The update of the summer is here! It’s been a while but Messenger Plus! Live is now reliable enough to be left alone without the need of too many updates, nobody likes bloatware. Scripts and skins are still being added every week so if you like ever-changing things, you know you have the right add-on :-). Nevertheless, Messenger Plus! Live 4.70 can now be downloaded and features a couple of interesting new things, including one in particular: auto-updates for all your scripts and skins!

Most of us will download a skin or a script once and will never bother to check for updates later-on. For that reason, the many improvements that are then added by the developers are never seen by most the people who use their work. Fortunately, it is now a thing of the past as the new Messenger Plus! searches for updates of all its components in the official database and will notify you when needed. The new auto-update feature is designed to be as non-intrusive as possible so don’t worry, you’ll never be forced to install anything if for some reason you like your Messenger the way it already is :-). If you’re a script or a skin developer, please review the excellent FAQ made by MenthiX on the forum to make sure your users can benefit completely from this new feature.

Now, let’s talk about skins: some time ago, I talked about a contest… time for less talk and more action! Similar to the scripting contest that happened two years ago, this year’s Skinning Contest is opened to all the skin developers ready to face this challenge: to be the best skinner this world has ever seen!… well, maybe not the “world” but at least the Messenger community. And be sure my friends that the prizes are worth it, but first, here is how it’s going to work: starting today, you have 5 weeks to create the most outstanding skin imaginable. The deadline is September 14th at 23:59:59, Greenwich Mean Time. To participate, all you need to do is submit a skin to the official database (the contest is open worldwide), updates of existing skins are accepted. All the skins will be tested in the current most popular version of Messenger, Windows Live Messenger 8.5 (no need to make them work in the outdated Messenger 9 Beta from last winter).

Creating a skin requires a certain degree of technical skills. You need to be able to create appealing graphics as well as do some basic coding (in XML, a syntax similar to HTML). Fortunately, a lot of help is already available, whether it is on this site, on the forum or on specialized sites such as Design Evolved. Of course, you need to start with the official documentation and once you’ve been through it, take a look at the “Useful Software” part of this site’s skinning section to have the tools of the best skinner in town. The process of creating new skins can be very simple and get very complicated depending on what you want to do and what you want to see. This is a trial and error process but if you persist long enough, your creations will be admired by thousands if not millions of people. And for the next 5 weeks, you have a couple of extra reasons to do it…

Not 1 but 7 Wacom Tablets will be distributed to the winners of this contest. Your skin(s) will be judged and placed into three different categories: originality (something never done before), deformity (shaped windows), and functionality (improved user interface). The first prize for each category is an excellent Cintiq 12WX (check out the video on their site), a 12.1″ TFT screen that acts like a second monitor for your computer and lets you draw directly on the pictures you want to edit with incredible precision. The second prize for each category is a very respectable Intuos3 6*8 with 1,024 pressure levels and professional software such as Adobe Photoshop Elements. And finally, the creator of the one best skin, all categories considered, will get rewarded for his efforts with a magnificent Cintiq 20WXS. This dream-come-true for any graphic designer features a 20.1″ wide screen with a resolution of 1680*1050, has 14 customizable hard keys, 2 touch strips, a special rotating stand so that you can use the tablet like a big sheet of paper, anti-glare and friction coating to simulate the texture of paper and a wide viewing angle. Nothing can compare to this tablet and it’s the most recent and best model offered by the entire Wacom company. You’ll find all the information you need about those three gems on Wacom’s web site but for the 20WSX, you’ll want to take a look at the video in the 21UX section as none exists for the latest model yet.

I hope these prizes will get you going, we’ll now be waiting for your skins! Remember to try to submit your work early-on to ensure that all the basic requirements are met. Only the final version of your skin will be considered for the contest and thanks to the new auto-update feature, you can freely distribute previews of your work if you want. Note that this will also help guarantee that you’re recognized as being the first one distributing this particular skin with this particular idea to avoid possible rip-offs. If needed, more information will be posted about this contest on the forum so stay alert! And finally, if you’re not a skin developer and you’re wondering “that’s sweet but what about me?”, well, you can already be glad to know that your Messenger will truly look like never before once this contest is over. Secondly, I promise to be back with another contest that’s more user-centered with lots of other cool prizes to win, probably by the end of the year :-).

Take care everyone and enjoy the last bits of summer while it lasts. Good luck for the contest!

It’s not everyday that I find myself recompiling an old friend. Messenger Plus! 3 had been recompiled early this year with Visual Studio 2008 and because I do not test any of my products in Windows 98 anymore, I had the bad surprise today to learn that VS2008 does not produce compatible binaries for older operating systems. Long story short, it meant that Messenger Plus! 3 couldn’t be installed on some older versions of Windows while it should have.

The problem has been fixed so if you’re one of those still forced to use Windows 98 or Windows Me on a regular basis, you can now download the updated version of Messenger Plus! 3 on this web site which will continue to work beautifully with MSN Messenger.

A new version of Messenger Plus! is now available for download! Many things have been updated in version 4.60 but if you’re not a script or a skin developer, chances are you won’t see much difference compared with the last update. Still, among the improvements you’ll notice that WMA sound files can be selected for Custom Notifications, all the extra Plus! features now work fine in Mobile Device chat windows, and notification popups are now shown in a better way.

