Started: 04/23/2002 Updated: --/--/----

I just got Yahoo! Instant Messenger and have been playing with making my own skins. While I won't put them up here, here is a list of what I've got that's available:

1. Amazons: A collage of women warriors, from Wonder Woman to Mighty Isis to Xena.
2. Bugaloos: A skin featuring cartoon pictures of this band from the 70's.
3. Dungeons & Dragons: Made with pics of the heads of web dolls of the cast from the cartoon. Left room for Uni, whom I have yet to find a doll base for.
4. Fairy: A fairy background with "I Believe", and fairy buttons and icons.
5. Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, with Gryffindor House shield and pic of Harry's face.
6. Jeannie: Cartoon I Dream of Jeannie from Hanna-Barbara.
7. Mighty Orbots: Made with sprites of the characters that I made.
8. ReBoot: Made like the Amazons skin, but with ReBoot characters instead.

You will only be able to get these skins by either e-mailing me for them OR going to Skinstop (link, below) for them.

MAKEING SKINS THEMES

I make skins by going into Paint Shop Pro (mine is a Version 3.0, shareware, but it works good enough), and getting the proper templates of the Background, Tool Bar Buttons, and the Status Icons. I copy them and use the copies, leaving the templates clean.

I make the minimum nessassary components: Background, Tool Bar Buttons (Message, Chat, Call & Add +), & Status Icons (Busy, Idle, User Online, & User Offline). I save them normally, as bitmaps, or .bmp.

The Tool Bar Buttons are okay at this point. Their names are short. But the others have longer file names, and the version of PSP that I have won't allow me to save with more than eight (8) letters. Sooo...

I close PSP, and go to Microsoft Paint. I upload the images in MS Paint, then re-save them with the proper names (Background, busy_user, idle_user, Online_user, Offline_user). I delete the old files of these, so that only the right ones remain.

Then, I try out the new skin in Yahoo! Instant Messenger. If something doesn't appear, then I go back and fix it. To change your Skins:

1. Open YIM.
2. Go to Login.
3. Go to Preferences.
4. Go to Appearence.
5. There is a scroll-bar with a list of the themes you have. Choose which theme you want and click on it.
6. Make your other decisions.
7. Click on Apply.
8. Click on OK

If done correctly, your choosen theme should appear.

If you are lucky enough to have a version of PSP that allows you to use longer filenames, then just use PSP. Use whatever paint program you have, but remember to save in bitmap format (.BMP). (CAPITALS or lower-case).

Links
Get Yahoo! Instant Messenger: You need this before you can use the Skins.
Yahoo!'s Skin Tutural: Learn how to make your own skins here.
Skinstop: A great place for Skins.

I probibly won't get into making these much (need to concitrate on Web Dolls and Sprites!), but I'll try to add to this list every so often.

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