Shoutbox

Well first off I have to say congrats to Patchou on surprising us with this new version. You have outdone yourself yet again.

Anyway since Messenger 9 has changed significantly since we were last able to edit it, I think it would be good for skinners to post up any oddities / limitations they find with the new skin system.

This is not only as reference for us as skinners, but also we might find something that Patchou could look into. After all there is a lot of power behind 9. Plus if you have problems with something then others can see if they have issues as well.

I will be working furiously these next few days to try and get some perspective on 9 and see where things are at.
Good luck to all skinners.

Offtopic - 750 Posts woo.

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Limitations
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• Scenes can cause issues whilst skinning, in general if you do not do drastic changes to the UI then you won't experience too much trouble. The main issue is that the header elements will create a colored layer on top of all elements underneath the scene element. Either lay the scene element underneath a static image that suits your design or leave the header alone.
  
  
• Scenes can't be physically removed. If you do so colorize will no longer be remembered on the window you remove the scene element from.
  
  
• Alerts no longer colorize, any colorized images will be ignored like they are in drop down menus.
  
  
• Standard toolbar in the chat window must not exceed 30px in height (this includes element padding). If the toolbar goes above 30px in height the elements will all get squashed down to 30px height.
  
  
• Temporary Limitation: DUI:Glow effects can't be fine tuned due to Messenger Plus! not being able to parse static values correctly.

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Restoring 8.5 Functionality (What can be done)
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• Although chat window backgrounds don't cover the full window area it is entirely possible to restore chat window backgrounds to cover the full window area like they did in 8.5. The best way to do this is to refer to the 920 Definition from 8.5 and then try to structure it the same. Please note that the Dynamic background container must be restructured and moved with the background element for this to work properly.

Sorry for double post, just keeping this going so it doesn't get buried.

Limitation: Scenes must be disabled and hidden in order to skin properly. This is because it affects the top header element and lays its own style rules on top of your own. Remember to use the reset scene feature as soon as its available.

On top of the game again will . Anyway, I just got back from my vacation and I'll see if I find anything.

Sorry cba uni's starting up again and skinning takes lots of time, that I've found I enjoy doing real life things, by the way I got 2 baby rats recently too cute things best of luck though everyone

uni is no excuse, and rats need attention once a day at most.

Get back to work Nile!

quote:

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Originally posted by Patchou
uni is no excuse

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Heh I can vouch for that I started skinning when I started uni.

let me get my hands over this...

quote:

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Originally posted by Willz
Heh I can vouch for that I started skinning when I started uni.

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Yeah, but your uni involved you designing pretty things...

Limitation: Alerts no longer colorize, any colorized images will be ignored like they are in drop down menus.

By the way it might be a good idea to move this to the public forum now

Limitation: the following CmdIds don't work at the logon window:
40166: change status to available (worked on 8.5 while signing in)
40168: change status to busy (idem)
40169: change status to away (idem)
40167: change status to invisible (idem)

What can be done:
Scenes can be removed, and does't affect colorization.
Display Pictures can be aligned to right again
All Contact List Backgrounds can be merged into one (by hiding the others and extending the heigh of the not hidden to something really big, like 4000rp)
Translucid png scroolbars and scrool buttons can be used and will display properly
Translucid alerts can be used and will display properly, means you can shape it.
Dots before each message can be removed (by replacing picture ids 1749 and 1786)
The Scene area can be moved to the bottom or be hidden.