If you’re a script developer, you’ll find many new functions of interest in this release, like UploadFileFTP,  GetElementPos, ExtractFromZIP and support for synchronous callbacks with GetCallbackPtr. Skin developers will enjoy even more improvements, like DateRange restrictions to make your skin change depending on the current date, advanced new features for Color resources to create customized colorization values and gradient colors, the addition of Font elements to distribute and use special fonts in your skin, the possibility to create a separate About Box window, Environment tags for PlusSkin elements to create conditions based on things like the current version of Messenger, and more! Just check the Change Log and download the latest version of the documentations to see it all.

Of course, even if you’re just a simple user, all the updates that are related to scripts and skins still concern you. You’ll need the latest version of Messenger Plus! to be able to enjoy upcoming scripts and skins that make use of these improvements (and trust me, some good stuff awaits you in the near future for both, many very talented people now work on Messenger Plus! extensions). Also, in addition to all these updates, the new version contains an extra dose of bug fixes to make the software even more stable and enjoyable which brings me to something special I wanted to talk about.

Almost anybody who’s been using Windows for an extended period of time knows about the “Send Error Report” window. This window popups when a program crashes and asks if you want to send additional information to Microsoft about the problem. What some of you may not realize is how precious this information can be and how useful this system is. The reports are gathered together, classified, organised and made available to the associated software developer by the Windows Quality Online Services (Winqual) team at Microsoft. For years this team has helped me improve Messenger Plus! with the reports you’ve sent. Tens and tens of important errors have been found and fixed thanks to the service they provide. I’m proud to be able to deliver a highly reliable product to my users and I wanted to point out that my job would be much more difficult sometimes if the Winqual team was not here to help. The people who work in Winqual are among the most professional people I’ve worked with at Microsoft and I just wanted to thank them for the service they provide, especially considering that most people have no idea of who they are and what they do ;-).

Thank you for using Messenger Plus! and keep on sending those error reports when prompted :-). Have fun with the new release!

As it often happens shortly a major release:  an update of your favorite Messenger add-on has just been posted (build 312) and is now available for download. This update includes the latest translation files for Messenger Plus! as well as a couple of small fixes based on the early reports I received. Overall, it’s been a very positive week, everybody seems to enjoy the new version and the Skinning section on the forum is rapidly becoming very popular.

Most of you will get notified about this new Messenger Plus! release via auto-update during next week. Meanwhile, the web site is still being polished and its many translations will start coming back before the end of the year. I’m sure you’ll all have more exicting things to do in the next couple of weeks than checking for updates on msgpluslive.net anyway. Messenger Plus! Live 4.50.312 will be the last version published in 2007 so get it, enjoy chatting with your friends and eat all the chocolates you can! Christmas is here! :-)

In the end, 6 months were necessary to create this update… 6 months! Looking back, I can’t believe time has passed so fast. This all started out like a standard minor update, destined to be labeled 4.30. I was working on it while most of you were clicking on the 6th Anniversary Contest grid. Then, an idea came up about improving the looks of the Plus! windows, followed by an urge to change everything, and when I finally decided to complete the skinning engine I had started 2 years ago, I knew the update would require more than another week to complete.

Here we are now, in December, 2 weeks away from Christmas, and the update has finally been uploaded to the servers! Not only that but the web site got a serious make-over as well. Everything looks nicer, everything works better; it is now up to you to decide whether or not all these changes were worth the efforts. Once again, I have to thank all the testers, all the translators, the graphic designers and the people in charge of the servers. They are all valuable members of the community, their help is precious and without them, Plus! wouldn’t be the software you know today.

As discussed in previous news posts, the main highlight of this update is skinning. You can now change the appearance of your Messenger, rapidly and securely. All the pictures can be modified, the windows re-shaped and the elements re-colorized… sky is the limit! Some of the testers did a lot of work in the past few weeks to showcase their talents and demonstrate how to work with the system. The resulting skins can be downloaded from the official Skins Database, a new section of msgpluslive.net. Note that some of these skins are not considered “final” (polished enough) by their creators yet but they’re worth downloading nonetheless.

If you’re interested in creating your own Messenger skin, check out the documentation included with Messenger Plus!, visit the help forum, take a look at the current skins to see how they were created and submit your creation when it’s ready to shine! More than 10 million scripts have been downloaded from the Scripts Database since last year already and skins promise to be as popular if not more. Remember that the success of this feature will mostly depend on your submissions so if you feel inspired, possess some basic technical knowledge and got some time ahead of you, don’t be shy and give the system a try! One last thing: in case you’d be wondering, yes, a skinning contest will indeed be organised early next year and every existing skin will be eligible :-).

Of course, skinning is only one of the many new things offered by this version. The Preferences panel has been re-designed with many new options added all over the place, Script developers can now enjoy new API functions as well as a much better built-in editor with support for IntelliSense and outlining, the Log Viewer has been completely reworked with features like “search in files” and “maximize view”, the Contact List Clean-Up now offers a “show contacts who have me in their list” mode, Contact Information windows give more information about your contacts, new event notifications are conveniently shown in the notification area of your chat windows, the uninstaller includes a Repair mode and is UAC friendly, etc… The sheer size of the Change Log alone should be enough to convince you that this is not a simple refresh of version 4.23.

Note: the software is still available in more than 20 languages, however, translation of the new web site’s pages will take another week or two to be completed. The web site itself is to be considered work-in-progress for some days. Translating from one language to another is a hard and time consuming job. All the translation teams did a tremendous job on the software already, I didn’t feel I could ask more from them before the software was released and people could enjoy the result of the efforts. The good news is that even more pages than before will be translated once the work is done.

That’s it for today. I hope you’ll all be pleased with the update. 22 million of you are now using Messenger Plus!. To me, that’s 22 million reasons to keep on working on it :-).

Enjoy!