[Daniel]

Nothing much has changed since the release of TabServe in January 2004, but now with the total overhaul that is TabServe 2.0, you will find new features and enhanchements.

Key new features:

• Import configuration
  
  After registering, you can now import the default configuration based on your country. From there you can remove or edit as you like.
  
  
  
• Password recovery
  
  I lost track of how often I had to delete someone's account because they forgot their password... now you can do it without any help.
  
  
  
• Music integration
  
  With MSN Messenger 7 came the "What I'm Listening To" feature, when you click on someone's song, you get taken to MSN Music to buy the song. Not everyone finds that very useful, so you can now change the URL you get taken to when clicking on a song. For example, you can get it to show the lyrics!
  
  You can use the following variables in the Music integration URL:
  
  $ARTIST$
  $ALBUM$
  $TITLE$
  
  Example:

  http://www.songmeanings.net/query.php?action=title&query=$TITLE$

  
  
  
  
• Translations
  
  TabServe is used by a lot of non-english speaking people, so to make things either for those people, I have added translations for a few languages, with still more to come.
  
  
  
• Just one image
  
  The first version of TabServe made you enter two image types when creating a tab, one for TabServe (GIF) and one for MSN Messenger (PNG), the only reason it did this was because of Internet Explorer's poor support for PNG. IE7 fixes the issues with PNG files, so GIF images have been removed, and things are much simpler.
  
  While on the topic of images, the image submitted when creating a tab has some strict guidelines: it must be PNG and be no more than 32x45px in size.
  
  
  
• New UI
  
  What would a new version be without a new design? Credit goes to Le Marquis for designing. More work may be done in this, but you get the idea!
  
  
  
• Statistics
  
  To feed your curiousity, you can now see how many TabServe users there are (12,800 when the old Web site closed), how many tabs there are in the database, how many in the gallery, how many tabs the users have altogether, and when the last serve was (this will usually be really low when the user count starts to pick up!)
  
  
  
• Tabs per language
  
  To sort out the mess of all the tabs, each language has it's own tabs, and the number of total tabs for that language in the drop down list.
  
  
  
• Tab information
  
  Click on the small tick image on a tab in the gallery, and you will get some basic information about the tab, including how many users use it, and you can also read and post comments for the tab.
  
  
  
• "Disable dynamic/pay content"
  
  This on/off option turns off all pay content, including Dynamic Display Pictures, Packs, "What's Hot", etc.
  
  
  
• Search engine
  
  Now you can use different search providers in MSN Messenger, as well as the standard MSN Search, you can use Google, Yahoo!, AltaVista and Ask Jeeves.

And finally, you can specify your global language, instead of getting the default United States english for a lot of things inside MSN Messenger.


Accounts from the old system have not been transfered over, please register again.

Old accounts from the old system can no longer be accessed, but will still be 'served' for a few months so you don't need to register again right away. Only if you want to change something, you will need to setup a new account.

To patch Messenger to use an account from TabServe 1, make sure the URL in the patch uses the domain msgrconfig01.msnfanatic.com. To use accounts in the new system, make sure it says msgrconfig02.msnfanatic.com, this is now standard in version 1.0.024 of the TabServe Patch.

Just as a side note, the Download button only shows when you are logged in, hopefully to stop people who don't read from just running the patch and getting angry at me because their tabs have gone.

Check it out at http://ts.msnfanatic.com/ and start submitting some tabs!

Screenshots

Registration:
 register.png (43.12K)
Number of downloads: 1570

Importing after registering
 import.png (70.61K)
Number of downloads: 1566

Changing a few things
 settings.png (51.78K)
Number of downloads: 1007

Add a tab
 addtab.png (73.2K)
Number of downloads: 1096

The result of using http://services.msnf....be/inews.shtml for MSN Today
 msntoday.png (109.49K)
Number of downloads: 1162

The BigBlueBall tab
 tab.png (77.09K)
Number of downloads: 1272

Singing along to your song
 lyrics.png (152.15K)
Number of downloads: 1358

[Daniel]

Holy cow... I thought there might be 50+ users overnight, but I wake up to Registered users: 468 :|

[david_ES]

in messengeradictos.com has been published a review about tabserve 2 ;)

This post has been edited by david_ES: 01 August 2005 - 10:37 PM

[Daniel]

Now the registration count is 482, that must be one hell of a popular site.

