General improvement to the themes section of WLM9

I am a big fan of being able to change the background of the main bar of the
contact list. I often browse for some pictures of my own to put on there but
the thing is that the picture then gets stretched onto the main bar making it
look stretched and almost unrecognisable. A suggested improvement would be to
select the photo or picture you want and then go into a wizard where it lets
you drag a clear box (almost like on windows photo gallery beta when using
the crop tool) on the picture to select which bit you want to be viewed on
the main bar and maybe a renderer to make the pictures look clearer and not
so pixellated. This is a great feature which needs to be improved abit, Keep
up the good work and i hope this gets added to the themes to make it easier
to customise messenger.

Greetings,

I've had similar problems trying to make images work. The default size (and what files are
saved to when you select them) is 96x48.

However, some sort of stretching thing and the algorithm is a bit odd. Took a bit of trial
and error (and manual editing) to get something decent of my own.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--


"j_white15" <> wrote in message
news:C2264236-D791-4E9E-973E-...
> I am a big fan of being able to change the background of the main bar of the
> contact list. I often browse for some pictures of my own to put on there but
> the thing is that the picture then gets stretched onto the main bar making it
> look stretched and almost unrecognisable. A suggested improvement would be to
> select the photo or picture you want and then go into a wizard where it lets
> you drag a clear box (almost like on windows photo gallery beta when using
> the crop tool) on the picture to select which bit you want to be viewed on
> the main bar and maybe a renderer to make the pictures look clearer and not
> so pixellated. This is a great feature which needs to be improved abit, Keep
> up the good work and i hope this gets added to the themes to make it easier
> to customise messenger.

Hi,

Woops, I meant 640x320, was thinking one thing and typed another. The 96x48 is the saved
thumbnail you get in the dialog.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--


"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Greetings,
>
> I've had similar problems trying to make images work. The default size (and what files are
> saved to when you select them) is 96x48.
>
> However, some sort of stretching thing and the algorithm is a bit odd. Took a bit of trial
> and error (and manual editing) to get something decent of my own.
>
> --
> Jonathan Kay
> Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
> MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
> MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
> Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
> (c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
> --
>
>
> "j_white15" <> wrote in message
> news:C2264236-D791-4E9E-973E-...
>> I am a big fan of being able to change the background of the main bar of the
>> contact list. I often browse for some pictures of my own to put on there but
>> the thing is that the picture then gets stretched onto the main bar making it
>> look stretched and almost unrecognisable. A suggested improvement would be to
>> select the photo or picture you want and then go into a wizard where it lets
>> you drag a clear box (almost like on windows photo gallery beta when using
>> the crop tool) on the picture to select which bit you want to be viewed on
>> the main bar and maybe a renderer to make the pictures look clearer and not
>> so pixellated. This is a great feature which needs to be improved abit, Keep
>> up the good work and i hope this gets added to the themes to make it easier
>> to customise messenger.
>
>

Hi, so you had to resize the pictures you used for the scenes to 640x320 to
get it at a decent quality?

"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Woops, I meant 640x320, was thinking one thing and typed another. The 96x48 is the saved
> thumbnail you get in the dialog.
>
> --
> Jonathan Kay
> Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
> MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
> MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
> Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
> (c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
> --
>
>
> "Jonathan Kay [MVP]" <> wrote in message
> news:...
> > Greetings,
> >
> > I've had similar problems trying to make images work. The default size (and what files are
> > saved to when you select them) is 96x48.
> >
> > However, some sort of stretching thing and the algorithm is a bit odd. Took a bit of trial
> > and error (and manual editing) to get something decent of my own.
> >
> > --
> > Jonathan Kay
> > Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
> > MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
> > MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
> > Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
> > (c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
> > --
> >
> >
> > "j_white15" <> wrote in message
> > news:C2264236-D791-4E9E-973E-...
> >> I am a big fan of being able to change the background of the main bar of the
> >> contact list. I often browse for some pictures of my own to put on there but
> >> the thing is that the picture then gets stretched onto the main bar making it
> >> look stretched and almost unrecognisable. A suggested improvement would be to
> >> select the photo or picture you want and then go into a wizard where it lets
> >> you drag a clear box (almost like on windows photo gallery beta when using
> >> the crop tool) on the picture to select which bit you want to be viewed on
> >> the main bar and maybe a renderer to make the pictures look clearer and not
> >> so pixellated. This is a great feature which needs to be improved abit, Keep
> >> up the good work and i hope this gets added to the themes to make it easier
> >> to customise messenger.
> >
> >
>
>

Hi,

Messenger can do the resize. But if you're trying to get specific parts of the scene and you
want to make sure things aren't completely messed up, 640x320 is what Messenger is resizing
it to.

For instance, if you're trying to get the top of the head of someone, cropping it first to
640x320 and getting the head in will most likely be better than simply browsing for the
original image and hoping for the best.

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--



"j_white15" <> wrote in message
news:673A9088-E9DA-4FB9-8482-...
> Hi, so you had to resize the pictures you used for the scenes to 640x320 to
> get it at a decent quality?
>
> "Jonathan Kay [MVP]" wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Woops, I meant 640x320, was thinking one thing and typed another. The 96x48 is the saved
>> thumbnail you get in the dialog.
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan Kay
>> Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
>> MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
>> MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
>> Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
>> (c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
>> --
>>
>>
>> "Jonathan Kay [MVP]" <> wrote in message
>> news:...
>> > Greetings,
>> >
>> > I've had similar problems trying to make images work. The default size (and what files
>> > are
>> > saved to when you select them) is 96x48.
>> >
>> > However, some sort of stretching thing and the algorithm is a bit odd. Took a bit of
>> > trial
>> > and error (and manual editing) to get something decent of my own.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Jonathan Kay
>> > Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
>> > MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
>> > MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
>> > Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
>> > (c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
>> > --
>> >
>> >
>> > "j_white15" <> wrote in message
>> > news:C2264236-D791-4E9E-973E-...
>> >> I am a big fan of being able to change the background of the main bar of the
>> >> contact list. I often browse for some pictures of my own to put on there but
>> >> the thing is that the picture then gets stretched onto the main bar making it
>> >> look stretched and almost unrecognisable. A suggested improvement would be to
>> >> select the photo or picture you want and then go into a wizard where it lets
>> >> you drag a clear box (almost like on windows photo gallery beta when using
>> >> the crop tool) on the picture to select which bit you want to be viewed on
>> >> the main bar and maybe a renderer to make the pictures look clearer and not
>> >> so pixellated. This is a great feature which needs to be improved abit, Keep
>> >> up the good work and i hope this gets added to the themes to make it easier
>> >> to customise messenger.
>> >
>> >
>>
>>