Shoutbox

As stated before in this thread, there is already a script which let people use voiceclips to send custom sounds, see one of the previous posts for the link.

As for letting aMSN accessing the sound database, that wont happen for several reasons. Bandwidth is one of the main reasons...

As for how the current system works: it is far from "just sending some text". The text itself which is sent does not contain any link. It only contains a sound ID. It is the program of Plus! itself which 'talks' to the server database, does some checks (is the sound banned? does the sound need to be downloaded? etc) and then downloads and/or plays the sound. It also already uses a local cache btw. This protocol between Plus! and the database isn't going to be made public.

As for changing the way custom sounds work in Plus!, so they are compatible with aMSN (eg: the msnp2p method talked about) that wont happen any time soon either. Mean reason would be compatibilty with previous Plus! versions and people using Plus! 3, etc... Also, Patchou never used and never will use the msn protocol to do stuff for his addon. At most, it just monitors the protocol for certain messages for a few of its features, it does not tamper with it. One reason being that 3rd party clients aren't suppose to (ab)use the protocol. Patchou has a very good trustworthy relationship with Microsoft and doing such a thing will compromise this for sure.

For every method you choose to distribute sounds there are benefits and drawbacks. The major benefit of heaving a central database is that sounds can be moderated and information about sounds can be updated/fixed. It also ensures that different people have the same sounds and that sounds are categorized properly.

Making something where sounds are directly send from user to user will quickly result in loss of information of the sounds, mangled up sounds and no moderation can be done.

The whole custom sound system in Plus! is based upon those things and as such it is not possible to do it in any other way without breaking every compatibility. In essence, a completely new way should be programmed. And for what? To make it compatible with aMSN? Don't get me wrong though, but if you had to choose between breaking compatibilty with your own addon in favor of an addon from someone else, I think you also wouldn't take that step.

So unfortunatly, it is not possible to make it interoperable with the current Plus! system and the system isn't going to change.

Though what can be done, from aMSN's POV, is as suggested before: making a system where the user can import Plus! sound packs. aMSN can also send the special text strings to Plus! users and Plus! users would be able to hear the sound (if it exists in the DB or if the user has it in its cache). And aMSN can also check the aMSN user's local sound cache (just like the one Plus! has) to search and play the sound sent by a Plus! user. That is the best you can get/do.

So, the only thing which wouldn't be possible for aMSN is to download a new sound from the DB in case the aMSN user recieves a sound string from a Plus! user with an unknown sound ID.