Plugins for MsgPlus! Live - Printable Version
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+--- Forum: Messenger Plus! for Live Messenger (/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+---- Forum: Scripting (/forumdisplay.php?fid=39)
+----- Forum: Plug-Ins (/forumdisplay.php?fid=28)
+------ Thread: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live (/showthread.php?tid=58892)
Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by Tobiaz on 04-29-2006 at 09:28 PM
Hello, hello!
So, maybe thats a stupid and a few asked question:
Is there known, how to create Plugins for Plus! Live and will Plugins with are coded for older Versions be compatible with it?
Thank you, many greeeeeeeez from Switzerland!
Tobiaz
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by blackjack on 04-29-2006 at 09:41 PM
Plus! Live is done from scratch, Scripts are replacing Plugins 
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by absorbation on 04-29-2006 at 09:45 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Tobiaz
Is there known, how to create Plugins for Plus! Live and will Plugins with are coded for older Versions be compatible with it?
Nope, they have to be re coded. Well at least hooking on messenger will.
Other functions should work fine. Anything using Messenger Plus! e.g commands will not work. 
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by Tobiaz on 04-30-2006 at 07:37 AM
Oh... ok!
Many thanks
Greeeeeez
RE: RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by CookieRevised on 04-30-2006 at 12:54 PM
quote:Not quite...
Originally posted by blaCkjaCk
Scripts are replacing Plugins
The scripting engine replaces the plugin engine. You can still use old plugins or make new plugins as long as there is a wrapper script which calls them.
quote:Not always, it highly depends on how they were coded in the first place and/or what they exactly do (or don't).
Originally posted by Absorbation
Nope, they have to be re coded.
quote:Plugins don't hook into messenger. At least 99% of them don't. Those who have their own hooks in messenger probably do it in such a way that nothing must be changed at all.
Originally posted by Absorbation
Well at least hooking on messenger will.
If you mean by "hooking" the Messenger object that gets passed to the Initialize() function when a plugin is started, then yes, the object passed to the Initialize() function in scripts isn't the same as the one in plugins. But even that could be supported in some way I suppose when you create your wrapper script for the old plugin.
quote:It will work just fine.
Originally posted by Absorbation
Anything using Messenger Plus! e.g commands will not work.
-----------------------
Scripts are the new way of coding "plugins". But this does not mean that scripts replace old style plugins. Old style plugins can still be used (and depending on how they are coded, you don't need to change a lot... in fact some don't need a change at all). Though you always will need a wrapper script which acts like a translator between Plus!Live and your old plugin.
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by Pho3niX^ReBorN on 04-30-2006 at 05:03 PM
Phew! Thanks for clearing that up CookieRevised. ^_^
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by Tobiaz on 04-30-2006 at 08:06 PM
Yes, thanks 
There's no Sample or anything else witch tells us more about that crazy Wrapper Script, isn't it?
Will we can create that stuff in vb6 / vb.net ?
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by J-Thread on 04-30-2006 at 09:01 PM
What I've heard is this: The "new plugins" are made in a scripting language, and in that language you can make dll calls. So you can create your plugin in VB, and then make a script that calls the dll when needed... And that's called a wrapper
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by RaceProUK on 04-30-2006 at 11:56 PM
If you make a plugin in VB, you don't call DLL functions direct: you instantiate a new ActiveXObject() using the DLL. VB DLLs are COM DLLs after all
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by J-Thread on 05-01-2006 at 07:17 AM
Ok well I was close... As you can see I'm not a beta tester so I only said what I heard about the scripts
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by Chestah on 05-01-2006 at 07:56 AM
quote:
Originally posted by J-Thread
What I've heard is this: The "new plugins" are made in a scripting language, and in that language you can make dll calls. So you can create your plugin in VB, and then make a script that calls the dll when needed... And that's called a wrapper
exactly
. Although most of the stuff you want to do can be easily done using Jscript itself so you won't need to use external .dlls in some circumstances
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by Tobiaz on 05-01-2006 at 10:15 AM
Cool, that's sounds relly great
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by vikke on 05-02-2006 at 02:34 PM
Yeah it sounds really great.
I don't think you could develop a plugin with the scripting language, which is bad, you could only make some small funny things and that's it! You can't hook, can't use Win API's etc. It's very restricted as far as I've seen.
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by haydos on 05-02-2006 at 03:54 PM
quote:May I ask where you have seen?
Originally posted by vikke
It's very restricted as far as I've seen.
You are able to do just as much (or even more) with scripts than what you could do with plugins. You aren't "developing a plugin with the scripting language" as you said, you are just creating a script with the scripting engine.
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by vikke on 05-02-2006 at 04:09 PM
What I mean with Plugin is a button, menu hook etc. A script isn't that powerful and it's not binary. Possibly you can't do MORE but you can do much, very easy (because MsgPlus! Live does serve it to you 
).
I've seen in MsgPlus! Live screenies
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by CookieRevised on 05-02-2006 at 06:23 PM
quote:You can develop whatever you want. Though it is not compiled like a plugin (scripts are interpreted), They are equally powerfull as a plugin.
