Shoutbox

Hello everyone,

one day has passed since my last post about code sharing and I've now cooled-down a little (mostly because some of the people, who posted the original threads I was complaining about, publicly made fools of themselves by insisting on empty/bogus arguments). I would have liked to continue this discussion on MSN Fanatic as this is about development but I don't want some of their users to continue to spit on me for no reason while I'm asking for opinions. If you have contacts on MSN Fanatic that you know will be interested by this topic, please ask them to reply here, that way, we'll be sure to have a nice, clean debate (everybody has the right to say bad things about me, but nicely, without sarcasm and with a smile ). I have absolutely nothing against the MSN Fanatic community so if the situation gets better there, I'll probably move this thread to their forum (I'll do it when I'll be sure that some of their users won't spoil the whole idea because of their "opinion" about me).

If you followed the "code-sharing" thread on MSN Fanatic at the beginning of the month, you've seen that I was asking for the opinion of developers and I got it. Some people wanted tutorials, some people wanted a multi-function DLL. The thread was concluded by people complaining that I was not replying fast enough and that waiting for an eventual compromise was just an excuse (which lead to my post yesterday in the News section). Well, I'm ok with deciding by myself with what I think is best for the community so here is the result of my thoughts on the matter.

About the multi-function DLL, I don't think it's a good idea. It would never have enough functions to satisfy everyone. As for tutorials, again, it's a problem because a lot of people would expect full-functional code they can copy/past while the original intent is to share knowledge, not help every developer to make his own little hack tool.

What's my idea then? well, that may sound kinda strange but if you read the rest of my post, it will help you understand it. My suggestion is simple: to release the full source code of Messenger Plus! 1.42 (the latest release in the 1.x series). When I got the idea, I thought this would probably be the best thing for several reasons: within the code, you'll find a lot of valuable information about Messenger inner workings as long as the proper hooking techniques to hook in the Messenger process safely and efficiently. However, Messenger Plus! 1.42 not being compatible with Messenger 6, it will prevent people to use its code directly to do their own tool and that's very important. In short, what I'm saying is that Messenger Plus! 1.42 is too old to be used in today's Messenger versions as-is (it does work wonderfully with Windows Messenger 4.x though) but it's still full of the early techniques I developed when I was experimenting with MSN Messenger. Messenger Plus! 2.x was recreated from scratch but the basic hooking techniques stayed almost identical as they were perfected from version 1.00 to version 1.40.

As you can see, this is a big suggestion and I'm very serious about it. I need your feedback about that (developers only please) and I'll gladly answer to any question you may have about the project (this thread is there for that reason). The code of Messenger Plus! 1.42 is mostly in Language C (there is not much C++ in Messenger Plus! 1.x because at that time, I was rewriting the same code again and again while I was learning better techniques and hooking is not very suited for object oriented programming). If we conclude that this is the good way to go, I'll have to do some clean up, translate all my french comments in english, add as much new comments as possible to document the important parts, ... (it will take me more than a couple of days to do that, please remember it if you feel like creating a thread about the delay ).

Again, I can't insist enough on the fact that without your feedback, nothing will happen. This is a community thing so there's no point in me doing it alone.

I'm looking forward to see what you all have to say about this,
Patchou

i dont know C so...
Anyway, the only idea of u releasing some of ur sourse seems great, as u said that u would never do it loong time ago

I don't know any C... yet

I am torn between 2 minds on this subject. While we can assume there are only a few people who have been less that polite on this subject, the whole idea just seems a bit unfair towards you. Me personally, wouldn't want to share anything that I have worked so hard to make. Don't like the idea of you giving away trade secrets so to speak.

However, have to view this picture as the whole, and realise that this is probably a very good way to help out the budding programmers out there. While its good that this will not allow a copy and paste job, it should be the spark that ignites the young minds

Another thing - although this could be seen as a separate topic from this one - is to increase the abilities of plugins in the current version of Plus. This is separate because it doesn't really have the teaching power that releasing the source code would have.

