in part 3 of willz skinning guide he talked about making custom status images and that was simple enough however in messenger next to your nickname is a button marked online, when you drop it down it shows you the list of status's to choose from and the icon associated with them.

willz mentioned in his skinning guide thread that this dropdown is resource 591 while i can see from another skin the code to put in skininfo file what there isnt any instructions on for this process is how to make a replacement 591.png file and on how to create the resources file you need, could someone kindly post a tut on how to accomplish this please?

After, reading your post and looking at the resources, and working with previous skins. Before it was integrated into Plus...from what I remember you could  just open the file then open a blank image with the same dimensions. Create your new status icons. and place them in the blank image in the same order as in the original 591 image. But remember they' have to be in the same pixel placing as before or it will mess up the image's when messenger reads them.

*sorry for horrible grammar, and sorry it's not really in tutorial format. I'll re-write if you'd like.

thanks banky yes if you could rewrite into a more tutorial like format it would be greatly appreciated.

quote:

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Originally posted by stuartbennett
thanks banky yes if you could rewrite into a more tutorial like format it would be greatly appreciated.

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ok not a problem, i still have a lot of other work to do on the skin before its release worthy anyway so for the time being atleast theres no rush, get back to me as soon as is possible, id rather you take extra time to ensure accuracy and ease of use than rush it and i not understand it lol.

Replacing Muti-Image/Single-Lined Resources
By: banky

Attention

- I'll Be Using Adobe Photoshop CS:2 For this Guide
- Guide Based on Resource 591 and Messenger Version 8.5(Final)
- Difficulty: Mediumish
- Horrible Grammar lol! ;x

1. Open the resource in your graphics program.

2. Find out the dimensions of the resource (Image--> Image Size or Alt+Ctrl+I)
*Dimensions for 591: 361x18*

3. Now open a new image (File - New) Make the dimensions the same as the resource you're trying to replace.
(For this guide we'll make it 361x18)

4. To begin changing the resource make sure your first Layer is transparent, then make a new layer for every image that's in the Single-Lined Resource.
(For 591 we'll need 10 Layers)

*You can try 1 layer for all the images, but it's easier with multiple layers so you can rearrange each item to make sure the pixel settings are correct*

5. We'll Need rulers for this next step(Ctrl+R), we'll also need to zoom into the original resource so we can find where we'll need to put the images in our new resource.

Click for Picture

*Warning I've zoomed at 300% you can choose any zoom but for sake of the tutorial I'll be using 300%**

From the picture you can see that the location for the following:
*With Zoom at 300% each little notch on the ruler is 2"*

Right Side: 12"
Left Side: 0"
Bottom: 14"
Top: 0"

*I'll only be showing the location of the first image simply so you can try to do the rest*

6. Now that we know the location of the first location let's move the icon we'd like to replace the first image with into our blank image.

*Remember Size Matters: Try not to get a image that's to wide.. as it may interfere with the layout of the other images*

7. Now after Dragging the new image to the blank file. Turn on rulers(If not already done) and zoom to 300% again.(Or the zoom you've chosen)

8. Now Simply align the new image to the location you' found for the previous image which is
Right Side: 12"
Left Side: 0"
Bottom: 14"
Top: 0"

Click for picture

As you can see I have aligned the new image to the same location as in the original resource which will allow it to be changed after adding the rest of the images and saving it.

-End-

Sorry, that I only showed you how to do one location hopefully I wrote this good enough you'll understand how to find the locations of the others..
I don't think this is the only way to change these image's but it's the only way I know of.

Post anymore questions, you have i'll try and answer them and if needed update/edit the tut.

thanks banky, ill have a go at this or maybe see if jason can, but as we only have fireworks im not sure how we will get on but thanks for your help its greatly appreciated.

quote:

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Originally posted by stuartbennett
thanks banky, ill have a go at this or maybe see if jason can, but as we only have fireworks im not sure how we will get on but thanks for your help its greatly appreciated.

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yeah i dont know if it has rules but it has 4 boxes for image positioning, basically you have height, width, x & y so we would just need to work out how to position them across the x and y axis's, i think thats the only thing we will have to overcome to do in fireworks.

my biggest concern is that in the skin araura messenger they had a resources.dll file and about 30 seperate image references that were used in combination with the 591 image to make it work, the image wasnt so much what we anticipated problems with its the creating a resource.dll file that we have no clue in doing, if we can create that we could probably figure out how to adapt araura skins skininfo code to pull this off.

