Messenger Plus! 3 BETA Review!

[DXtremz]

Since its first public release, Messenger Plus! has come a long way! Messenger Plus! was first started as a simple plug-in made by Patchou for himself and a couple of friends, but obviously it's more than a simple plug-in now. Messenger Plus! has become more of a revolution for the world of Messenger, whether you use MSN Messenger or Windows Messenger, and no matter what version of Windows you use (provided its Windows 98 or above).

Messenger Plus! 2 was released just last year, and Messenger Plus! 2.5 not too long after, between these versions there have been many improvements and many additions, Plus! has been the first in a lot of areas, including the full plug-in for MSN Messenger 6.0 and the first MSN Messenger plug-in with the ability to have more plug-ins added to it for extreme extendibility.

Messenger Plus! has certainly set a high standard, and isn't going to be beat any time soon! With all this said it’s no surprise that Patchou is at it again! But this time, it’s definitely better than ever. That’s right, Messenger Plus! 3 will set a whole new standard for Messenger plug-ins, and if you are an avid user of Messenger then Plus! 3 can potentially revolutionize the way you work with Messenger.

There are tons of new features in Messenger Plus! 3 but upon just opening the program for installing it you will instantly realize you are in for big changes in the graphical user interface. This is definitely what Plus! 3 prides itself on, a completely redesigned user interface and preference panel.

But don't think Messenger Plus! 3 isn't going to have enough new goodies. No, quite the contrary, Messenger Plus! 3 has tons of new features, improved features and makes it quite a bit easier to use the features that were present in previous versions of Messenger Plus!

I'm sure most of you are looking for a sneak peak at what the new Messenger Plus! 3 is going to look like so without further ado, lets get down to what all the hype is about.

Upon opening the program to install Messenger Plus! 3 the first thing you will notice is a nice little splash screen, definitely a preview of what lies ahead.

(This is present while Setup extracts the language files).

• There are several different options and methods to install Messenger Plus! 3. These options will make it easier to mass install Messenger Plus! 3 or to install it just for certain users on a computer, in a network or multi-user environment. All of these features can be taken advantage of using simple command line parameters. These options include but are not limited to the silent switches (/SilentInstall and /SilentInstallNoSponsor) no longer bring up the confirmation web page; so it truly is a completely silent installation, and the /NotAdmin switch which allows you to force install Messenger Plus! 3 without Administrator permissions if you would rather not install it system wide.
  
• There is also no longer a custom/automatic installation option; the installation however is just as simple as before.
  
• Messenger Plus! 3 automatically detects the language that Windows is using and will select the appropriate language to run Messenger Plus! 3 in.
  
• Messenger Plus! 3, while it does not completely support the polygamy patch, it is a bit more friendly with it, setup will close all clients before trying to install, which helps to save all of your logs before setup begins.
  
• There are a few other issues with complex languages such as Chinese or Hebrew which have now been resolved

Once Messenger Plus! is installed you will almost instantly notice its rich and robust new user interface, from quick access to contact settings right on your contacts list to access to all your most needed features right inside your contact window, just a click away! As you can see, Messenger Plus! 3 certainly makes your Messenger experience much more friendly and much easier to use than ever before! Of course like most features in Messenger Plus! both of these can be disabled in the Preferences panel.

Contacts List:


Conversation Window:


The first thing you will probably want to do is check out Messenger Plus! 3's new Preferences panel. Here you will instantly see tons of improvements and additions.

Improved Preferences Control Panel:
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• On the left side of your Preferences panel, the sub-sections are no longer listed, it's just main sections now, which certainly cleans things up a bit, as Patchou says, "... it's just way better that way, cleaner, more professional."
  
• The entire Preferences panel is much cleaner and much more efficient, and all of the graphics used in the Preferences panel now use alpha-blending effects which allow them to look great with any Windows theme.
  
• Perhaps a great feature for Administrators or parents, the Messenger Plus! 3 Preferences panel can now be completely locked down with an administrator password (able to be set, disabled, enabled and changed from within the Privacy Protection section of the Messenger Plus! 3 Preferences panel).

Administrator Settings Panel:
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Let’s take a look and outline a few of the new features in the new Preferences panel:

• The POP3 Mail section now has a "port" option so you can specify the port of your POP3 server in the event that your server requires special settings. The POP3 Mail section also allows up to 5 POP3 E-Mail accounts. There is also a new registry setting which allows you to enable or disable whether or not notifications pop up even if the count of unread emails didn't change since the last notification. The count of emails when using the POP3 feature also includes Hotmail emails too now.

