I have divided the Yahoo messenger skin tutorial up into six seperate categories to make navagation easier.

Introduction | Make a Platform | Color the .BMP's
Guide to the .BMP's | Alter the .XML | Guide to the .XML

Once you have created your platform for your Yahoo messenger 6.0 skin you are ready to begin. I found it best to have a plan before just starting to color so decide what direction you want to go with it now.

#1 Open up your paint program.

#2 Click "file" then "open" and navagate to C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Shared\Graphics\your skin name example "Red". Now the first .bmp you should see is "border bot". This is the bottom border of the Yahoo 6.0 messenger and a easy place to start.

#3 Click on the border bot .bmp it should then open in paint. Here is a example of what you can do

Notice the blue part is the active window colors and the red is the non-active. Which means when you click on the Yahoo 6.0 messenger it is active and the bottom border will be blue. If you click on a window besides the Yahoo 6.0 messenger it is now non-active, so the bottom border will now be red.

#4 When you are finished click file and save. Then goto your Yahoo 6.0 messenger and click view> change skin> "your skins name" example Red. You should see the results on the Yahoo 6.0 messenger now. Only 56 more to go!!!

Note: For some reason not all 57 .bmp's seem to be used on the Yahoo messenger 6.0 skin. See my .bmp guide for more details.