Yahoo Messenger Technical Question

[maverick83]

Anyone know which, if any, of the files in the Yahoo Messenger program folder would be used to associate sequences of characters [🙂, for example] with the emoticon image files in the smileys folder?

 

[MikeS]

Yahoo Messenger Emoticons

Hi Maverick,

I don't think there is a FOLDER that contains those character strings, but there ARE several folders that contain the resulting bit mapped (.bmp) images themselves.

However you can create a character string folder yourself very easily. Just click on an emoticon in the middle bar of Yahoo Messenger (the one which starts with "B I U ...") and the character string itself will appear. (Unlike AIM where the image itself appears.) For example the purple devil is > : ) without the spaces. You can do that to all the emoticons you want then use copy and paste to copy all those strings to a text file that you can access with Notepad.

Or you can use a screen capture program to capture both the emoticon images themselves plus the character strings. I use a program called PrintKey for that and it works very well.

Good luck!

Mike

 

[maverick83]

Thank you for the assistance, but actually my intended goal was to add emoticons to my arsenal, so to speak, by modifying a file containing the associations and adding the necessary bmp and gif images to the smileys folder. I suspect this cannot be done. *shrugs* Ah, well. Thank you again for your time, Mike.

 

[MikeS]

Hey Traveler,

That really sounds like a cool little project! If you have the energy to play with this a little, you might try modifying one of the bitmapped icons, for example the standard smiley, and see if the standard : ) string will bring up your modified icon. That will prove to you that it IS (or is NOT) using the icons on your computer.

The ultimate question, however, is WHERE are the STRINGS interpreted? I suspect they are interpreted on the Yahoo servers, not on your computer. If that's the case, you may be stuck. But as you said, "*shrug, Ah well..." But you may not want to quit this battle just yet. Who knows what you might find? 🙂

I've looked in most of the folders under Yahoo Messenger (program files, etc.) and didn't find any strings, but I really didn't look that hard.

Cool project nonetheless! Keep me posted on the final result. Good luck! 🙂

Mike

 

[MikeS]

Traveler? Dang, my brane slipped outta gear! 🙂 I meant MAVERICK!

Mike (I think that's me... 🙂 )

 

[maverick83]

Actually, I have already verified that it is. Yes, when you alter the gif icons in the smileys folder, your modified icon does replace the normal one. This is what lead me to think that there is a file that is responsible for making the connection. I was looking for a text file containing something linking the sequence : ) to the file "C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Media\smileys\01.gif" but I couldn't find one. My idea was to add something to that file linking another sequence, say %: ) (%, as an example, really it could be any character not already used by existing smileys) to a brand new smiley. The problem is, these new smileys would show up for you, but not whoever you are talking to. In order for them to work for another person, they would have to have the appropriate file modified on their computer, and also get the correct gif files. The same goes for modifying smileys. A new smiley will show up for you, becuase something links the character sequence to the gif file you modified on your comp. The same is true for whoever you are talking to, but it links it to the file with the same name on their computer. Whatever their file looks like is what will show up for them.

In addition, the bmp files, I am fairly certain, are responsible for the icon representation in the little pop-up menu.