POP3 Control Panel:
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• The "Security Warning" is no longer anywhere in the Preferences panel as it is now quite obsolete, however if you are using an outdated version of Messenger, you can still change it with a simple registry setting.
  
• Boss Protection feature has quite a few new improvements such as the ability to use DLLs as resources for your icons, as well as a totally redesigned "First Time" notification window.

Boss Protection:
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Among the actually NEW features in Messenger Plus! 3 is the ability to filter words. This can be used to filter text that is sent OR text that is received. This can be used to filter a display name (in chats only) or text in your chat conversations. This is useful for filtering swearing or other text that you do not like to see, or fixing simple mistakes like when you type "teh" instead of "the". These filters can be edited via the Instant Message section of the Preferences panel, and are also Importable/Exportable via the Import/Export wizard, this way you can share your filters with friends or on multiple accounts.

Filter Settings:
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Another new feature is the Quote Sender; this allows you to quote something said by ANY of your contacts within the last 6 hours. You can find a quote by selecting the contacts name and the time period, there is also a nice search function. Once you send the quote the person you are currently chatting with, it will be formatted with a timestamp (from when it was said) as well as color formatting; this can be customized with a simple registry setting. To bring up this window quickly you can either click the "Plus!" menu or you can just type /quote in your message and hit send, the Quote Sender will pop up right away!

Quote Sender:
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The Quick Emoticon panel has been changed extensively for much more customization, ease, and speed.

• Holding the Control key while selecting an emoticon will keep the window open so you can easily select more than one.
  
  
• Plus! will now automatically find the associated tag for each of your custom emoticons.
  
• You can have up to 5 custom emoticon panels and configure each one independently of the others.
  
• The second emoticon panel by default shows all of your custom emoticons without you haven't to ever enter them manually.
  
• You can use F1 through F5 to switch emoticon panels easily and quickly.
  
• The Custom Emoticon configuration window has been totally redesigned and has a much more aesthetic appeal as well some new functions.
  
• More emoticons are now displayed in the custom emoticon configuration window at the same time to make it easy to search for a specific emoticon.

Quick Emoticon Settings Panel:
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Patchou finally decided to add a highly requested feature: the ability to change which contacts see your Personalized Status messages.

Personalized Status Customization:
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• The "Change" button in the personalized status window pops up a configuration window which allows you to add/remove contacts from your allow list, however, the allow list is cleared each time you go out of personalized status mode. For those of you that have connection troubles and sign out frequently, have no fear, the next feature will surely be of great use to you.

If you frequently disconnect from Messenger or it frequently signs you out by itself, as long as it signs in within 1 minute, Messenger Plus! 3 will keep your Personalized Status and Personalized Status messages.

Messenger Plus! Come-Back Messages are now able to be 'expired'. You can easily select the time and date that you want the message to expire and if your contact does not sign on before the date specified the Come-Back message will simply disappear.

Come-Back Message with Expiration:
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Another new and extremely handy feature in Messenger Plus! 3 is the Command Helper windows, designed to bring the features you need right to your fingertips. Of course like most other features of Messenger Plus! this too can be disabled via the Preferences panel.

Command Helper:

• When a message is preceded with the “/” character, a window will pop up that allows you to select almost any of Messenger Plus!’s commands, as well as those commands added by plug-ins, Not only does it show up in conversation windows but other windows that allow you to enter text such as the Quick Text Preferences. You can easily differentiate between commands from plug-ins, Quick Texts and native Messenger Plus! commands by the unique icon next to each one. You also have the ability of searching for a specific command by pressing Ctrl+[Letter] where [Letter] is the beginning of the command you are looking for.
  
• Tool tips popup next to each command, and after entering the command to help you when a command requires extra parameters. If the required parameter is an email address, a list of all of your contacts’ email addresses will be displayed for you to choose from.

Command Helper with Email addresses:


Messenger Plus! 3 Quick Texts have been improved quite a bit. The Quick Texts Preferences panel is much clearer and gives much more information. You can also now have (!COMMAND) Quick Texts as well as “/command” to use the Quick Texts in your Personalized Status Message or even your Display Name. You are now allowed 50 Quick Texts instead of 30 like the previous versions!

Quick Texts Preferences:
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There are a few new sounds in Messenger Plus! 3 as well as the /snoexuse sound has changed to be something a bit more familiar, the new sounds are /sapplause, /swoow and /syawn, but you can wait until Messenger Plus! 3 is released publicly to hear what those sounds like!

You can now automatically accept file transfers, game requests, webcam/voice chats or any other request that requires one to click “Accept”. You can set it to automatically accept from anyone, or you can add people to a block list or allow list for complete control over who you auto-accept from and who you don’t…You can change this via the Preferences panel or your can turn it on or off in each individual chat.

