I’ve finally attempted to upgrade WordPress to 2.7.1 today, and I have to say, it was both very easy and very hard at the same time; easy in that the upgrade was very simple and straightforward…once I’d got everything uploaded (this was the hard part, but I’m not blaming it on WordPress :P). The new Dashboard really is quite cool, although I would probably prefer the old 2.6.2 Dashboard over this one, simply because I’ve used it longer, but I’m sure I’ll get used to 2.7 in time. I only had to change a few small things in wp-includes to get my theme to work properly again (it did already, though I had to add the WLM status and Random Engrish functions again, as well as change some “hard-coded” tags.

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My first official skin for the new Messenger version has now been released! You can check it out here, but first, you might want to know a few things:

- Some images and colours cannot be edited (these colours appear to be hardcoded, and the images have a variable size so cannot be replaced easily)
- When Scenes are removed, colourising close to or on greyscale (black, white, etc) may result in red portions of some images (mostly just the “Scene” image, though). This is an issue with Messenger’s colourisation engine, and should be fixed with in a coming version of Messenger Plus! Live.
- Advertisements have been completely removed. This, to me, also means the Dynamic Content in the Emoticons, Winks etc. popup menus.
- The Min/Max/Close buttons on Vista have been replaced with the default XP buttons.

Enjoy!

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Yep, a new version of WLMod (WLMod Wave3, codenamed Ceduna) is in the works, coming along very well. This update for WLM9 will sport all the usual simplifying elements — but now with some extra bits and pieces for the new Messenger.

WLMod was originally an attempt at a proof of concept to show that Messenger’s layout could be changed to a moderate extent without replacing or adding images. In Messenger 2009 however, it has become pretty much impossible to do this, so I’ve decided to use images in Ceduna anyway.

Ceduna should be released around the end of June, perhaps earlier if I get the time.

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As you may have noticed, CmYK has changed its visual design, this time only moderately. I’ll provide a list of all the stuff I’ve done, both on and offsite (backstage on stuff I’ve written, yay!):

- I’ve changed the header, footer and post separators because they didn’t go too well with the site. Hopefully this design is much better looking
- I’ve added a super-duper zoom function to my Messenger display picture (just hover over it and wait a bit). I was originally going to have the zoom-out part delayed by a couple of seconds, but I decided against it. Also a note about Internet Explorer: It doesn’t seem to like the zoom very much and will push the entire blog to the left until it is restored. I can’t be bothered to try and fix this, as of course I have a distinct dislike for IE much like many webdevs.
- The orange headers have gone! Yep, I figured it was time to let them go, as much as I’ve developed a liking for orange over the time I’d used it. Still, I rather like the new light blue that succeeds it though.
- I’ve switched my Messenger status display method from the XML DOM to PHP’s SimpleXML, which is much better, and fixed a bug that invalidated the page by not returning the string with the proper HTML entities. This fix will also be incorporated into Helios once I get the chance to release the PLSC and PHP together.
- I’ve not been able to do anything with VistAero for now, but I have released a new version of CADLive, which now looks more like the new version of WLM2009! Check it out here. Also updated is 724 for CAD, just a few minor changes there though.
- I’ve had a quick look into the resources of the new Messenger version, and while I probably won’t be making any fully-fledged skins anymore, a WLMod version for 2009 could possibly be in the works soon. My school holidays are coming up as well, so I might have some extra time then to work on a lot of different things, WLMod perhaps included :D.

I’ll be back again soon with more stuff I’m working on, mostly Plus! scripts I’ve developed (they’re kind of useless, but I like them). I’ve also been thinking about making a new CAD skin with a totally new design; I’ll have to play around with Paint.NET for that!

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That’s right, I’ve again been very busy as usual!

I’ve more or less finished the CmYKv2 Site theme, just a few tweaks here and there and some more additions to the Internet Explorer CSS and I’ll be done. I still have not got around to the CAD skin yet, I haven’t been using it very much recently, but I’ll one day get it done, sorry if you were looking forward to that (which I doubt). I’m still moving on to other projects, leaving a trail of half-finished things behind that I really want to clean up soon… but I’m in a bit of disorganisation at the moment, I’ve finally got my new CPU (A Pentium Dual Core, not that flash, but it’s brilliant for now, better than the old Athlon), and I’m piecing together all my stuff into the familiar formats and locations and all that. A secondary 500GB drive is also coming, so I can finally get everything started again.

I’ve also made two VB.NET apps mainly for my own use, HexConv and HexaDecimal, which convert hexadecimal codes into text and decimal numbers respectively, and vice versa. HexaDecimal may prove to be very useful indeed, as some colours are represented by decimal numbers. This way, I’ll be able to convert them into recognisable hex (HTML) colour codes eg. #FFFFFF. The other program simply turns hex code into readable ASCII.

