Shoutbox

that would probably require patching MSN, rather than a plugin (like a-patch or mess-patch)

I think it would require more work then that. You can change the text globally for MSN by patching, but not for each individual contact (as far as I know).

I'm not sure if a plugin would work, either

This request has been made in the past also.

This is however not possible to do automatically since there is no "gender" indication anywhere, not in MSN Messenger, not in Plus!...

However, as Caboose already said, you could alter the text globally, thus for all your contacts (if you find the current text to long or something). This is called patching (or "resource hacking", as it is one of the text resources you need to change)....

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In theory: To make this per contact changeable, it would require a special plugin or addon which constantly updates this resource according to whom you open a conversation with.

In practice: very very difficult to do. Simply because:
1) There is no "gender" field anywhere (but this could be added by the new addon/feature of course).
2) Resources are loaded only once! This means the resource text is only loaded when msn messenger starts. Even when you are able to update this resource text, msn messenger will not "reload" it.
3) Even if you could let msn messenger reload this text resource, there would be many, many pitfalls to conquer as the feature must constantly check for which conversation window (and thus contact) it is operating in, catch when the text is going to show, grab the memory address (which can change from time to time) to be updated, etc... etc...

I can see some solutions for each problem. But they aren't elegant, or they will not work 100%, or whatever...

Thus with all this said, I don't think something complicated like that _and_ for something so small, will be created. Unless there is some mighty boring plugin/addon developper out there...

Thats a shame, but thanks for the replies.
As I have no idea about programming it is interesting to read about the problems with the idea. Maybe I will think of something else in the future that isnt nearly as complicated to change!

You just want to remove that yellow bar right?

Download A Patch and select that option

I have nothing against the bar its self, its the "his or her" bit of it that annoys me.