chatting to.

It does becomes a risk when somebody logs in on a PC for a friend or whatsoever where plus! is installed and scripts are running.... that's one of the reasons why i suggested that settings should be save per MSN account, so that if people login on somebody's else PC the scripts won't be running while he/she is logged in.

Additionally Patchou could maybe deny some possible dangerous commands in the scripting engine.

Again, an excellent idea from Jae.... WSH will be downloaded only when Scripting is enabled in the Preferences. By default, it will be disabled.

As for the security, if I were you I wouldn't be afraid... as I said, scripting languages are quite limited and there is no way that using a script along, someone could get your password... to do that, they would have to program a COM object in VB or C++ and distribute it along with their script. Baiscally, if the script you downloaded has a joint DLL, OCX or EXE file, it's dangerous, else, I don't see anything the script could do along except for signing you out automatically just to annoy you . On my web site I'll list all the trusted scripts, verified by myself so that peoiple who can't read scripts can rely on an existing source of information.

For the traffic on my web site now, thank you for your concerns but for some monthes now, I'm already paying an extra for additional traffic, which brings my site to 10GB/month. I'm currently using about 6GB so it's ok.

Last but not least, I've seen that one of the most popular requested features is text-based games.. guess what.. you'll be the ones who will do them as this is an excellenent way to use scripting... text base games can be pretty complex and very interesting but from my programming point on view, I just have to notify the script when a text is received and allow the script to send it's own text.

The fact that the scripting feature will be disabled by default does not mean that no script will distributed along with MP2, keep that in mind, so my "scripting contest" is still opened. Scripting will be available along with the first Alpha version of MP2 so that you can start working on your scripts asap

Patchou.

There are two distinct modes for scripts, which is set from the program that calls the script (Plus! in this case), to either trusted or not, in one the script is given access to only the COM objects specifically added by Plus!, in the other it is free to create and use any COM object registered on the system.

The COM objects installed by WSH by default (and are required I think) include the FileSystem object, which gives near total control over the files on a computer, giving the script access to your chat logs, your documents, your windows settings, your web history. From there it can read them, delete them, or using the MAPI object it can mail them somewhere. This is only possible if Plus! says to run scripts as trusted.

In untrusted none of this is possible, only functions and objects supplied by Plus! can be used, but these will have to be checked for basic security i.e. check there isn't a function or set of functions which called with specific arguments can be used to do harm, a "NewLogFile" method is insecure if it will overwrite an old log file, so it takes a bit of thought, this can be done on the Alpha version, and would just require minor patches. The downside is that programs can't manipulate the file system, or install custom OCX/DLL's with their script for more power, and are limited by the objects supplied by Plus!

I'm not sure which level you would want to use for scripts, but it will take some careful thought.

As for installing WSH, it is common on almost all computers now, so shouldn't be a real hassle. If scripting is disabled by default then when checking the "enable scripting" button, if WSH is not installed, Plus! could either prompt the user, or throw up a progress bar of downloading and installing WSH.

I forgot to mention it, thanks ginge... I plan to run the scripts as untrusted to ensure that I'll never receive any complaint from anyone about security. For the installation of WSH, yes it's on most Windows but very often it's not up to date and the worst scenario when you want to run a script is when it does not run tough it works perfectly on your friend's computer and this is due to version mismatch of the script engine.

As for the objects I'll give to the script, there will be some, like the public Messenger objects but non which could do something bad... I mean, yes, maybe some objects will a script overwrite a log file (ONLY a log file, it won't have direct access to anyfile, I'll give it myself indirectly) but that's ok as long as the same log file can't be possibly sent my email to someone else right?

I'm sure that even with untrusted security you'll be able to do great things... text-based games is a good example.

I'm sure people will come up with great things in trusted mode, its just people will always want that little bit more (storing high scores for that text based game, storing them on a central server etc.), its just a case of being careful what you open up.

The log files was just on example, IE is always updating its security engine to fix a bug for when people use several features in conjunction, or pass weird parameters, I don't want yet another program I have to update every month with a new security patch. Its just a case of being very careful. Often obscure functions with malicious parameters have unexpected effects.

A little addition to the verion incompatibillity:

Automatically add something to every script which says which version of WSH was uses while making the script. Makes it more easy for people to exhange scripts.

Also fill-in forms you Creator/email/site/extra notes will be nice.

Any data associated with the scripts will be in the comments of the script itself... I could add special things  but for simplicity reasons, MP2 will consider any script installed in its directory as being usable, that's all. The only information it will display about them in their name. It may change as I'Ve seen that apparently XML tags can be added to VBScript/JScript... we'll see.

About security and the patch related to it, don't worry, as strange as it can seems, MP2 is not a network related software so I don't need to be careful about what resource users will access. I just have to double check my string size and nobody will be able to do anything I don't allow. For things like storing high scores, a PropertyBag object will be available and will store whatever value the user want in a regkey decided my MP2 itself... no, really, I think you shouldn't care too much about security... you'll be able to test it in the Alpha version and that will be sufficient... talking about it too much will afraid people won't don't know nothing about it.

For all of them, I repeat: scripting will be disabled by default in MP2 so if you don't want it, just forget about it

Patchou.

Thanks Patchou and ginge for the explanations. Great. We look forward for your success. Thanks again

Also, thank you for the explanations Ginge, Patchou, Jae...

Nice to see that U are finally working on version 2 Patchou

Of course! ... check this out...

http://www.patchou.com/msgplus/mp2.htm

Awesome dude!

Thats the only thing with v1 i didnt like, how every user had the same directory for logs etc etc. I have a small network here, 4 computers, and the documents location was globally shared so all the logs went into the same directory.

Very glad to hear that each account will have its own logs/settings section.

Patchou, when u think u will release this version?

Public release in about 1 month and half. Beta release in about 3 to 4 weeks.... don't take those numbers too seriously though...

kewl, patchou i knwo its early , but do you intend to improve on version 2.0 2.54 etc and then have you got any plans to have MP3 

4 weeks = 1 month?

Yeah... 4 weeks used to be a mont back in the old days

Please, no MP3
MSN i designed for chatting, use a audioplayer. Why would you wannay do everything with one program.

BTW: Patchou... a friend of mine worked on a nice way to keep the data of all those translators together, and a way to easily mail them... i'll sohw you in a few days, when i have time.

i don't know if this has already been mentioned - i noticed 6 pages of suggestions and i just don't have the time to read them all and check.

I have set a virtual directory to my chat logs file in IIS 5.0 on WinXP.  Now I have a serious problem.

IIS lets you browse to the directory whatever@hotmail.com and see the names of all of the log files inside - however, when you try to open a log folder (eg. /someone@hotmail.com/someone@hotmail.com.txt) it reads the .com in the folder name as a .com file, and therefore tries to run it as a CGI application, with the parameters /someone@hotmail.com.txt/.

This may not be a major priority on your list, but adding the option to remove the .com (or change it to someone_at_hotmail_dot_com or someone_hotmail_com etc) from the folder names (doesn't matter about the .txt file names), would help me (and any others like me) around this problem.

quote:

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Originally posted by Jae_x777
Please, no MP3
MSN i designed for chatting, use a audioplayer.

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quote:

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Originally posted by WDZ

quote:

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Originally posted by Jae_x777
Please, no MP3
MSN i designed for chatting, use a audioplayer.

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I think reisyboy meant Messenger Plus 3.0...

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