Hi all,

I really need help with this, as it's annoying me to no end.  I've searched the forums and the web without success.

I work on a laptop with a small screen.  I like to view my contacts' display pictures alongside their conversation.  I DON'T like their display picture taking up half of my screen; stretching my chat window so that I have to hide the picture and resize it or every other window that opens will be that size.

Oversize display pictures can be used well, especially when they are only enlarged to fill the empty vertical space below the standard 96x96 display picture window, but many people abuse this, and the number of people doing so keeps growing.

Yes I can do the following:
1.  Tell the person to change their display picture size.  Most don't, as it 'works fine for everyone else' over larger screens.
2.  Disable viewing ALL display pictures, but I like them when they are 96x96, and doing so means I miss out on everyone who uses display pictures with consideration of the other person.
3.   Click the little arrow to hide their display picture (if it is on-screen and not pushed away by the display picture).  This is annoying to do over and over.

Why should I do all this?  It's their choice to put whatever display picture they want.  Fair enough.  However on my side I should have full control over what is shown.   It goes against every programming principal of control I've ever learnt!  The user should always have full control on there side.

By now you've probably guessed what I'm looking for - a plugin/setting that either:
1.  Limits the visible section of the display window to 96x96
2.  Scales the display picture to 96x96
3.  Another solution that preserves a display picture size of 96x96

I seriously hope something is out there.  With a bit of luck this is some sort of fad that people eventually get tired of.  I'm already tired of it.

Thanks for reading. 

Well this is probably the reason why Microsoft have made it in MSN Messenger 7 that it resizes all pictures. Unfortunately that is, because oversized pictures can be very good if they are not abused. There should be an option somewhere to turn it off, but it seems they are going to restrict everybody (well at least those without Stuffplug NG)

But yeah I don't know of any plugins to do this. You could try and find a copy of Messenger 7, although it is buggy right now (and illegal... i think)

Me and Anubis are trying to make a plugin to make every display pic (if you want to be) the default msn size. Tell me what you think, if we do make this there will be more features aswell as this.

I think that's a great idea - surely I'm not the only one who finds this annoying.

What other features are you thinking about implementing?  It'll be hard enough to resize the display picture before it gets displayed.

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Originally posted by Unknown...
surely I'm not the only one who finds this annoying.

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Originally posted by Attitude Extreme
if we do make this there will be more features aswell as this.

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1. The "contact selection" is indeed the same as the one used by Plus!. This also means that the frame is disabled and greyed out when you select "Convert all the display pictures to 96x96"
   
   
2. The "other contacts" are all other contacts who are not listed in your contactlist (eg: people on your reverse list).
   
   
3. "pixel resizing", "resampling" and "cropping" are the methods used to convert the DP back to 96x96.
   
   
4. "pixel resizing" and "resampling" will only convert DP's bigger then 96x96; smaller ones are not converted (AKA magnified), but simply centered in the new 96x96 DP. Also, the aspect ratio is kept as it is. (when you allow the aspect ratio to change too, it would make very ackward DP's which is not the purpose and thus also not usefull for this addon.)
   
   
5. "pixel resizing" is the easiest one to program, it will result in what you see when you resize an image in your browser; AKA no anti-aliasing.
   
   
6. "resampling" means resizing with anti-alias methods (like bilinear resampling, bicubic resampling, etc.) often used in paint programs. If you like you can make it so that you can even select the resample method with an added dropdown list.
   
   
7. When "cropping" is choosen, you can select which corner square (96x96 px) is used to crop the image: upper left, upper middle, upper right, middle left, center, middle right, lower left, lower middle, lower right.
   
   The blue in the example depicts the lower right corner.
   Blown up, the whole control looks something like this:
   +---+---+---+
   |   |   |   |
   +---+---+---+
   |   |   |   |
   +---+---*****
   |   |   *   *
   +---+---*****
   well, you know what I mean
   
   Of course some bits of the image can't be selected if the image is too big. But making a control where you can move the square freely around on the DP would be too much "freedom" and this is also rather useless as the position would be image specific and the contact may change the DP. Thus, only 9 positions, is more then enough "freedom" IMO...
   
   When the original DP is smaller then 96x96, selecting a different crop-square wouldn't make any difference in the result as each square is 96x96 pixels anyways. In this case the DP will be centered in a 96x96 square (with a background color surrounding the original DP).
   
   
8. "Background": In case the original DP is smaller then 96x96, the area around the DP needs to have a color. Or when the image is resized/resampled and the aspect ration wasn't 1:1, then there is also a blank space on the sides. The background color to fill that space can be selected here.

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Originally posted by Unknown...
It'll be hard enough to resize the display picture before it gets displayed.

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/sapplause Cookie.

I like that much. But now we need someone to do it. And since MSN Messenger willl have less users in the following months, it's not very practical to design something for it.

It would be interesting as part of SPNG (used locally AND remotely allows to see oversized DPs). Or as a complement for SPNG, although I'm not sure TB allows much hooking into SPNG, if not so, it should be really difficult.

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Originally posted by KeyStorm
It would be interesting as part of SPNG (used locally AND remotely allows to see oversized DPs). Or as a complement for SPNG, although I'm not sure TB allows much hooking into SPNG, if not so, it should be really difficult.

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer

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Originally posted by Attitude Extreme
Me and Anubis are trying to make a plugin to make every display pic (if you want to be) the default msn size. Tell me what you think, if we do make this there will be more features aswell as this.

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HAHAHA!
ROFL!
Whatcha gonna make it in?! VB ?!!?

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
and who deleted my rofl post anyway ?

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
It could (also) be made into SPNG (that's up to TB), but I rather see this as a seperate dedicated addon.

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* Chrono looks at TheBlasphemer innocently

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
Would be a hell of a lot of a work for msn6, just get msn7 and disable oversized dps?

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
Would be a hell of a lot of a work for msn6, just get msn7 and disable oversized dps?

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
It can't, remember the hash-part?

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
cause you'd first have to intercept the hash

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
and you'd also have to store the resized dp which will cost massive memory

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thats why SPNG's oversize feature should be only given to trusted contacts and people that know they shouldnt put anything bigger than 300x300 - 350x350

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
Make a proxy, intercept the recieving of the actual DP's. Convert the DP and inject the new converted DP back into the packet-stream to MSN Messenger, let MSN Messenger do the rest.

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no, its just that they work different. thats why md cant work

I think there should be an option to limit display pic sizes to whatever size you choose. Like rather than 96x96 if, say, I wanted to limit them to 100x200, so if the image is between 96x96 and 100x200 the frame would go to the size of the picture, but if it's larger than 100x200 it'd scale it down. There could also be the option to preserve aspect ratio, so that if it was, say 200x200, but your limit was 100x200, it'd resize ot to 100x100 so that the image isn't distorted or whatever.

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Originally posted by DistantJ
There could also be the option to preserve aspect ratio, so that if it was, say 200x200, but your limit was 100x200, it'd resize ot to 100x100 so that the image isn't distorted or whatever.

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