Shoutbox

As I stated in this thread: http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=79851&page=1 I believe the skinning engine is powerful but not enough, although of course this is the start and better skins will come out.

The question is would it be possible (and does someone want to atempt it) to make a skin like this:





Thats right: Make WLM 8.5/9.0 look like MSN Messenger 2.0!
Reasons: None but it would really prove the power of the skinning engine IMO and hey maybe someone does want a very MINIMAL Messenger like old times.

Somone willing to do this?

One problem would be the classic Windows style. In Messenger 2.0, there were no UIFILEs, but now we have to use UIFILEs for our GUI. So you can't say: "Hey there, Messenger GUI Engine! Can you please f*ck off with your UIFILEs, I want to use a simple Windows style without those fancy PNGs and stuff!".

Of course, you can make a Windows 95-alike window using UIFILEs, but it won't take the style from Windows itself but from the GUI. But I think it'd look cool to have an old looking Messenger running on Vista, so I don't think that'd be a problem.

I may want to try this, if I really don't find any inspiration for a skin. At the moment, I'm at the point of "What shall I try, and what can I do?". I already tried to install Wave11 MSN for 7.5 to extract the resources and attempt revive it but the UIFILEs were unreadable (i.e., no line breaks and I cba to add them).

Using the current Messenger GUI framework, you cannot develop a Windows window, but you can make it look like one. But it will never be a genuine window. For example if you change theme color or something, the Messenger windows will still look the same.
MSN Messenger 2 doesn't use UIFILEs (as far as I know), so you cannot view them, or port them over.

Mattike: What editor did you use? You might've used an editor which couldn't read the line breaks.

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Originally posted by vikke
Mattike: What editor did you use? You might've used an editor which couldn't read the line breaks.

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Nope, the cause is that the skinners tried to get their resources as small as possible. Therefore, they removed the tabbing and line breaks in their UIFILEs. Unfortunately, The Messenger Lab died some years ago and I haven't had contact with either Fizical or theunknown since then... Also, it seems like Wave11 MSN used a lot of gradients instead of PNGs and I have no clue if those would still work on WLM 8.5. But well, I'd give it a try if someone could "beautify" the UIFILEs. (I have them extracted, give a ring if you want to try and "decode" them )

Difficult but a challenge. I believe it would be intresting if somone could pull this off.

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Originally posted by riahc4
Difficult but a challenge. I believe it would be intresting if somone could pull this off.

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I could do it.

It's not that difficult but yeah it'd just look like msgr2 in a gui way, it wouldn't be all in built icons into a toolbar etc.

what was the chat window like?

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Originally posted by aNILEator

quote:

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Originally posted by riahc4
Difficult but a challenge. I believe it would be intresting if somone could pull this off.

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I could do it.

It's not that difficult but yeah it'd just look like msgr2 in a gui way, it wouldn't be all in built icons into a toolbar etc.

what was the chat window like?

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Kinda like windows messenger, but a bit more "old"

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Originally posted by Jimbo
Kinda like windows messenger, but a bit more "old"

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Ya know..... some members seem to get dumber each day that really doesn't help me make a skin just saying old.

Can you provide a screenshot of the chat window?

quote:

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Originally posted by Mattike

quote:

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Originally posted by vikke
Mattike: What editor did you use? You might've used an editor which couldn't read the line breaks.

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Nope, the cause is that the skinners tried to get their resources as small as possible. Therefore, they removed the tabbing and line breaks in their UIFILEs. Unfortunately, The Messenger Lab died some years ago and I haven't had contact with either Fizical or theunknown since then... Also, it seems like Wave11 MSN used a lot of gradients instead of PNGs and I have no clue if those would still work on WLM 8.5. But well, I'd give it a try if someone could "beautify" the UIFILEs. (I have them extracted, give a ring if you want to try and "decode" them )

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Gradients still exist in 8.5 so there is no need to worry there.

quote:

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Originally posted by aNILEator

quote:

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Originally posted by Jimbo
Kinda like windows messenger, but a bit more "old"

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Ya know..... some members seem to get dumber each day that really doesn't help me make a skin just saying old.

Can you provide a screenshot of the chat window?

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Well since 1.0 didnt have webcam features, maybe some of the GUI could also be taken from Windows Messenger, which can be installed on a XP machine.