Another project of mine you may have noticed is Helios (listed under Pages). This, also, is not done yet (surprise, surprise); I still need to make some adjustments to the script and ask for permission to release it or at least get the author to release it himself. This is probably one of my favourite things to work on, it’s simple and user-friendly (at least I hope so) and very lightweight. Thanks go to MeEtc for the PHP SimpleXML method of getting data from XML files, and Eljay for the Messenger Plus! Live script that started me off here.

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I have a lot to do around the place and not much time left to do it… but here they are, in no particular order that I can consciously recall. None of these projects are finished yet, but some are coming close.

Two New Apps That Will Help You Skin Messenger
UIBENC and R2PGUI are two programs I have been developing in Visual Basic .NET. They are essentially frontends for console applications that I have found hard to use from a beginner’s point of view. I have made it easier to use these tools by introducing a lightweight pseudo-addon for them. The first of these, UIBENC, assists conversion to and from the new UIB format used in Messenger 9. The second, while not being able to convert to for certain legal reasons, can convert the rather longer-running propietary MSRLE format also used in Messenger (from 8.0 onwards), to normal 32-bit PNGs.

That CAD Skin I Told You About
Unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to work on this too much. Rest assured I will get it up and running soon! I don’t think the multiple backgrounds idea will go ahead, so all I have to do is copy the substyles for different resolutions. For now, not much news to report.

And last but not least…

CmYK Is Getting A New Look
I’d had enough of the bright white and blue (OK I didn’t, I just wanted to get rid of the Wave 3 header cause it isn’t actually mine), so now I’m plonking on a nice Web 2.0-ish look, using light and dark blue, white and  orange. I think it looks quite good, and I’ve made a DP border, signature, and wallpaper out of the general design. The wallpaper I’ve not released, but I hope to sometime. It looks kind of realistic, as though it was a photo with a fair amount of noise, or stripy carpet. It’s a variation on the 724|3 screenshot background.

There may be odd things happening around the site as I can’t test php locally. It’s not a complete interface overhaul though, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

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I am still alive! I have been very busy (not exactly) during these past weeks: I’ve had the graphics artist’s equivalent of writer’s block. So far, with my shiny new Toshiba laptop I got for Christmas with Vista, I’ve uncovered some pretty useful image resources I can use. This is the first of many more creations to come thanks to those resources.

Soon to be on CmYK is VistAero, a pretty self-explanatory skin for CD Art Display. It is a fullscreen skin for the latest 2.0 beta that, at the time of writing, only comes in 1440×900 and 1280×800 resolutions, as they are the resolutions of my PC and laptop, respectively. I will add more resolutions and I may also add different backgrounds, too!

I’m considering changing the site design, as I can almost smell some sort of legal action. I might just make a new header that’s “the same, but different”. You can’t copyright a colour scheme

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Yep, STF3 has been released! This new version, as has been shown in the preview, incorporates major layout changes, a new options panel thanks to Basilis, and more. You can check it out here.

The site has gotten a bit of an update as well, with a brand new logo, my Messenger status in the top right, and some minor design changes here and there. I’m still not finished with the status area, particularly the text formatting when I’m listening to music (it should be blue and underlined, like links on the site, just to complete the whole “Windows Live” feel to it).

Windows Live Messenger 2009 is entering RC (Release Candidate) stage soon, and I have to say, from what I’ve seen of it so far, it is, for the most part, pretty cool. It has its ups and downs, as any piece of software, of course, and with it still (at the time of writing) being in Beta, that is to be expected. I may not do much skinning for 9 when the final is released, as there is just so much more to do, but I’ll have a play around with the UIFiles and see what it can do. In the meantime, I’ll try and see if I can get started on that Windows Classic skin I mentioned earlier… It’s promising!

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I’ve decided to skip version 2.5 and head straight for v3 as I’ve had much more time than I expected, so here it is! It’s almost ready for action codewise, but I have yet to design proper icons for it, which I will be moving onto soon. I’ve uploaded screenshots of the new contact list and chat window, along with the updated colorize popup!

EDIT: Images removed; I think people would like their bandwidth

I will probably have v3 submitted to the Plus! Skins database by the 28th, which also happens to be my birthday!

Enjoy!

ryxdp

Just a little update on my skinning progress here. SevenTwoFour hasn’t been touched much since the start of November, but I’m going to fix it up soon, don’t worry. It’ll still be done by the end of the month, hopefully.

I’ve started a new project based on the Windows Classic theme. Probably will not move forward with this, or else I’ll just offer the Windows Standard variation alone.

I’ve just recovered from a major system-wide software update, and I am still editing various configurations once in a while, but I’m mostly done now, which gives me more time for skinning!

ryxdp