Another Hack by the pickle: Hacking your AOL Instant Messenger Buddy List text styles

I don't know about you folks out there, but sometimes I can't tell who's idle on my AOL Instant Messenger Buddy List (notwithstanding the obvious icon). And I don't like not being able to change the text styles and colours used in the Buddy List. So I broke out my friendly copy of ResEdit and went to work.

Turns out that information is stored in the 'Txtr' resources in the AIM application itself, but it's in a really nasty format that's very difficult, for those of us not exactly fluent in hexadecimal formats, to read and edit. So in the spirit of greater knowledge and the legendary ease of use of the Mac OS, I sat around for a while on a Saturday evening (yeah, yeah, shut up. I know I have no life.) working on a nice ResEdit template to make things easier. Trust me, this hack will make no sense without it. To change the text styles in your AOL Instant Messenger Buddy List...

1. Download the TMPL for ResEdit linked above and copy it into your ResEdit application or Preferences file. I recommend the Prefs file. Assign a unique ID if necessary.
2. Open a COPY of your AOL Instant Messenger application with ResEdit, Super ResEdit, or another resource editor.
3. Open up the 'Txtr' resources.
4. Open the 'Txtr' resource that you wish to change. The four that you probably care most about are at the bottom, entitled "Buddy Group," "Buddy (Offline)," "Buddy (Normal)," and "Buddy (Idle)."
5. The R, G, and B fields in the resource are colour settings. Same-letter fields should have the same value, as seen in this screen shot of my AIM application's resources.
   
6. Everything else should be pretty self-explanatory. Justification doesn't apply to the Online tab of the Buddy List (though it will affect the Setup tab), so don't mess with that if you're just changing Buddy List text styles.
7. Do the changes to whichever resources you wish. If you want to mess around with non-Buddy List stuff, it's there for your perusal. Most of the resources have pretty self-explanatory names. I've put a (heavily edited to protect the innocent) screen shot of my hacked AIM application below. Using this hack, I added underlining to the Idle buddies and changed the font to a lighter grey colour, and I changed the Buddy Group headers to a dark blue. NOTE: the "skin" for AIM seen here is the Aqua Theme for Mac OS 8.x. DO NOT ASK ME FOR THIS THEME FILE OR HOW TO DO THIS ON A PC.
   
   

DISCLAIMER: I take no responsibility for ANY damage you do to your computer, your software, yourself, or others as a result of this hack. YOU, the user, are ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS. Recognition with which this hack has been honoured:

• Featured on ResExcellence, 30 October 2000.