How to create smile-packs for QIP

I receive many letters from users and questions on forums sounding like that: how can I add my smileys to QIP. We’ll discuss this question in detail today to have done with this topic once and for all. And I have to mention firstly, that you don't need any special skills or programs for it. Everyone, who can count till ten with closed eyes and who can define one letter written on a sheet of paper from another (you even don’t have to know these letters) can manage with this difficult task – creation of a smiley-pack for QIP.

Well, let's suppose, you are the chosen one. Your IQ is high enough to be more than zero and you visit our site and our gallery and found (Oh, God!) so many koloboks there! You surely decided at once to add all of them to your set. This ingenious idea gives you energy for work, and you can’t resist! No one else can have such a simple and great idea – to make a set of all koloboks existing in the net! I won’t talk you out of it, because it would be no good and wrong. Every creative impulse must be supported. Are you ready? Let’s start!

Let’s decide, where are smileys placed in QIP? On default smileys are placed in the folder C:\Program Files\QIP\Skins\ICQ5\Smilies\Animated\. if they are animated, or in the folder Static if not animated (for those who didn’t get it, by not animated I mean smileys which don’t move). If your QIP is installed on other disk or folder, search there for him. The main idea is, that every skin of the QIP uses his OWN smiley set. So, if you have five different skins, you’ll have to copy the new smileys five times in every skin C:\Program Files\QIP\Skins\YOU_SKIN\Smili es\Animated\. Otherwise it will go wrong.

It won’t be undue to understand, how do they work there? And they work simply, their sequence depends on the number of the letters in alphabet. I haven’t told you that I mean the Roman type? And you thought I meant the Russian language? And how could you read this article not knowing the alphabet? Yes, the alphabet is the English one and the sequence of letters presets the sequence of smileys: aa, ab, ac, ad,…ca, cb, cc, cd, and so on. Is it clear? If you put numbers instead of letters it will be easier to understand. If it’s difficult, you can write the sequence on a sheet of paper and eat it at the end for not showing it to competitors!



Let’s now discuss, how can you write this sequence in the code file? It’s also easy. Look at the file _define.ini in the folder for standard smileys. You see a strong sequence downright, which depends on the smiley name (in the code file you won’t see names of koloboks as aa.gif, ab.gif, ac.gif and so on, it was just a good example):

O:-),O=) aa.gif
:-),:),=) ab.gif
:-(,:(,;( ac.gif
;-),;) ad.gif
………….

*DRINK* ba.gif
*IN LOVE* bb.gif
@= bc.gif

There are no secrets left in creation of codes and packs. To make your own one you need to change names of all your smileys beginning with aa.gif and ending with the last one, for example dc.gif, and write your new smileys in the file _define.ini denoting their names downright.

If you just want to add your favorite smiley to the existing pack, you have to find the last one smiley in this set (it is easy to find in the file of codes, it will be the last one beneath) and to add your smiley after it. For example, in the standard pack of animated smileys in QIP-the last one will be *YAHOO!*. Then you find its name in the folder Animated, it is bp.gif. The new smiley will be consequently bq.gif. In the file _define.ini after code *YAHOO!* !* you humbly write for example *I_AM_GOD* , then you have to restart QIP. Now you have your smiley and its code… AND ONLY YOU! If you want the others to see the smiley you send them, you have to give them your collected pack and changes made by you. In short, your whole folder Animated. Are you disappointed? It can’t be helped. Life is full of disappointments, but the worst one is not this thing, but that there is no Santa!

Frequently made mistakes:

• You have incorrectly denoted the folders of smileys.

• You have broken the sequence of smiley names, the sequence of codes is consequently also broken.

• You haven’t restarted QIP after having made changes in it.

• You don’t use the last version of QIP.

• You have made a mistake when writing codes.

• You simply aren’t good with your hands.

You can publish your super set of smileys on QIP forum. Unfortunately , we don’t publish on our site different sets of different authors. We have only author sets of painters, who create koloboks. That’s all. Good luck!

QIP-pager site.
The place where you can publish the packet of your smileys.