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Messenger Plus! Live 4.79.353 beta
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Posted on Tuesday, January 13 2009 @ 13:02:00 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck |
Messenger Plus! is freeware. Freeware is neither spyware nor shareware, just freeware. It's 100% free to use and you can choose whether you want to install the sponsor program that comes with it or not. Join millions of happy users right now!
Changelog:
- This version is entirely compatible with the final version of Windows
Live Messenger 2009 (build 1202). Yes, that includes chat logging, emotion
sounds, skins, scripts and so on :-).
- The new UIB encoded versions of the windows' styles and definitions are
completely supported by Messenger Plus!.
- For skinners, this means that Messenger Plus! will decode the files
automatically when extracting the resources and will re-encode them
automatically when added in a skin. For everybody else, this means
Messenger Plus! will still rock in 2009! :-).
- Notes about UIB decoding: in order to make things as simple as
possible for the skin developers, Messenger Plus! generates definition
files and style files almost identical to what you used to see in
Messenger before. One of the differences you'll notice is a
<*PlusSkin*/> tag on top of each file: do not remove it or alter it.
- Skins: if you used to write some strange exotic syntax in your
windows' files which was previously accepted and parsed by Messenger,
Messenger Plus! may not be so tolerant. The opposite is also true as
Messenger Plus! may accept things that Messenger did not (like character
escaping in strings such as "
"). In the end, most developers won't
ever notice a difference though.
- Skins: although Windows Definition files and Windows
Styles files can still be included separately in your skins, it is
recommended to include both files for each window you skin when creating
skins for Messenger 2009. If one of the two files is missing, Messenger
Plus! will have to decode the internal UIB file in order to get the
missing piece before re-encoding everything, slowing down the loading of
Messenger.
- Skins: the skin trace file will now include more
information when a loading error occurs as Messenger Plus! is doing the
parsing itself. Also, note that if a window file cannot be parsed
properly, the original one from Messenger will now be used instead.
- Information for all add-on and patch developers working
on Messenger: in order for you to keep on working on your software, I have
decided to allow you to encode and decode UIB files for your own use.
- "MPTools.exe", which is available in the Messenger
Plus! directory, will take care of your UIB needs. All you have to do is
specify the source and destination files and MPTools will do the rest.
- You have two ways to use this feature: if your
add-on/patch requires live modifications to the windows files based on
some user options, Messenger Plus! will need to be installed on your
users' computers and your software will need to call MPTools before and
after you modify the file. If you only need fixed changes to be applied
on one given version of Messenger, you can decode, modify and re-encode
the files yourself and distribute the final UIB file which won't require
Messenger Plus! to be installed.
- Although both solutions will work perfectly fine,
doing live encoding and decoding with MPTools will always be the
recommended for many reasons, the first one being that your add-on will
benefit from all the future update automatically and will stay
compatible with the next versions of Messenger. Note that MPTools.exe
cannot be redistributed and used on its own though, Messenger Plus!
needs to be installed for the tool to work (you can either link it from
your software or download/install it automatically, with the /Silent
switch or not, you decide).
- Check out the new "Encoding and Decoding UIB" section
of the skinning documentation for more details.
- Skins: the Resource Extractor now supports the new
resource types introduced in Messenger 2009 (which are used transparently
while consolidating the windows data).
- Skins: the color map file generated by the Resource
Extractor now specifies "ref" for color ids that are references to other
colors.
- Skins: the number of encrypted RLE files the Resource
Extractor was not able to process fell from 158 in the last beta to 2 in
Messenger 2009! (and it's because those two produce an empty result so for
now, I prefer considering them as un-processed). This special kind of RLE
file has a variable size, the content is generated dynamically with the size
requested by Messenger at any given time. Once decrypted, "_var" is attached
to the name of the file to make sure you don't forget about it when
modifying the resource (if you replace those by pictures, make sure your
pictures are big enough to avoid looking pixelized).
- Compatibility for the previous public Beta version of Windows Live
Messenger 9 has been removed.
- Skins. Fixed: in Messenger 2009, the shape is not always properly
applied in Vista.
- And more... will be listed in the final change log of version 4.80.
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Program Information
Category:
Internet and communication
Type:
Free
Version:
4.79.353 beta
Size:
4.73MB
Works on:
Windows
Product page: here
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Download: Messenger Plus! Live 4.79.353 beta
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