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Messenger Plus! Live 4.80.356
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Posted on Tuesday, February 03 2009 @ 15:08:38 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck |
Messenger Plus! Live is an add-on for Windows Live Messenger that adds tons of features and extras to the software. Extend the possibilities of Messenger and make your experience a lot more entertaining!
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 "Show contacts as Idle" option will properly display "Idle" for
your contacts' status in chat windows but not in the contact list. For
that reason, an "(Idle)" indicator has been added in the contact list's
tooltip (Messenger 9 only).
- The Messenger Plus! menus displayed by buttons added in the windows
of Messenger are more properly aligned.
- Skins: when a skin that redefines the shape of a window in Messenger
is loaded in Messenger 9, the window frame present in Vista is properly
removed.
- Skins: vertical gradient colors cannot be created for Messenger 9,
only horizontal gradients are supported.
- The new UIB encoded version of the windows' styles and definitions is
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, it 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: Windows Definition files and Windows Styles
files can still be included separately in your skins. If one of the two
files is missing, Messenger Plus! will decode the internal UIB file in
order to get the missing piece before re-encoding everything (this may
slow down Messenger a little at the first occurrence).
- Skins: the skin trace file will now include more
precise 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.
- Compatibility with all previous beta versions of Windows Live Messenger
9/14/2009 has been removed (more than a year of betas for this one!).
- Contacts from Yahoo! Messenger are now handled better by Messenger
Plus!.
- Messenger Plus! now displays many of its windows using the specific
color selected for each contact. Display pictures are also displayed in
contact related popup notifications (can be turned off in the preferences).
- The Contact Information window now displays an animation for animated
display pictures.
- When chatting with more than 2 people, the size of the header in chat
logs is now reduced.
- When chatting in a group in Messenger 2009, whenever possible, Messenger
Plus! creates a single chat log file associated to the group.
- The "enhance copy/paste" feature now doesn't do anything with pictures
and lets Messenger handles it.
- A new icon is displayed in tabbed chats for group chats.
- Windows 7 is now properly reported by (!VER). Messenger Plus! is
currently reported to work on this OS.
- The Multiple Accounts option (polygamy) is now compatible with the
Windows 7 jump list tasks (tasks are sent to the Messenger that was launched
in last).
- A couple of things have been improved internally to ensure the
reliability of the sound modules in Messenger Plus! (especially when using
emotion sounds).
- Emotion sounds are not automatically played anymore when Messenger is
locked.
- The Greek language is now part of the official distribution.
- Setup is now faster if many of scripts and skins are installed.
- Fixed: the Messenger Plus! icons may not be added in the Messenger
windows if a skin is enabled but failed to load.
- Fixed: spin controls in the emotion sound wizard are inversed.
- Fixed: Messenger Plus! windows don't look good when a very bright color
is selected in Messenger. The color of titles in all windows has been
darkened too.
- Fixed: in Messenger 8.5, the names of contacts that are using Messenger
2009 may be displayed incorrectly by Messenger Plus!.
- Fixed: Messenger may crash on startup if a hooking error occurs (problem
introduced in version 4.70).
- Fixed: when several user sessions are active and Messenger Plus! needs
to restart Messenger (when importing a skin for example), the Messengers of
all the user sessions are closed.
- Fixed: "Format Codes" button not added in the the Chinese Messenger
options.
- Fixed: the password parameter for command line encryption with
LogViewer.exe requires password that have a minimum length of 4 characters.
- Fixed: /PlusSkin="" is ignored and does not prevent the current skin to
be loaded.
- The "Use the default scene" option available in chat windows is now
supported by Messenger Plus!. Note however that Messenger 2009 has a bug
preventing this option to work properly sometimes when changed and requiring
the chat window to be closed and reopened. Messenger Plus! always sticks to
the option as you selected it.
- Scripts: Image elements now support GIF pictures. Use the new
AllowAnimate attribute to automatically animate the picture on screen.
- Scripts: MsgPlus.DisplayToastContact now supports an additional
"Contact" parameter to allow Messenger Plus! to colorize the toasts your
script display according to a contact's profile.
- Scripts: added a new "ProfileColor" property to Contact objects. You can
use this to know what color is currently associated to a specific contact
(according to its Messenger profile).
- Scripts: added a new "BaseColor" property to PlusWnd objects. Use it if
you want to modify the base color of your windows, for example, to match
contact specific colors.
- Scripts and Skins: the <AllowAutoUpdate> element now also takes effect
if no Build Number or Update Id is specified.
- Scripts. Fixed: DataBloc::ReadInterfacePtr() does not work as expected.
- Skins: the Resource Extractor has been improved for Messenger 2009.
- The "rcanim", "rcbmp" and "rcchar" resource identifiers are now
recognized and handled properly.
- Cursors are extracted.
- Strings from "msgres" are extracted.
- Added basic consolidation mode (third check state in the Resource
Extractor window, looks like a square). Use it to produce consolidated
windows files that can be used safely in your final skin. Things like
strings are not replaced in this mode (for localisation reasons).
- Skins: the skininfo schema file has been modified for Messenger 2009.
- Strings from "msgres" can now be modified.
- The cursors specified in "msgres" can be replaced.
- Remember that the version number of the new Messenger is 14.0 and
not 9.0 (keep that in mind when writing your <Restrictions> elements).
- Skins. Fixed: Metadata is not applied properly when replacing pictures
that did not any Metadata in the first place.
- Skins: the tabbed chat bar can now be skinned with the picture of your
choice, displayed in mosaic and colorized if required. Check out
"PlusSkinResGroupTabbedChatBar" for more details.
- Note: the "MessengerPlusTabbedChatBar" option element has been
deprecated and it is recommended that you do not use it (it may not
produce good results in Messenger 9).
- Skins. Fixed: Build and Revision can be inversed when reading the
InformationCompatibility element.
- Skins: thanks to research done by Willz, a new element named
"FrameCount" has been added to picture's Metadata. You can use it when
replacing or adding animated pictures.
- 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).
- Skins: added "ResetUserScenes" value in the
"OptionsMessenger" element. It's considered to be "true" by default and is
used to remove the currently selected scene from all the user profiles when
a skin is selected. Disable this option if your skin is meant to be used in
conjunction with scenes.
- Skins: you can now add a "SkinOptions" element in
"PlusSkin" resource groups. Use it for conditional skinning of Messenger
Plus! resources based on the skin's properties.
- Skins: because Messenger 2009 restricts the command ids
that can be sent from sub-windows to parent windows (like the top toolbar in
the contact list), a work-around has been added to Messenger Plus!. Instead
of adding a "cmdid" attribute, you need to add a specially formatted
"accvalue" attribute. For example, instead of cmdid=7460 you'll need to add
accvalue="Messenger Plus! CmdId: 7460".
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Program Information
Category:
Internet and communication
Type:
Free
Version:
4.80.356
Size:
4.81MB
Works on:
Windows
Product page: here
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Download: Messenger Plus! Live 4.80.356
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