Originally posted by vikke
I don't think you could develop a plugin with the scripting language,
quote:That's far from true
Originally posted by vikke
you could only make some small funny things and that's it!
quote:You can
Originally posted by vikke
You can't hook
quote:You can
Originally posted by vikke
can't use Win API's
quote:It is not restrictive at all.
Originally posted by vikke
It's very restricted as far as I've seen.
-----------
You can do a hell of a lot with the scripting engine. The only limit is your imagination. The same can be said with plugins.
The only difference is that with the scripting engine, compared to the plugin engine, more events, objects, controlling, etc can be done towards Messenger. That is, it is easier than before (as you could/can do all the same with plugins but it would require advanced programming)...
Plugins and scripts are nothing more and nothing less than programs. It isn't because they are called "plugins" or "scripts" that you can't do much. You program them in a fully fletched language. It is exactly like any other program; there are no limits.
Scripts and plugins are equally powerfull than any other program.
Also, you can never deduct from a screenshot what scripts or plugins are or aren't.... It would be like me staring at a picture of your eye and saying exactly what shoesize you have and what cloths you are wearing...
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by TheBlasphemer on 05-03-2006 at 01:37 AM
Not true, windowhooks, button hooks, complicated ASM hooks, all not possibly from script. vikke is right about that.
I don't deny that scripts have a lot of power, as the APIs that Plus! provides are very very broad, but if those would have been provided to a Plugin system it might possibly be even broader.
And the only way in which Scripts would be able to match the power of Plugins is if you'd write an external DLL to do the dirty work, in which case it'd no longer be a script
RE: RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by CookieRevised on 05-03-2006 at 07:48 AM
quote:Reading vikke's other comments I'm 100% sure he did not meant those kind of stuff, but the basic stuff which everybody did/does with plugins for all those years (thus this doesn't include programmers who use advanced stuff like TB).
Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
Not true, windowhooks, button hooks, complicated ASM hooks, all not possibly from script. vikke is right about that.
If I'm wrong in that, than I'm sorry, the rest still stands though.
quote:true, though this isn't about what the plugin system could have been (unfortunatly
Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
I don't deny that scripts have a lot of power, as the APIs that Plus! provides are very very broad, but if those would have been provided to a Plugin system it might possibly be even broader.
).quote:From an very advanced programmers point of view, you're right. But remember that 99,99999% of all people are not advanced programmers like you. In that context and for those people, scripts are equally powerfull as plugins were/are and provide a whole lot of more messenger event driven "power".
Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
And the only way in which Scripts would be able to match the power of Plugins is if you'd write an external DLL to do the dirty work, in which case it'd no longer be a script
---
Of course you can't write an OS in a scripting language. But that isn't the context here and what is questionned in this thread or asked for.
From a technical point of view, scripts (any language script) will never be able to provide the full power a compiled low level programming language can provide. But we're talking here about scripts/plugins like they are made by 99,999% of all people.
The OPs ask if they can do with scripts whatever they did with plugins before. And the answer to that is "yes and even more and/or easier".
If you would have asked that same question, I'm sure everybody would say: "no you can't; not as you want it"...
RE: RE: RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by vikke on 05-03-2006 at 01:45 PM
Scripting is powerful but programming is more powerful. Scripts may be easy, but they are restricted if you compare with C++, everything is possible in C++ . Patchou did it in C++. I'm also quite sure that the scripting interface doesn't support Win32 apis, if it does it's powerful. Also, I mean Win32 apis not MsgPlusLive apis.
Sorry for being so pointless 
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by TheBlasphemer on 05-03-2006 at 01:54 PM
quote:
Originally posted by vikke
Scripting is powerful but programming is more powerful. Scripts may be easy, but they are restricted if you compare with C++, everything is possible in C++
Sorry for being so pointless
It does provide an API to let you use most APIs
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by vikke on 05-03-2006 at 01:55 PM
Nice! Like FindWindowEx, SendMessage, SetWindowPos, SetWindowsHook etc?
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by TheBlasphemer on 05-03-2006 at 02:04 PM
FindWindowEx, SendMessage, SetWindowPos will work,
SetWindowsHook will not as there's no way to create a callback function
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by vikke on 05-03-2006 at 02:05 PM
Then, it's a bit more powerful than I thought.
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by CookieRevised on 05-03-2006 at 07:56 PM
quote:
Originally posted by CookieRevised
You can never deduct from a screenshot what scripts or plugins are or aren't.... It would be like me staring at a picture of your eye and saying exactly what shoesize you have and what cloths you are wearing...
-
Once Plus!Live is released you'll see that the scripting engine is far more powerfull than you can imagine (based from a screenshot
).EDIT: lol, ok... I can agree on "It's powerfull but still a bit restricted"
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by vikke on 05-04-2006 at 11:05 AM
It's powerful but still a little restricted
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by xMike on 06-25-2006 at 12:09 PM
Errm, is this 'scripting business' going to be easy? or is it for people who know what they're doing and people like me will never get a put in on a what was a 'Plug-in;
RE: Plugins for MsgPlus! Live by Tobiaz on 06-25-2006 at 02:53 PM
I think you can learn it! Take time and study the Scripting Docu, wich you can download on the new msgplus! live site, then it will be easy for you