More than half haven't done the importing, how odd... need to make some changes I think.

[Daniel]

Well there's the first update for the public beta.

Importing is a must, especially for the URLs and non-tab data. The system didn't force it after registration, so people just skipped it and went on to add tabs. This has now been changed, you cannot get past the import page until you import (it's OK to choose no tabs to import). Also, you can now just visit http://ts.msnfanatic.com/import.html and select the country to import from, not need for the country=XX anymore.

[Doggie]

im loving this daniel, really big update and its awesome :D

[Daniel]

More work to do <_< Damn comment spam.

[stuartbennett]

ok please provide the download link for the tabserve 2.0 patch so i can install it into messenger. in the past i have only ever found tabserve to be a website you setup the tabs on the website but the data on the site cant be linked into messenger tell me step by step how to set this up.

[Daniel]

When you are logged in, you can get it from http://ts.msnfanatic.com/download.html

[stuartbennett]

tabserve does not work there is no patch it cannot link into msn messenger in any way shape or form and if i am not provided with any proof that it can that i can accomplish myself on my own pc then i will report you to the authorities for trying to distribute non exstant software.

This post has been edited by stuartbennett: 03 August 2005 - 09:08 PM

[stuartbennett]

stuartbennett, on Aug 2 2005, 06:25 AM, said:

ok please provide the download link for the tabserve 2.0 patch so i can install it into messenger. in the past i have only ever found tabserve to be a website you setup the tabs on the website but the data on the site cant be linked into messenger tell me step by step how to set this up.

there is only one function available and all buttons go to that function. if i click add tab it goes to import if i click create tab it goes to import if i click settings same thing same happens with download and this is all while i am logged in so stop lying. basically if you are logged in import is the only available function except for logout nothing else works.

This post has been edited by stuartbennett: 03 August 2005 - 09:09 PM

[Doggie]

dear silly lil noob:

Quote

tabserve does not work there is no patch it cannot link into msn messenger in any way shape or form

Well theres a thing called TabServe 2.0 Beta in this link http://ts.msnfanatic...Serve_Patch.zip , thats pretty amazing. Whats it do? It patches your MSN Messenger! :o

Quote

i will report you to the authorities for trying to distribute non exstant software.

ok you do that, then you'll get an email back saying "Thanks but your a dumbass, there is a program"

Quote

this is all while i am logged in so stop lying

If you bother to just import first, you can continue doing whatever the hell you want with it. But yeah sorry my mate Tabby does get himself into strife sometimes, lying b*stard he is <_<
Oh by the way, thing called EDIT or did the forum lie? :(

[TheSteve]

Would you like some cheese to go with your whine?

[.zero]

when I try to download it i go to the download page and it says you must be logged in to access this page, and I log in (Using my new account that I just created :D) and then i click on download patch whatever, and it says I am logged it so I can't download it and then I sign out of msn and refresh the page but it still doesn't work. :( please help!

[Doggie]

http://ts.msnfanatic...Serve_Patch.zip
click that and see if you can download it

[.zero]

nope not working :(

[Daniel]

Hot linking isn't allowed, but that brings up a bug... hot linked + logged in = error. Go to http://ts.msnfanatic.com/, make sure you're logged in click the Download button.

You might need to disable things such as Zone Alarm, since I think they can remove referrer headers. Also, apparently Download Accelerator will not download it right either.

[.zero]

I'm sorry, what? And I didn't use the hotlink first time.

[sixes]

Daniel: when i tried to copy paste your link that you demonstrated using to change the MSN Today page i got this error in tabserve,

The following errors occured

* URLs must start with http://

Might you explain. Maybe i did something wrong. :(

Here is what i pasted into the MSN Today Setting Field:

http://ts.msnfanatic....be/inews.shtml

Thanks for any help.

sixes

[Daniel]

It's probably referring to a URL that's not MSN Today, are any of the 3 below it empty? Since you can't empty them, the importing might not have work.

You can run the importer again at http://ts.msnfanatic.com/import.html