WLM Taskbar Features

Messenger Plus! Scripting
1

WLM Taskbar Features is a Messenger Plus! Live script which adds badges and jump list features into Windows Live Messenger.

Download WLM Taskbar Features (1.0.0.0 - Oct 4 2020)

Install

Download WLMTaskbarFeatures.plsc and run the file. Messenger Plus! Live should then prompt you to import, choose the I accept the responsibility of installing this script checkbox, and then click the Import button. The script should start immediately.

Alternatively, open up the Plus! menu in Messenger, choose Preferences & Options, then the Scripts category, click the Import... button and then select the plsc file.

You may also use this with @Luis_Leandro’s latest version of the 2009 skin and optional 8.5 resources. It makes a great look :smile:

Features

Taskbar status badge

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Online and away examples
Shows your status in the taskbar, and optionally, the display picture of any user who sends you a message (see Options below).

Jump list

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Change your status from the taskbar button’s right-click jump list menu. Optionally, show your favourite contacts, with their status, and click on them for quick messaging.

Thumbnail toolbar

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Change your status from the optional thumbnail toolbar.

Options

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To open the Options window, while in any conversation window or contact list, click the Script button, and then choose Options.
wlmfeatures_options

Favourite contacts

Quickly add a favourite contact by opening a conversation window with the contact, clicking the Script button in the toolbar, and then choose Add/remove favourite contact.
addremovefavourite

Language support

WLM Taskbar Features supports English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Hungarian, Greek and Russian. Other languages will show up in English. You can select the language to use in the Plus! Preferences.
(To use Russian, you will need to download this mostly Russian language file, Lng_Russian.zip (46.9 KB), and put it in the Messenger Plus! Live\Languages folder as Plus! does not natively support Russian.)

Requirements

  • Windows 7 or above
  • .NET Framework 4.0 or above installed (included in Windows 8 and above)
  • Windows Live Messenger 8.x
  • Messenger Plus! Live

Version history

Version Date Notes
1.0.0.0 Oct 4 2020 First release
10 Likes
2

Wow, this is a huge release from you. Another nice tweak for WLM 8.5 which is similar to WLM 2009. Thanks for sharing this script, I’m using it since today. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
3

Thank you! :relaxed:

2 Likes
4

use this for the wlm 8.5 to 2009 pack

5

Same here. Also i know this is kinda off topic, but do you know how to change the logo of WLM to 2009 on the taskbar, also do you know of a good logo for it?

6

Thanks all, I’ve been working on this one for a while :slight_smile:

To change the icon, right-click the taskbar, right-click Windows Live Messenger, and choose Properties.
changeiconmenu
Then you can choose the Change Icon... button and change it to whatever you like. Here’s the 2009 icon if you need it: WLMessenger.zip (63.2 KB)

If it doesn’t automatically refresh the taskbar icon, right-click Start, choose Windows Powershell, paste in the following and press Enter, to immediately refresh Explorer:

$code = @'
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("Shell32.dll")] 
private static extern int SHChangeNotify(int eventId, int flags, IntPtr item1, IntPtr item2);
public static void Refresh()  {
      SHChangeNotify(0x8000000, 0x1000, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);    
}
'@
Add-Type -MemberDefinition $code -Namespace WinAPI -Name Explorer; [WinAPI.Explorer]::Refresh()

IconFinder has a whole set of Messenger-esque icons if you don’t like Microsoft’s.

1 Like
7

Wow, I didn’t know this hidden feature from taskbar :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
8

Looks Pretty Good!

1 Like
9

Thanks, that worked, i had to use powershell to refresh, also as a notice to people reading this, restarting explorer from task manager doesnt do the trick

1 Like
10

My icon on the Messenger taskbar doesn’t look like this showing the status. Where am I going wrong?
2020-10-03_22-45-16
My:
2020-10-05

11

i noticed that avast got mad at it for me so i had to add an exception, did your antivirus mess with it?

12

I have KAV and it did not identify the script or Messenger as malware.

13

This is nice! Awesome work!

1 Like
14

the script, it was okay, but sometime they had false positives…

15

This is one of the annoying Windows limitations that don’t make much sense. Taskbar badges (for any application) won’t show up when the Use small taskbar buttons option is on. I used to use small icons myself, but went back to the default as more and more software started using the badges, and I kept missing important messages.

I remember they were “looking into this” issue during the Windows 7 beta, but apparently never got around to doing anything about it. 12 years later, in the Win10 Taskbar settings, the badges option still turns off and is disabled when you select small icons.

2 Likes
16

That was it. You are a genius! Now it works perfectly. How is something that looks so simple not fixed by Microsoft?
It’s a shame, because I like the small buttons on the taskbar.

1 Like
17

Unfortunately, I think they might have missed their opportunity to really fix it. In Win7/8, the default taskbar icon size is 32x32 pixels, and the overlay badges are 16x16. When you switch to the small icons, the taskbar icons become 16x16, which would mean that the badges would need to be 8x8 or smaller.

Since small icon support wasn’t incorporated into the specification as something developers need to handle, Windows would have to resize the badges itself, and although the Messenger ones would be okay, a lot of software uses a custom number as the overlay, or a fairly complicated icon, and those wouldn’t look so good scaled down.

In Windows 10, the default taskbar icons are 24x24, which Windows resizes down from the 32x32 versions. However, the badges remain 16x16. I personally prefer the new look, but it is possible to restore the 32x32 size.

18

wow, fantastic work

1 Like
19

those features are default in the wlm 2011.

20

i always get failed to import