Hello Steve,
I may be able to provide some clue( s) for your first problem.
My guess is that you'll need to find a .GIF decoder that:
- Retrieves the number of frames in a file
- Retrieves a given frame (which can probably be passed to a DataBlock object)
- Does not crash Messenger
First, you'd need to use the topmost feature and get the number of frames in a file (assign this to a variable like FrameCount or something)
Then you'd have to pass (FrameCount / 2) to the second feature and finally, the PlusWnd must display the emoticons. You might as well consider making MANY child windows and display X emoticons per window (but that's quite difficult. I have over 300 custom emotes; 382, to be precise....)
And the 3rd feature is always important
/ 
