THIS WAS DONE USING VERSION 4,0,0,953
Intro... I couldn't begin to tell you how many hours has gone into this wee project... I can't say it's been life consuming but in saying that it's certainly used its fair share... and then some. In some ways that's what made it such a challenge... in others it's also made it extremely rewarding as it’s reminded me that scattered all over this wee world of ours are some extremely talented and very kind hearted people who without the long arm of the internet I would never have had the opportunity and pleasure to meet and work with (virtually speaking) so before I get any further into this let me introduce my two consorts on this mission....and me ;)

Me and My Consorts...

DISCLAIMER: Wacky B (www.wackyb.co.nz) in no way associated with Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) We are not in partnership with them, we don't get paid by them, we won't get paid if you use the information, we won't get paid if you download their Messenger program (we don't get paid at all!) The Smiley graphics detailed on the pages shown are ALL © 2001 Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) and clearly marked as such. They are NOT our graphics and we have not edited them. The process of changing the Smileys is NO DIFFERENT to the concept behind changing the Messenger Themes, Emote_User file or Sound Schemes.


NOTE: Just to reiterate... for the Smileys that you have editied to show on other ppls IM's they too MUST have the same files as you do :-) EOB... go forth, enjoy and don't forget to Smiley ;-)


Before you actually start to edit anything perhaps it'd pay to have a quick read over the all the pages in this section (submenu above) so you have some idea about what you're getting yourself into.
How To Edit... (as at 22 May 2001)

Please make sure you have the SETUP file for messenger. I know you already have Messenger installed but just in case it goes wrong and/or you need to reinstall it you can have it close at hand. Also do a copy/backup of your Smiley folder.. that way you can just drop the originals back in if you get them muddled.

Here's Andrew's How to.. almost word for word ;-) on creating an new Smiley that's LARGER than the standard 18x18..
Have your bmp ready and saved (make sure you have it named A.bmp)
In your image editor with the file open choose EDIT and COPY so you have the image on the clipboard.
Now, open up wordpad and choose EDIT and PASTE
Now, in wordpad choose file and save as..
Change the file type to RTF and save it as A.rtf (assuming your BMP is A.BMP)
At this point you've now got an A.bmp file and an A.rtf file
Go to your Smiley folder and rename the current A files
I found it easy to rename them aa.bmp and aa.rtf as I could remember which one went where ;-) so b.bmp and b.rtf becomes bb.bmp and bb.rtf etc but whatever works for you.
Now drop your new a.bmp and a.rtf files into the folder... ta da! Your done. Launch Yahoo Messenger and there it is :-)

Here's the How to.. on creating a new Smiley that's the SAME size as the standard ones (18x18)
Note:You don't need to manually create an rtf file for this size bmp it'll 'autocreate' one for you the first time you use the smiley. see [Our notes...] and [How we did it...] for more information on this. Use the method below if you wish to replace the existing Smileys on the Drop Down Menu with the new 'secret' Smileys

Ok....
Change the original files in the Smiley folder... so rename a.bmp and a.rtf (if that's the one your going to replace!)
Put your new pic in the folder and rename it to a.bmp
Launch Messenger and hit the Smiley.. ta da! (doing this creates a new rtf file.. for more info see [Our notes...] and [How we did it...])

simple aye :-)