Shoutbox

It would be awsome if MSG Plus! could manage skins for MSN like Winamp does...

I mean... Develop a way to put skins (like Wave MSN Skin... And others) to work as a file so, no more msnmsgr.exe patching ^^...

I think it could be a way to do that...

This way, any person could change the skin without having to patch msn, the result... A very comfortable Messenger program with a lot of skins easy to change "on the fly"...

(Damn, sorry my english, I just finished a party at a friend house and I'm a little "dizzy" and tired... Besides my english is really bad xD...

C'ya all... I hope my idea coul be workable... ^^

There is a plugin out which you can use without messenger plus! it's somewhere in http://www.messenger-skins.net

skins still require patching or a another version of msn messenger but that would make skins far to big

And the porgram is buggy and does not always work skinning will always patch msn sorry

I remember hearing a while ago about a way to skin MSN in the process so it would be legal, it could work in theory, but to change skins it would likely need to close MSN Messenger and reopen. Afaik, soft patching skinning hasn't had any luck and has only been a dream, but in the future, you never know it may work.

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Originally posted by Anubis
I remember hearing a while ago about a way to skin MSN in the process so it would be legal, it could work in theory, but to change skins it would likely need to close MSN Messenger and reopen.

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its possible that way i think (i havent done it)

i guess it would work the same way loader patches do

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Originally posted by Lee Jeffery
i guess it would work the same way loader patches do

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Though you'd have to take into account the different image sizes. If the image you're soft-patching into Messenger is bigger/smaller than the one it's replacing, you'll need to find everything that points to the original image and make them point to the new one instead.

Without restarting msn messenger in some way (or let it re-initialize), soft-patching will not work...

Skinning is mostly changing resources (in msn messenger case) and resources are loaded (again in msn messenger case) when it starts, it isn't loaded on-demand.

Skinning can't be compared to loaders and the likes because those all involve only changing some small bits and pieces of code in memory (often only a byte or two). Skinning involves changing whole area's of memory without to mention all the links and other variables and code that calls that memory...

Also, if you want to get msn messenger to reload the resources without restarting, good luck with the trials and the thick ASM book you'll need...

One small correction Cookie - if you replace the resource in memory in the right way, the new data will be accessed next time the window is drawn. This assumes that the window's ook isn't buffered in any way.

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Originally posted by raceprouk
One small correction Cookie - if you replace the resource in memory in the right way, the new data will be accessed next time the window is drawn. This assumes that the window's ook isn't buffered in any way.

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I wouldn't call that method the "right" way though, but what's in the name.... Anyways, good luck with that approach You'll find that many stuff can't be replaced just like and as easy as that...

I only put that forward as an idea: I'm not crazy enough to try it

Damn... Well Let's hope Microsoft release a skinning version of MSN ^^...