As I stated in this thread: http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=79851&page=1 I believe the skinning engine is powerful but not enough, although of course this is the start and better skins will come out.

The question is would it be possible (and does someone want to atempt it) to make a skin like this:





Thats right: Make WLM 8.5/9.0 look like MSN Messenger 2.0!
Reasons: None but it would really prove the power of the skinning engine IMO and hey maybe someone does want a very MINIMAL Messenger like old times.

Somone willing to do this?

One problem would be the classic Windows style. In Messenger 2.0, there were no UIFILEs, but now we have to use UIFILEs for our GUI. So you can't say: "Hey there, Messenger GUI Engine! Can you please f*ck off with your UIFILEs, I want to use a simple Windows style without those fancy PNGs and stuff!".

Of course, you can make a Windows 95-alike window using UIFILEs, but it won't take the style from Windows itself but from the GUI. But I think it'd look cool to have an old looking Messenger running on Vista, so I don't think that'd be a problem.

I may want to try this, if I really don't find any inspiration for a skin. At the moment, I'm at the point of "What shall I try, and what can I do?". I already tried to install Wave11 MSN for 7.5 to extract the resources and attempt revive it but the UIFILEs were unreadable (i.e., no line breaks and I cba to add them).

Using the current Messenger GUI framework, you cannot develop a Windows window, but you can make it look like one. But it will never be a genuine window. For example if you change theme color or something, the Messenger windows will still look the same.
MSN Messenger 2 doesn't use UIFILEs (as far as I know), so you cannot view them, or port them over.

Mattike: What editor did you use? You might've used an editor which couldn't read the line breaks.

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Originally posted by vikke
Mattike: What editor did you use? You might've used an editor which couldn't read the line breaks.

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Difficult but a challenge. I believe it would be intresting if somone could pull this off.

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Originally posted by riahc4
Difficult but a challenge. I believe it would be intresting if somone could pull this off.

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Originally posted by aNILEator

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Originally posted by riahc4
Difficult but a challenge. I believe it would be intresting if somone could pull this off.

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I could do it.

It's not that difficult but yeah it'd just look like msgr2 in a gui way, it wouldn't be all in built icons into a toolbar etc.

what was the chat window like?

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Originally posted by Jimbo
Kinda like windows messenger, but a bit more "old"

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Originally posted by Mattike

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Originally posted by vikke
Mattike: What editor did you use? You might've used an editor which couldn't read the line breaks.

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Nope, the cause is that the skinners tried to get their resources as small as possible. Therefore, they removed the tabbing and line breaks in their UIFILEs. Unfortunately, The Messenger Lab died some years ago and I haven't had contact with either Fizical or theunknown since then... Also, it seems like Wave11 MSN used a lot of gradients instead of PNGs and I have no clue if those would still work on WLM 8.5. But well, I'd give it a try if someone could "beautify" the UIFILEs. (I have them extracted, give a ring if you want to try and "decode" them )

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Originally posted by aNILEator

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Originally posted by Jimbo
Kinda like windows messenger, but a bit more "old"

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Ya know..... some members seem to get dumber each day that really doesn't help me make a skin just saying old.

Can you provide a screenshot of the chat window?

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Originally posted by riahc4
Well since 1.0 didnt have webcam features, maybe some of the GUI could also be taken from Windows Messenger, which can be installed on a XP machine.

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Anyone working on this?

You know the rules on double posting chair, and you just posted a shot of windows messenger

I'm not going to even going to consider working on this till 2008 sometime

meh, to be honest I don't think this is something people are gonna dig.

Like yeah I'm all for the old school messenger resurrecting (like 8.1 and 8.0 beta). But this is like going from XP back to windows 98

Plus because the UI relied more on windows back then it would be too much of a pain to get that working properly if at all

btw not every suggestion that is put up on the forums is gonna get made so please don't take it the wrong way if ideas just remain ideas.

I like the IDEA of it, but i wouldnt want to use it/make it...

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Originally posted by Willz
meh, to be honest I don't think this is something people are gonna dig.

Like yeah I'm all for the old school messenger resurrecting (like 8.1 and 8.0 beta). But this is like going from XP back to windows 98

Plus because the UI relied more on windows back then it would be too much of a pain to get that working properly if at all

btw not every suggestion that is put up on the forums is gonna get made so please don't take it the wrong way if ideas just remain ideas.

