Shoutbox

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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Sound's, logical enough .. that suck's people are  ripping his skin x.x.

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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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.

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.

---

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

quote:

---

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

---

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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Yeah in Ev0 that is what I used..... a simple image replace and it worked perfect. Like vikke said you most likely have something wrong in your skininfo which is causing it to die.

And you are asking the wrong person Microsoft puts a lot of things in WLM that serve no real purpose. In fact if you take a look at the resources you will see images from WLM 8.0 beta that are still in there and do nothing at all.

Best thing you can do is be safe and stick to what they have there.

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.