Auto-Accept Preferences:
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A new Find Text feature has been added which allows you to search your conversation window for the specified text, the search menu can be brought up by pressing CTRL-F during a conversation of by selecting it from the Plus! menu, this search works much the same way the search option works in notepad.

Find Text feature:
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The color control panel has been redesigned quite a bit, and lists 68 pre-defined colors as well as the ability to choose custom colors.

Color Control Panel:


In your conversation you can now press CTRL-R to bring up the basic text format features such as bold, italic, strikethrough, and underline, then you can click the one you desire and the characters will automatically be added to your message.

CTRL-R PopUp:


In the Event Log you can now sort all of your events in many different ways and allows you to start a conversation with a contact just by clicking the contacts name.

Event Log:
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The rest of the features listed are minor yet they still require recognition:

• You can now make your Docked Messenger window stay the size you want just by changing a simple registry key.
  
• The Contact Manager is now named “Contact List Clean-Up” and has been redesigned.

Contact List Clean-Up:
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• You can now disable and enable individual plug-ins via the Preferences panel.

Disable/Enable Plugins:
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• There is now a /assist command for those of you that use remote assistance quite a bit, it will automatically send a remote assistance request.
• (!PVER) lists all of the plug-ins that are currently installed and enabled.

Installed Plugins List:
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• You can now assign specific sounds for each contact notification via the Notifications Control panel.

As you can see, Messenger Plus! 3 is full of new features and tons of improvements, and this isn’t even a full list of all the changes in this new version of Messenger Plus! In the words of Patchou, “I don’t want to write a book. Lets just say that Messenger Plus! 3 is way better and way cooler ”. And that it is! It definitely gives a whole new meaning to the term “mp3”! Keep an eye out for Messenger Plus! 3’s public release due sometime around the end of April…it’s definitely worth the wait!

Great job Patchou, keep up the good work!

Source: DXtremz (Messenger Plus! BETA Tester) for PlusLite.com

[detn8r]

Patchou has definitely gone over the top. This is going to be an incredible release, and I can't wait.

[Faizan]

Agreed. This is a major release of PlusLite, I am surprised by the quality of the programme. I remember using it when it first came out, no-one even knew about it, and it only had a few features but now it is just part of our lives.

I think if Patchou put this much effort in something else, he can make HIS OWN MESSENGER. But again, he needs more resources and money for servers and other stuff.

Patchou's programming is definitely the best, IMO. I can't wait for this release either.

[ladie_vennom]

Wow this looks awesome. He went all out. I can't wait to try this.

[matthew]

OMG this is incredible

[AwesomeSauce]

I thought everybody learned from what happened to ICQ.

[hoodedrobin16]

BAD BAD BAD-EVIL

Theres more spyware and malware here than there reason be, I encountered 29 bad/ads/malware on a full system sweep*adaware* of my computer after the installation of Messenger Plus! 2.54 and I recived 1 bot found by Spybot S&D. Also I had 3 new IE helper bars added and many extenstions that were for malware... Sadly this program falls behind, I do hope that they remove their malware and ad ware.

[AwesomeSauce]

I agree. I got so much freakin' crap on comp it was disgusting, and there was that annoying toolbar that would never go away.

[detn8r]

Oh God... here we go.
Let me start off by asking: What the hell are you talking about "awesome"?

Secondly, hoode......... Messenger Plus contains absolutely NO spyware, adware, bot, malmare, scumware, assholeware... whatever the hell you want to call it. Yes, if you were not "smart" enough to read the agreements before you installed the hack.. yes that's your fault. Messenger Plus contains a "sponsor program" to help the author pay for costs of bandwidth, etc. The advertiser is known for shelling out the above, but Patchou has made sure his package doesn't include it. Spyware cleaners pick up the name of the adverts. and ring the alarms.

Come on dude... this program has been downloaded millions of times, by millions of people.
Simply, if you cannot read the agreements, or EULA's before installing, accept the consequences, because you have only your self to blame. This is an intelligent community of people at bigblueball. Please don't feed us garbage before reading through the rest of the topics in this forum. Use the search tool found at the top of this page, and every other one for that matter. Take two minutes, and read through the threads. It may do you some good.

[twistedmetal]

quote:Originally posted by AwesomeSauce

I agree. I got so much freakin' crap on comp it was disgusting, and there was that annoying toolbar that would never go away.

you make me sick. you sit here and bitch about nothing, then go and worship AOL? what the hell did your mother feed you when you were a child? do us all a favor, and read what detn8r posted. PLEASE.