EDIT:

i have the reshacker program to create .dll's i just dont know anything about how to use the program to make them from scratch.

Hmm.. Sounds odd wonder why they  did a dll.. I'll talk to willz later when he sign onto msn and have him check out this thread.. See what input he can give you.

Older versions of Messenger Plus! (some old beta builds) needed DLLs to replace special resources, which were not supported by the SkinInfo file. But after a while, Patchou implemented that into the SkinInfo file, so the use of the DLL is not necessary anymore.
I've heard from the creator of the Apple Skin, that he's using the DLL to get rid of all the skinners editing his skin (by making it more advanced, since you need ResHacker). There have been lots of rip-offs off his skin.

quote:

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Originally posted by vikke
Older versions of Messenger Plus! (some old beta builds) needed DLLs to replace special resources, which were not supported by the SkinInfo file. But after a while, Patchou implemented that into the SkinInfo file, so the use of the DLL is not necessary anymore.
I've heard from the creator of the Apple Skin, that he's using the DLL to get rid of all the skinners editing his skin (by making it more advanced, since you need ResHacker). There have been lots of rip-offs off his skin.

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I might have a crack at this Stuart to see if i can get this to work it may be a bit difficult in firworks but I am sure it can be done

591 is one of the rare buddy images in Windows Live Messenger that you can just edit and replace and everything will be ok.

There is nothing special you have to do in order to replace it properly you just simply write a normal replace statement and it should work.

There is no need for contentindexes or anything like that. Its a simple as opening it in photoshop and just laying your new images on top of the old ones and then deleting the old ones when you are done.

tried that willz as soon as i do a replace on the 591 image and save the skininfo file my skin disappears from plus preferences skins section and it loads the default messenger skin so clearly the dll and stuff is required to make this work.

no dll's are not required in a skin.

In Ev0 i do not use a dll and I have replaced the 591 perfectly fine.

You are obviously doing something wrong if it is loading the default messenger.

quote:

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Originally posted by Willz
no dll's are not required in a skin.

In Ev0 i do not use a dll and I have replaced the 591 perfectly fine.

You are obviously doing something wrong if it is loading the default messenger.

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quote:

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<Picture Id="591">
     <File>591.png</File>
</Picture>

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If it's not showing up in MP!L Preferences, check your XML, there is probably a parser error.

quote:

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Originally posted by stuartbennett

quote:

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Originally posted by Willz
no dll's are not required in a skin.

In Ev0 i do not use a dll and I have replaced the 591 perfectly fine.

You are obviously doing something wrong if it is loading the default messenger.

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all i did which caused default messenger to load is add the following to my skininfo file.

quote:

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<Picture Id="591">
     <File>591.png</File>
</Picture>

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i havve added pictures in this way before and never had a problem it just this one thing, anyways as i couldnt figure out how to test my graphic in my o0wn skin i installed aurora live messenger and replaced their 591 image with mine and as you can see from the image below it worked great.



as you can see it works using the dll method so if i copy their dll and there code from their skininfo file i could make it work but then that would be stealing lol and i really want to learn how to do this properly.

also i have a few questions about some of the icons in the 591 image itself



you have 2 additional copies of the online icon which seem to serve no purpose you have the mobile, contact book, online blocked & offline blocked there too and they dont seem to serve any purpose so why are they there?

thanks in advance willz i do appreciate your help in this matter, i will take a quick look at evo to see what your method was if its ok while i await a response.

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thanks willz, i put in the metadata colorize false bit like you did in evo and now 591 works. when i thought about it a few days ago i thought it would be complicated but on reflection it was pretty easy after all that.

one question though, there are many windows that use buddy icons on them not just 1004 and 1009, for example if you open a conversation with someone whos in mobile mode then you see mesengers default phone icon in the chat window as opposed to my own, and in chat window you have the block contact button which uses the usual images from microsoft, i want to customise the status everywhere so it looks proper.

Code is not universal and neither are resources, some rely on 46611, others rely on 1112, rare ones rely on 592.

Window and taskbar icons rely on BMP's and ICO's. So you will have to change each one accordingly to make it work. The best method is to simply look over all of messengers resources and edit every single one that you see a buddy in.

Skinning was never easy, and this is one of the reasons why.

ok willz ill give that a go.