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I'd love something like this too.

I use the "Windows Standard" visual theme, even in Vista. And it's annoying to have every window with the same style and then Messenger still looks like Vista.



Even if it's not technically possible to just apply the visual theme to it someone should be able to hack together the screenshots to make this look more "classic"?

you have a good point but even so, surely it's to save resources yeah? why use such a memory hog as wlm????!!!

I use it because I prefer the simple, clean and minimalistic style.

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Originally posted by aNILEator
you have a good point but even so, surely it's to save resources yeah? why use such a memory hog as wlm????!!!

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Could it be possible to use the Trillian skin for MSN Look-a-Like? Or to create something like MSN Messenger 5/4.8 skin?
look here]

I'd really like to see someone undertake this project. I seems a lot more usable than some faggy Sweeney Todd bullshiz.

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Originally posted by the_lone_bard
I seems a lot more usable than some faggy Sweeney Todd bullshiz.

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I mean that it'd be more usable by a majority of people. I don't see a lot of people jumping up to proclaim their love of Johnny Depp with a MSN skin of him. But apparently thats the only type of quality skin we'll get for a while.

You are joking? Did you see ALM?

Maybe Ill try this out myself as my first skin Id just need screenshots/images of messenger 2.0

i'm working on a win classic msn classic atm

Thank you.

I look forward to seeing your progress.

can someone provide a screenshot of what conversations windows looked like in MSN 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 please?

I think 4 and 5 were basically Windows messenger but would be nice for some confirmation. No I will not track down and install various virtual machines just for this.

OR I might just make this a win classic theme, using the default icons of WLM 8.5 /9.0 but so it at least fits with classic theme borders etc.

It just looks horrible with 8 bit coloured icons

Can you even install an old version and use it? Doesnt the server reject older versions? So you wouldnt be able to open a conversation?

Anyway I tried to track down any screenshots I could and didnt find much but I'll post a few things I did find...

really, still after pre-4.7 shots but thanks lone_bard good effort there

Yeah I searched like hell for 2.0 3.0 and 3.5 screenshots but the couple that I found were dead links

Can I suggest using the dfc function for things like scrollbars rather than including images?

dfc function info:
http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=80254

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Originally posted by TheSteve
Can I suggest using the dfc function for things like scrollbars rather than including images?

dfc function info:
http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=80254

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DrawFrameControl doesn't rely on the theming APIs. It always paints in Windows Classic mode regardless of whether you're using Windows Classic or not.

As for OSs, it'll still only work in XP and Vista.

I think the proper thing to do is install MSN Messenger 1.0/2.0/3.0/4.0/etc on a virtual Win 98 SE machine and rip the images.

If someone could give me some links to the installs, Ill be more than happy to do it myself I also need the patch that allows old versions of MSN Messenger to connect to the service (or somehow emulate it so I can open convo windows and stuff like that)

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Originally posted by riahc4
I also need the patch that allows old versions of MSN Messenger to connect to the service

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Okay, so is 5.0 trying to be made at the momment?

Yes.

Oh, alright sounds good i was also looking for this to be made as well....

but i dident think it was Possible,

Hmmm... is it possible that it would be finnished today?

You can't make a decent skin on one day. Seriously, if someone was already working on this, it would take some weeks to make it good, given that the person has some other things (work/school) to do as well.

Blah.    im a pushie person, i like having things done in one day.

k thnx. dont mean to sound  ''demanding''  but im also one of the people waiting for this.

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Originally posted by Aibita
Blah.    im a pushie person, i like having things done in one day.

k thnx. dont mean to sound  ''demanding''  but im also one of the people waiting for this.

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Aha.  i dont know how, think ill just wait (=

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Originally posted by riahc4
If someone could give me some links to the installs, Ill be more than happy to do it myself I also need the patch that allows old versions of MSN Messenger to connect to the service (or somehow emulate it so I can open convo windows and stuff like that)

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I'll work on this after my current enormous task

Does your task have to do with what Willz was talking about?

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Originally posted by Basilis
Does your task have to do with what Willz was talking about?

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Won't you participate in the contest?

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Originally posted by Basilis
Won't you participate in the contest?

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Something shaped right?

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Originally posted by Basilis
Something shaped right?

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Any advancement on this by anyone?

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Originally posted by the_lone_bard
Any advancement on this by anyone?

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