Introduction to Skinning

Welcome to the documentation of the Messenger Plus! Live skinning system. This technical documentation is intended to be read by skin developers. Whether it is to make your first skin or to get more information on a given skinning subject, you've come to the right place!

A technology you should be familiar with before you can create full featured Messenger Plus! skins is XML. XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language and looks like HTML. It is basically a way to define data in text form. If you've never worked with XML before, you'll quickly see how straightforward it can be. A lot of tutorials can be found on the internet and despite the fact that XML can be typed in any text editor, it is highly recommended that you get a good XML editor that will be able to validate your syntax. The Messenger Plus! Live skinning system makes extensive use of XML in the SkinInfo configuration file (the main file used to define the properties of a skin) and Messenger's own Windows Definition files use a very similar syntax.

The structure of SkinInfo is defined in what's called an XML Schema file. Even if this file is also text based, schema files are meant to be read in graphic form; do not try to read its XML data as this would make your task more difficult than it should be. A very good XML editor capable of perfectly rendering XML Schema files is XMLSpy from Altova (you will need the professional version which is available as a free trial).

Aside from the technology, what you mostly need is the will to learn how to work with the system. Skinning is something that anybody with ideas and average computer knowledge can do but you'll need to be patient and willing to put time into your project if you want something good to come out of it. This documentation includes explanation pages, references, examples, ... use them! If you don't feel easy about skinning, just take it one step at a time, spend time in the various topics/examples available, and stick to reproducing what you see while bringing your own small modifications to existing skin code. Your first lesson awaits you in what's a skin in Messenger Plus!.

If you need help about anything related to skinning, feel free to visit the official Messenger Plus! forum. Please remember to search if somebody posted a similar question before you and if the answer was already given: you'll get your answer faster and it will save us some time to help other members. Also, if you become a more advanced skin developer with time, we would appreciate if you could help on the forum and answer people's questions when you know the answer :).

Have fun!
Patchou

Last update: March 15th 2008
Documented version: Messenger Plus! Live 4.60
Latest update available at msgpluslive.net.