Mac-arena writes:
[It] turns out that the format of Skype’s “chat styles” is the same as Adium’s message view styles. this isn’t something they openly tell people; the only evidence of it is a folder named “ChatStyles” inside the Skype application bundle, with the built-in chat style in it. a cursory analysis suggested that the format might be the same, and this was proven when I dropped the chat style into Adium’s message styles folder (and changed its filename extension) and it worked.
Indeed, a quick test with the supplied instructions seems to have worked.
Update: Better yet, Mac-areana has updated his post to point out that the renaming of the respective bundle from .AdiumMessageStyle to .SkypeChatStyle isn’t even necessary: Skype recognizes both. This actually means that you can use your Adium message styles, without copying, renaming, modification or anything, in Skype — all you need is a symlink.
Now, there’s only one caveat: this way, you can either have the Adium default styles available in Skype, or the user-added ones — not both at a time. I don’t think there’s an easy solution to having both thus far. So, pick your poison:
Adding the Application-provided styles to Skype
In Terminal, type this:
(cd "~/Library/Application\ Support/Skype/"; if [ -e ChatStyles ]; then mv ChatStyles ChatStyles.bak; fi; ln -s "/Applications/Adium.app/Contents/Resources/Message\ Styles" ChatStyles)
This will backup any existing ChatStyles folder or symlink, then create a symlink pointing to Adium’s “official” styles.
Adding User-added styles to Skype
In Terminal, type this:
(cd "~/Library/Application\ Support/Skype/"; if [ -e ChatStyles ]; then mv ChatStyles ChatStyles.bak; fi; ln -s "~/Library/Application\ Support/Adium\ 2.0/Message\ Styles" ChatStyles)
This will backup any existing ChatStyles folder or symlink, then create a symlink pointing to message styles you’ll have added.
Trying it all out
Go to Skype, and in its Preferences, under the Chat tab, you’ll find a Style popup menu that is otherwise invisible.
Notice that there’s some limitations to it. As far as I can tell:
- the buddy icon won’t show up for some reason; you’ll see a generic icon instead (the icon does show up in the drawer, though)
- if the style shows the person’s service (e.g.
AIM) anywhere, it will show%service%instead
Nothing big and merely of cosmetic nature.
Others' Thoughts
Comment on November 7th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Hi, I have change the .AdiumMessageStyle (s) extensions to .SkypeChatStyle (s) . Then I created and put them in a folder named “ChatStyles” in Library/Application\ Support/Skype. Otherwise Skype won’t see the styles in the drop down menu. But when I chat all the messages are duplicated and if I add a comment before having a reply the comments is added to the last sentence subsequently. [URL=http://img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture2qm6.png][IMG]http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/6706/picture2qm6.th.png[/IMG][/URL]
I’m using MacMini, Leopard, Skype 2.6.0.151 whit templates of Adium 1.1.4
Thanks for you help.
Comment on November 7th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
I’m not so sure if this is still supported. This hack is from way back with a 1.x version of Skype and a pre-1.x version of Adium. You’re probably best off asking over at Skype’s forums.
Comment on November 7th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Thank you very much Chuker, I looks that is almost possible. If you didn\’t get to see the screenshot (because of the messy link I\’ve posted), here is another link where you can see clearly what I said: http://img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture2qm6.png
And thank you for this initial approach to the solution of my problem.
I’ll go to Skype forums.
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