• Memory search caching:
  Instead of searching messenger memory each time StuffPlug is started (like SPNG used to do), StuffPlug 3 uses something called caching. The offsets of the found patterns are saved in the registry, and when messenger is loaded again it will first check those cached places. This results in a huge speed boost as SP only has to search for memory offsets when you install a new version of messenger or stuffplug :)
  This also allows me to do all searching before the features itself are initialised so I can show a nifty little dialog informing the user SP is busy searching memory :)
• Text commands:
  It took me a while, but I can parse outgoing text in a conversation. This will allow me to add commands like !fakeinvite and talkers :D
• COM-PlugIns:
  Because I think it's unfair to limit Windows Live Messengers PlugIns to .NET, and I think the security on it is way too tight, I've written a little hack that will allow WLM to load COM PlugIns too. COM plugins can be written in much more programming languages, like Visual Basic 6 and C++, and they don't have the strict security that .NET has. However, I'm not yet sure if I will include this feature in the final version of StuffPlug 3. Some consider it to be a huge security risk, and I'm not too sure the people at Microsoft like this feature ;)

So when can we expect SP3, and what will it include ?

Well, I don't know. There's still a lot of coding to be done before this is a final product, and I don't want to release before it's done ;)

I do know which features I want to have done before I release though:

• Content Stealer:
  The current content-stealer is limited to Display Pictures and Emoticons. I plan to make it able to steal Dynamic Display Pictures and Winks too :)
• Fake-Invite:
  I plan to re-code the enormously popular yet completely useless feature of fake-invite for WLM. A quick introduction: It will basically allow you to invite your friends to fake activities, for example "You have invited your friend to start paying attention."
• Webcam recording:
  I had this code done for StuffPlug-NG 2, but I never got to release it. I want to upgrade this to WLM so you can record your webcam sessions...
• Options dialog:
  Yes, this may sound stupid, but I still haven't coded the options dialog ;)

Right, enough typing for today. I guess I'm going to play some more Oblivion, haven't had time to touch that game for ages now :(

 

Bye,

TB

Wow! about a month since my last update!
Sorry about that, I just didn't have time inbetween my school exams and Oblivion addiction to work on SP :(
As a matter of fact, I still have one re-exam left for tuesday: Literature. Had a big fat failing grade for that, so I gotta do it again... *sigh* I hate literature :(

Anyway, the content-stealer is somewhat functional now!

You can already save images now :)
There's still a bunch of stuff you can't do, like switching between emoticons and display pictures :P I still want to turn it into a threaded application ;)
Currently in it's unthreaded form, it can freeze for a while if you have a lot of images stored. If I thread it, it might take a while for all the images to load, but you can already browse the ones that ARE loaded :)
I still have to write a little detection scheme to figure out what sort of file it is exactly, as some animated emoticons are .gif, and others are .png, but at least I got the basics working!

Once I get the content-stealer working with the CEs and DPs, I'll work on the chat-only name. After that I'm going to put some thought and work into stealing winks and DDPs, but I'm still not sure if it's worth all the trouble :/

Just noticed it's 0:49AM now, so I guess this is a nice time to stop typing and go to bed :P
so goodnight ;)

Bye,
TB

0123 The Netherlands. Memory searching is finally done.

That header above was supposed to look JAG (or any other military series/movie for that fact) like, however the time being 01:23AM now kinda spoils that since 0123 looks stupid :P
Anyway, Reached another (what I'd call) milestone today. As some of you might know, most StuffPlug features are quite similar to patches. They look for certain byte-codes, and replace them. The only real difference being that patches do it on disk, and SP does it in-memory. There's a few more differences, but I'll spare you the details ;)
To keep StuffPlug compatible with future release of messenger, I've been using a memory search module that I wrote way back somewhere in SP-NG or something. It used a syntax like this:
{0x86,0xFF,0xB6,0x58,...}
It's split up in bytes, and each byte is prefixed with 0x to indicate it's hex. Also the 0xFF was used as a "wildcard" that would match anything. This screwed up a few features in the past because the numner -1 is represented in memory as FFFFFFFF, so I could never search for -1 as that'd end up being 4 wildcards ;)

Today, I decided I wanted a new memory search engine. I wanted the disadvantages of the old method gone:
- No more funky wildcard character that fucks things up
- Fast
- Easy to use and update for me
So I write this new method that takes this as an input:
{L"CEDPStealer",MEMPATTERN::TYPE_NORMAL,"74 ?? FF 75 E4 E8"},
The ? is now wildcards, and it can work on a per nibble (half a byte) basis too, that's the solution for easy to use and update :). Furthermore all search patterns are now stored in one place, and It's all written in such a way that I can easily add other memory-search routines later (see the MEMPATTERN::TYPE_NORMAL thing ;)), and I can easily cache offsets.
Yes, that's right, caching :D That means that StuffPlug will only have to search for patterns if you update your messenger, so StuffPlug might take a few seconds to start up the first time, and if you update messenger, but apart from that it will launch blittering fast :D

Apart from that I had a bit of a fight with the user-interface a while back. It just refuses to stretch 32-bit (alpha transparent) PNG files. I ended up just using normal PNG files. It's a bit of a let-down for me personally, as I consider it cheating. But it gives the same results so what the heck ;)

Last, but not least, I've seen someone comment in the last blog-post about becoming a beta-tester. To clear things up, I'll explain what I had in mind for testing StuffPlug.
The initial release will be divided up into 5 stages. Updates will probably have other stages, but for the first SP3, this is what's going to happen:
- Stage 1: Alpha. Only I and a few select people get to see it, and only for testing purposes. No getting into this stage unless I ask you ;)
- Stage 2: Private beta. Once I think the add-on is stable, I'll allow friends to test it. No getting into this stage unless you're a friend ;)
- Stage 3: Managed beta & Translating. If the selected group of testers has had time to test, I'll enlarge the number of testers. I will probably post a request for beta-testers on the stuffplug site, and I think I will also invite translators to join this beta so they can start translating. If you want to get in this stage, start thinking about what you'd write if I'd ask you why you want to be a beta tester :)
- Stage 4: "public" beta. In this stage I will allow messenger-sites to test Stuffplug and prepare re- and previews. If you want to get in this, you should have a popular messenger site :) Also the managed beta-testers will get permission to write previews and post screenshots.
- Stage 5: Released. :)

I hope that cleared everything up :)
It's now 01:37, and I think I should go to bed ;)

Goodnight,
TB