I don't know the answer to your question, because I don't know myself if I want to see the source code released. I am equally torn between the 2 ideas

P.S. You calm down a lot faster than I would

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everybody has the right to say bad things about me, but nicely, without sarcasm and with a smile

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Your posts are way too long


<---I am still smiling

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(developers only please)

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Well, chromo isn't, neither am I, and he said something, so I will


I think you should make up your own mind on how you want to do it. Whatever is done, you can be garunteed that people will complain, and in a situation like that, the only thing you can do is make some people happy, and yourself.


So basically, only offer what you are happy with offering, don't get pressured into doing something that you normally wouldn't just because of a few people

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Originally posted by Patchou
My suggestion is simple: to release the full source code of Messenger Plus! 1.42 (the latest release in the 1.x series).

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Yeah!!, that would be very insteresting.... 1.42b was a nice software (i loved very much that version as it was the first i used). Patchou, if you release the full source code, well documented, that would be a great contribution to the community... In that code there won't be the messenger 6 hook techniques, but i'm sure it will be a great help to people (like me) who want to learn the basic of hooking in windows.

As a suggestion, you could put some comments on the code saying "this is done like this here, but there are better ways to do it, like i do in plus 2", ie: give some clues about how the code can be improved or saying how it is done in plus 2 (i mean explaining it with words (do this, do that, etc...) not the source (of course the source will be the best ))

Well Patchou, I'm really happy because of your decision and I hope that will be a reality very soon

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Originally posted by Chrono
i dont know C so...

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dont' worry about that. Maybe you won't know what a line of code does, but the most important thing are the comments of the code... you'll know the steps to be followed to do hooking, to send a message, to process a recieved action command for example... 1.42b it's and old version, but it won't only teach you things about messenger but also you'll learn a lot of things that can be applied to other programs

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Originally posted by Jehuty
<---I am still smiling

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I'll smilie too

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Originally posted by Jehuty
Well, chromo isn't, neither am I, and he said something, so I will

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actually Chrono is

This is underdork from msnfagnatic.com

I just informed myself on the entire situation, and I am responding to it.

To stay on the topic, 'code sharing'.

I wasnt fast enough to respond to the msnfanatic topic about it
I would personally love to peek into your code. Testing it out, how you prevented it from going 'evil'. How the message gets from the textbox to the logged file on the hard disk.

UnderDOC

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Originally posted by underdoc
This is underdork from msnfagnatic.com

I just informed myself on the entire situation, and I am responding to it

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Sorry for being off topic, but must say thanks to UnderDOC. Although he never entered the arguement, he feels the need to apologise for some rogue members of his community. Very commendable

Patchou thats a Great idea it'll provide people with a basis to start off on however i know it's very difficult to make external programs work with Messenger 6.  So why not drop a few hints or tips on how to get things to work inside of messenger.  although releasing the source to 1.42 is the best thing since sliced bread

As an ex-developer (made some big programs back in the stone age *DOS*):

Every snipped of code in any language, providing it is very well documented, can give tons of information. Although most information is available (like hooking) it is snipped across the net. It would be great for people involved in Messenger-programming (let's call it that) to see a concrete example on how it is done.

However, and this shouldn't let you stop publishing it, you will get complaints like: "He still didn't release a thing", "It's all old information", "It's useless". Well I know, you'll know that these comments are from people who don't want to learn or are *fill in the blank*...

But there is also the kind that doesn't have enough knowledge to take advantage of it, yet they still wanna have fun, learn and develop. For those people, a further development of the plugins would be very great... (Then I think about the ability for plugins to react on recieved messages without user input with the /x* commands, that would be a major step forward... -> bot creating for example (which is in great demand))

But indeed you can't satisfy everyone and that's something we all have to deal with it, whatever you decide...
Happy thinking and head-breaking thoughts

I was never Really Glad that you were sharing your Codes
I think that MSN would Have just taken your codes and then told you to bug off.... So I'm Glad you Decided not too...... but it's not my Choice it's yours.... this is just my "opinion" I dont think that Patchou is a horrible whatever other people think he is on msnfantic
infact i think More that Patchou is a great developer and i think he made the "right" decision in my mind but maybe not other peoples

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Vantage Looks around to see if Patchou is watching

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