Hi. I'm trying to write a script to create new custom emoticons from a series of images (PNG).

If anyone has already done this, I'd love to know how. Please read on though, I have some peculiar requirements.

I'm new to scripting for MSN, but as far as I can tell, the Plus! scripting language does not offer a function to do this. I can't even change the existing custom emoticons because their members are read-only.

There are other threads with similar questions, but none of them have definitive solutions. One suggests using an emoticon bulk loading program.
Does anyone know more about this? My concern is that it won't be able to create them _during_ a conversation. I'm also not sure how to code that.

Thank you in advance for any help/advice you can give me.


For some context:
I want to write a script that detects certain text patterns (e.g. filenames) in a message you type. When you send the message, the script figures out which image you want (from many images, too many to have an emoticon for each), creates a new emoticon for it, and sends the emoticon to the other person. If the image is too big for a single emoticon, it is split into appropriately size blocks and sent as several emoticons stacked together.

All this nonsense described above is preferable to a file transfer because:
-it requires no effort from the recipient
-the image appears directly in the chat window
-there are fewer ways for MSN to fuck up emoticons than for file transfers.

The images I plan to send are only about 300 by 60 pixels big, maximum.

Well, being able to add or change the user's emoticons may cause some dangers (like a malicious script deleting the whole emoticons library), but I understand your point.

The current Plus! scripting functionality doesn't let us change a lot of the user's details, but we do can retrieve information. I think this is firstly done because of the potential danger of using scripts, but also because reading is always easier than changing or adding. I highly doubt we'll see Plus! scripts that can create custom emoticons on-the-fly.

However, if it'd ever be possible, I'd also like to have the script delete those created emoticons after they're sent.