Well I finally figured our how to create skins for the YAHOO MESSENGER & have created one of Freddie that's for the YAHOO MESSENGER. The YAHOO MESSENGER is one of those instant messenger things where you can talk to folks by typing in it. Sort of like AOL INSTANT MESSENGER except you can't talk to AOL INSTANT MESSENGER folks thru AOL INSTANT MESSENGER on it. To talk to AOL INSTANT MESSENGER FOLKS You either gotta have AOL INSTANT MESSENGER & use it to talk to them or they'd have to use YAHOO MESSENGER & you both be on it. Wish they had a way to make skins for AOL INSTANT MESSENGER.


Skins are photos & Icons for the YAHOO MESSENGER that change the look from the default to something of your liking. They have them on different sites where you can find ones on all sorts of different stuff & download them on your puter & use them instead of the ones that come with it. I made up a YAHOO MESSENGER SKIN set. It's not a full set for the YAHOO messenger as I can't figure out how to do a full set just yet & that's too time consuming. Instead it's the back ground picture & main icons & the other stuff in it stays the same. I plan to put it on my CHICO website I'm working on. But since I know folks are dying to have it now. I am posting it on here so you can have it now! http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif Enjoy!

I have created a YAHOO MESSENGER skins theme of Freddie Prinze for the YAHOO MESSENGER. The YAHOO MESSENGER has different themes like GAMES, CUSTOM etc. You will need to use the CUSTOM OR THE GAMES THEME YAHOO MESSENGER THEME for this in order to use the Freddie stuff. I prefer the CUSTOM THE BEST.

Here is the picture to use for the background: Save this as a bitmap file using the name background.bmp (File Save As) Remember what folder you have saved it under. Using a graphics editing program resize it to size 240 by 240.

http://chicoandtheman.homestead.com/files/chico39mintgreenbackground.JPG

Now go to Explorer or do a search find to find it & under either Explorer or use the find feature & search & find the folder called YAHOO. Click on it. You will see a folder called MESSENGER. Click on that. Now you see more folders. Click on the one called SKINS. Click on the one called CUSTOM (Or GAMES if you're using that one). In another window bring up either thru explorer or find-- the folder you had saved the background.bmp Icon under which you had named background.bmp. Now using your mouse drag it to the CUSTOM OR GAMES folder (Whichever one you are using) so it comes on top of that. It asks if you want to replace the background file with that. You click yes. We'll assume you don't need the CUSTOM or GAMES background image anymore.

Now save this image on your puter as a bitmapfile.bmp using this filename:
friend_toolbar.bmp

http://chicoandtheman.homestead.com/files/friend_toolbar.jpg


Again go to Explorer or do a search find to find it & under either Explorer or use the find feature search & find the folder called YAHOO. Click on it. You will see a folder called MESSENGER. Click on that. Now you see more folders. Click on the one called SKINS. Click on the one called CUSTOM (Or GAMES if you're using that one). In another window bring up either thru explorer or find-- the folder you had saved the friend_toolbar.bmp Icon under which you had named friend_toolbar.bmp. Now using your mouse drag it to the CUSTOM OR GAMES folder (Whichever one you are using) so it comes on top of that. It asks if you want to replace the background file with that. You click yes. There ya go.

Now to change the online_user icon save this file as a bitmap file .bmp replace the online_user icon with it:

http://chicoandtheman.homestead.com/files/online_user.jpg

Now to change the offline_user icon save this file as a bitmap file .bmp. Replace the offline_user file with it.

http://chicoandtheman.homestead.com/files/offline_user.jpg

Bring up YAHOO MESSENGER. Now click on LOGIN & then click on Preferences. CLick on APPEARANCE. You will see to the right the themes thing. Click on CUSTON if you used the CUSTOM Theme for the Freddie skins. If you used THE GAMES Theme for the Freddie skin, then click on GAMES instead of CUSTOM. Then click on apply. LOOKING GOOD!

It doesn't change everything on the YAHOO MESSENGER for if I tried to do that it'd be too much trouble. But this basically gives ya a background of Freddie that shows up in your background & the icons on the top that say Message Chat Call Add are now Icons of Freddie. To see this & having showing all the time you have to click on the friends list icon at the bottom & have your friends list showing. It doesn't show up when you have the bookmarks or news or calendar or mail things up. Probably cuz this would cover that stuff up. Enjoy! These 2 pics replace the background & friend toolbar pics in your custom folder for the YAHOO MESSENGER icons. Should you ever need to revert back to the origional icons you can always re-download YAHOO MESSENGER. Looking Good!




[This message has been edited by Cheryl Harrell (edited 05-01-2001).]

