For now I'm aiming for something that is on-par with Messenger Plus!'s scripting, but once I reach that I hope to keep expanding and surpass it greatly. One of the advantages I have is the extensibility. Each package can export certain functionality, and as such anyone is free to extend the API as they wish. Someone could make a package solely dedicated to communicating with facebook or twitter, and other developers can then use those packages from their scripts, for example creating a script that keeps your facebook or twitter friends updated on how many contacts you have.

StuffPlug 3 was a pretty big mess to start with. I could cope with minor upgrades like 8.0 to 8.5. I relied heavily on certain stuff in messenger that got taken out or majorly overhauled in Messenger 9, like the UIFile parser or the way data binding worked, that I would need to re-write so many parts of StuffPlug3 to get it to work. I think it's better to start from scratch on something new.

Well, I'm trying to. Lately I'd been very busy juggling between University and having a social life, but I've got one month holiday (= this month, July) where I haven't planned anything else, and hope to get some major work done. Staying at my parents (= no need to worry about food, laundry, or other distractions) definitely helps to.

I'm not sure what happens after July though.

Maybe I'll end up staying motivated as I've got something more tangible at that point, maybe I'll be too busy with uni and social life as before, I never really know for sure.

Yes, hope­ful­ly at some point :) My slo­gan while de­vel­op­ing is "Hmm, I won­der if I can do this better ...

But this is a man who has also outraged millions. His sin? A Faustian pact with dark forces responsible for distributing adware, those pop-up windows that torture PC users the world over. Messenger Plus! Live comes bundled with a "sponsor's program", which the unwary install unwittingly on their machines. They are then subjected to messages urging them to buy insurance, take out credit cards, play poker or download ringtones. To his opponents this breaks a sacred code of geek ethics and the two sides engage in furious online debates. Supporters say Patchou has provided a brilliant piece of software free to millions of people and the adware is harmless; critics call him "a scam artist making money off gullible young Live Messenger users".

After about two months of hard work finishing up all the rough edges on the StuffPlug code I had back then, it's finally ready to be released!
First and foremost, it's now compatible with WLM 8.5!
Other changes from 3.0.387 include, but are definitely not limited to:

• loads of bugfixes
• Complete User-Interface overhaul
• New feature: ProperColorize
• New feature: GroupBlock
• New feature: Security Speedup
• Updated feature: FakeInvite
• Updated feature: FriendlyName Editor (you can now enable and disable without restarting)
• Non-finished features are now in a user-accessible "Experimental" menu

It's been a while since I last posted here. Now I mention it, it's been a terribly long time since I've actually shown something to the outside world!
Some people had already declared SP to be dead, but nothing is further from the truth; I've never really stopped working on it completely.
So what can you expect?

Well, I've kinda lost track on the number of bugfixes, optimizations and stuff like that, there's just millions of those ;)

We've also been working on some new features, but most of those are far from completed, and still need a lot of work before they go public. Speaking of which, there's been a "debug" menu in SP for ages now, listing all not-completed and experimental features, but it's been well hidden and locked down. With StuffPlug 3.5, that is going to change. Anyone can enable the "Experimental" feature category now, and they can try out some of the new features we're still working on. We can't promise they're stable, hell for some of em we can't even promise they work at all, but you're free to try em and give us some feedback on it when we release :)

Now, apart from the WLM 8.5 compatibility, the other big change is the user-interface. I'd grown sick and tired of the fact that all SP windows seemed completely seperated from Windows Live Messenger, and that's why I've introduced a major UI overhaul: All StuffPlug windows will now look and feel exactly like messenger windows :) I'm still working on several parts of it, but in the attachment you can see that I've got the most important windows nailed already ;)

When to expect all this? I'm trying to get it released by new years as a little present, but to be honest I'm not totally sure I'm going to make it. It'll probably be done around 7 januari or so, or 21 januari if you want a translated version ;)

- TB

P.S. I've deliberately shot the options window with the experimental tab highlighted, to tease you a bit ;) Feel free to speculate what some of the names might mean, I might throw in some extra screenshots later!

• The current beta of StuffPlug 3 can be installed using this trick. It's not 100% compatible, but it works.
• StuffPlug 3.9, to be released soon, will be compatible with WLM 8.5, but not with 9.0.
• StuffPlug 4.0, to be released somewhere next year, will be compatible with WLM 9.0, but not with earlier versions. WLM 9.0 has changed too many things internally to make a version that is both compatible with 8.0 and 9.0, so SP 3.9 will be the last version for WLM 8.x, and SP 4.0 will focus purely on WLM 9.0.
• As I'm currently in a rather nasty personal situation, none of the above mentioned release dates or spans are definitive. It all depends on how soon I get my ability to concentrate on this stuff back.
• The new major version number was mainly due to a complete overhaul of the user-interface, but as having a separate major release for WLM 9.0 makes much more sense, this user-interface overhaul will now be in 3.9 (and in 4.0 too, but it won't be an overhaul then, will it)

- WLM 8.0 compatible
- New feature: replace default emoticons with custom emoticons
- Windows of the same type now only open once
- Fixed several memory leaks
- New feature: More than 5 custom emoticons per message
- Made installation directory choosable smile.gif
- Fixed feature: use better icons for status-icon feature
- Status-icon feature now also changes icon in window itself
- New feature: Ability to turn SP convo button on or off
- New feature: Ability to turn SP contactlist button on or off
- Fixed feature: AdHider overhaul
- New feature: Timezone adjustable clock per contact
- Loads of UI updates
- Loads of other miscellaneous bugfixes