05-01-2008, 04:59 PM
Aprils skin of the month contest was between four skins:
Windows Aero Messenger, Facebook, Apple Live Messenger and Zero-G. While it was a close competition to begin with, in the end there was a clear winner. The winner was Windows Aero Messenger.
Windows Aero Messenger is possibly the most complete skin I have made to date. The skin comes from a really strong background featuring two of the most popular vista skins in existence. The amount of customization in this skin is pretty crazy with users being able to pick out the look of nearly every part of the skin.
There are literally thousands of combinations available. Anyway here is a bit of background information on the history of the skin:
Windows Aero Messenger was based off the original AeroMSN skin made by me and ipab 2 years ago. AeroMSN was the first popular skin that I had made and was also the first vista themed MSN Messenger skin available (before everyone jumped on the vista bandwagon).
When Windows Live Messenger 8.0 beta was released there were strong efforts being made by ipab and myself to try and get this skin going. But of course with all the difficulty of Windows Live Messenger (the new MSNRLE file format mainly) it just made things impossible at the time.
AeroWLM was renamed to Windows Aero Messenger and was announced as an upcoming skin for Windows Live Messenger, while we did get around most of the MSNRLE problems, the layout was just not working as well as it could have.
At the same time I met a guy called Stianu89, he was putting a few ideas into Windows Aero Messenger at the time and also designed an alternate look. At the time I had no idea how to possibly implement his design so I said I could not do it. So stianu89 found a coder known as blue_eyes and they began work on Vista Live Messenger. In the end Vista Live Messenger was released and Windows Aero Messenger was still not working.
I then talked with ipab and we decided to temporarily scrap the project as it was going nowhere. So we both went our separate ways and started working on our own stuff on the side. I began to design a new original skin design which would later become Ev0.
Ev0 is what put me up to scratch in terms on knowing how Windows Live Messenger worked. Once Ev0 was released I came back to Windows Aero Messenger and released both Windows Aero Messenger and Vista Live Messenger 2 for Windows Live Messenger 8.1.
At the time I had planned to introduce a new installer which would allow the user to pick a different background or style, but ipab did not have much time on his hands so the idea was scrapped and I released the skin in dll format instead.
Windows Aero Messenger was going to be the first skin I released on the Messenger Plus! skinning system, but early on I found that it was not going to happen as there were still things missing that I needed to make the skin a reality. After version 4.60 it was finally all possible and I released the skin that you see today, combining both Vista Live Messenger and Windows Aero Messenger. Pretty much how I originally envisioned the skin to be.
Anyway if you haven't check out the skin yet then you should, even if you don't like the vista look there is plenty to play with.
LINK
Windows Aero Messenger, Facebook, Apple Live Messenger and Zero-G. While it was a close competition to begin with, in the end there was a clear winner. The winner was Windows Aero Messenger.
Windows Aero Messenger is possibly the most complete skin I have made to date. The skin comes from a really strong background featuring two of the most popular vista skins in existence. The amount of customization in this skin is pretty crazy with users being able to pick out the look of nearly every part of the skin.
There are literally thousands of combinations available. Anyway here is a bit of background information on the history of the skin:
Windows Aero Messenger was based off the original AeroMSN skin made by me and ipab 2 years ago. AeroMSN was the first popular skin that I had made and was also the first vista themed MSN Messenger skin available (before everyone jumped on the vista bandwagon).
When Windows Live Messenger 8.0 beta was released there were strong efforts being made by ipab and myself to try and get this skin going. But of course with all the difficulty of Windows Live Messenger (the new MSNRLE file format mainly) it just made things impossible at the time.
AeroWLM was renamed to Windows Aero Messenger and was announced as an upcoming skin for Windows Live Messenger, while we did get around most of the MSNRLE problems, the layout was just not working as well as it could have.
At the same time I met a guy called Stianu89, he was putting a few ideas into Windows Aero Messenger at the time and also designed an alternate look. At the time I had no idea how to possibly implement his design so I said I could not do it. So stianu89 found a coder known as blue_eyes and they began work on Vista Live Messenger. In the end Vista Live Messenger was released and Windows Aero Messenger was still not working.
I then talked with ipab and we decided to temporarily scrap the project as it was going nowhere. So we both went our separate ways and started working on our own stuff on the side. I began to design a new original skin design which would later become Ev0.
Ev0 is what put me up to scratch in terms on knowing how Windows Live Messenger worked. Once Ev0 was released I came back to Windows Aero Messenger and released both Windows Aero Messenger and Vista Live Messenger 2 for Windows Live Messenger 8.1.
At the time I had planned to introduce a new installer which would allow the user to pick a different background or style, but ipab did not have much time on his hands so the idea was scrapped and I released the skin in dll format instead.
Windows Aero Messenger was going to be the first skin I released on the Messenger Plus! skinning system, but early on I found that it was not going to happen as there were still things missing that I needed to make the skin a reality. After version 4.60 it was finally all possible and I released the skin that you see today, combining both Vista Live Messenger and Windows Aero Messenger. Pretty much how I originally envisioned the skin to be.
Anyway if you haven't check out the skin yet then you should, even if you don't like the vista look there is plenty to play with.
LINK