Hey Cheryl...
Kool idea! But it sounds like I would need a degree in aeronautic engineering to get that hooked up...I am so computer illiterate. Sometimes it's a small miracle that I even find my way to the message boards. I think computer "cookies" were invented with me in mind...I can leave a trail of crumbs so I can find my way back.. http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/biggrin.gif.
I will have to wait until my 15 year old computer guru gets home from school to hook me up with Freddie's skin...oops...I mean the Freddie skins...LMAO!

Yeah,I don't think I could ever handle setting this up--just give me a chance to handle that real skin, thank you very much! Mmmmmmmmm!

Very good work Cheryl even though i dont use yahoo instant messanger.

------------------
GET OUT OF MY GARAGE!!!

Thanks! I figured since some folks do the YAHOO clubs on CHICO & THE MAN/FREDDIE that there might be some folks out there using the YAHOO MESSENGER, who'd love to have him on it. If you don't use it you can still enjoy the pics cuz he's Loooking Goood! http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif

I made a new Freddie YAHOO MESSENGER Skin for the YAHOO MESSENGER.

To use this as the background & theme of your YAHOO MESSENGER read my above directions & use these pics instead for the ones I posted earlier seem to have expired off the internet. Just follow my directions I listed above but use these pics...

Here is the background:

The ONLINE USER (online_user) Icon:

The OFFLINE USER (offline_user) Icon:

And the FRIEND TOOLBAR (friend_toolbar) Icon. This one was created by Luckymama so she gets the credit for it & not me. :) I did do the others but there really wasn't much to do. Just crop & re-size a pic & in the case of 2 of them just change the background. For some reason these aren't showing up normally & it puts a thing on there you have to click ot donwload them & veiw them. Go figure. Maybe because they are bitmap files?

Note the black default text doesn't show up with this background so you have th change the color of the text. To do this you will need to go into your YAHOO MESSENGER & log onto it & the ckick on Login then preferences then click on appearance & then click on the text block that says text clicking into the color area to change the color. Enjoy!

And the FRIEND TOOLBAR (friend_toolbar) Icon. This one was created by Luckymama so she gets the credit for it & not me. :) I did do the others but there really wasn't much to do. Just crop & re-size a pic & in the case of 2 of them just change the background. For some reason these aren't showing up normally & it puts a thing on there you have to click ot donwload them & veiw them. Go figure. Maybe because they are bitmap files?

I used a Freddie on the phone for the ONLINE USER ico & a sleeping Freddie for the OFFLINE USER ICON. :)

Note the black default text doesn't show up with this background so you have th change the color of the text. To do this you will need to go into your YAHOO MESSENGER & log onto it & the ckick on Login then preferences then click on appearance & then click on the text block that says text clicking into the color area to change the color. Enjoy!

And the FRIEND TOOLBAR (friend_toolbar) Icon. This one was created by Luckymama so she gets the credit for it & not me. :) I did do the others but there really wasn't much to do. Just crop & re-size a pic & in the case of 2 of them just change the background. For some reason these aren't showing up normally & it puts a thing on there you have to click ot donwload them & veiw them. Go figure. Maybe because they are bitmap files?

I used a Freddie on the phone for the ONLINE USER ico & a sleeping Freddie for the OFFLINE USER ICON. :)

Note the black default text doesn't show up with this background so you have th change the color of the text. To do this you will need to go into your YAHOO MESSENGER & log onto it & the ckick on Login then preferences then click on appearance & then click on the text block that says text clicking into the color area to change the color. Enjoy!

I also use a free isntant messenger called TRILLIAN which allows ya to log into AOL INSTANT MESSENGER & YAHOO MESSENGER & ICQ & MSN MESSENGER all at once so you don't have to run all of those programs ath the same time. I love it cuz I can do them all thru one program. It doesn't support YAHOO conferences chats on it yet, so when ya want to do a YAHOO conference chat you have to dissconnect from YAHOO from it & then recconnect to YAHOO using YAHOO MESSENGER.

Anyway I wanted to create a skin for it with Freddie in it but it doesn't support using pics as the background behind your buddy list. I was able to take a skin for it that I was using on my puter & modify it to have a little Freddie on it. The one I did it with is the TRILLIAN XP skin which is on their site. Be sure to save all these as bitmaps (.bmp) files saving them uder your file forder for the TRILLIAN XP skins under your TRILLIAN FILE FOLDER. I give the credit to whoever created the skins to begin with as I just modified their work. :)


I modified the buddy icons to be Freddie ones & here tis:

I changed a picture file called tb-flat to one that is of Freddie...

And here is my image to use as the background for your instant messages you get thru TRILLIAN:

To apply this image as your background:

Bring your instant message window up when you have an instant message. Right clikc in the middle of the instant message window & then click on options, then background & then bitmap & then bring up the folder you stored it in & there ya go! :)