Skype Utility Project

Welcome to the Skype Utility Project!

(If you're impatient you can download the latest version here.)

What is it?

The Skype Utility Project is a plugin for Skype for Windows Desktop, adding some useful functionality the original developers were too lazy to implement. (Please note that this plugin works only with the Windows Desktop version of Skype, other platforms are not supported.)

What can it do?

The most notable features are:

• Change notification window positioning: Notification window positioning now works smoothly with multiple connected displays. You can, of course, also choose on which display and where on that display your notification windows are supposed to appear.
• Hide Ads: Hide the advertisement banners above conversations. This will not affect Ads on the Skype "Home" page.

For a full list of features, check out the feature description below. Interested in a feature that's not included yet? Send us a message! If it's possible, we'll integrate it.

How do I get started?

Where can I get SUP?

You can download the latest compiled version of this plugin from the rather inconspicuous "Releases" section right here.
For those of you using Chocolatey, you can also install SUP from the command line by typing:
choco install skype-utility-project

Alternatively, if you don't trust us, download the source code, open the included Visual Studio project and hit compile!

I have the file, what now?

The Skype Utility Project consists of a single file called d3d9.dll which you need to place in your Skype installation directory, right next to the Skype.exe file (usually that will be in C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\).

The next time you start Skype, you will notice a new menu item called "Advanced [SUP]" has appeared in the "Tools" menu of Skype's contact list window.

From this menu, you can conveniently access all the configuration options and change them according to your preferences. And that's everything you need to know!

What do those options do?

Below is a detailed list of descriptions of the individual menu items, grouped according to their locations in the SUP menu.

• Auto Focus Chat Input: When selecting a contact from the contact list or returning focus to an existing chat window, the chat input field will automatically be highlighted so you can start typing right away.
• Layout: Provides options to customize Skype's window layout.
  • Hide Ads: Hides/shows the banner ads above chat conversations. Does not apply to ads displayed on the "Home" page.
  • Hide Home Toolbar: Hides/shows the panel containing the "Home" and "Call phones" buttons.
  • Hide Identity Panel: Hides/shows the panel containing your user name and current status. Hiding this is probably not very convenient, but may still help e.g. on a laptop display where space is scarce.
• Show Notifications: Options to customize the location of notification popups.
  • On Display: If you have multiple monitors, you can choose on which of the monitors you wish the notification popups to appear.
  • At Location: Select in which corner of the selected monitor you want the notifications to appear. Default is bottom right, near your system tray. If you want the notifications to appear more towards the center of the screen, you can customize the exact positions by manually setting the values mentioned in the Advanced Options chapter below.
• Language: Change SUP's menu language. So far English, German and Russian are supported. (Feel free to contact us if you can provide translations to other languages or simply create a pull request.)
• Help: Provides information about SUP as well as quick links to this page and the release download page for new versions.

Advanced Options

The Skype Utility Project stores its settings in the %appdata%\Skype\ folder, in a text file named sup.ini. You can open this file in a text editor and manually change one or two settings not (yet) accessible via the application menu.

These values are:

• Section [config]
  • notifOffsetX: Horizontal offset of notification windows from the edge of the display in pixels.
  • notifOffsetY: Vertical offset of notification windows from the edge of the display in pixels.
  • viewChangeUpdateDelay: Time in ms after which to reapply any forced layout changes after Skype's view mode (split or combined view) has been changed. Default value is 500, increase this if you are experiencing issues after switching between view modes.

Note that in order to apply changes to these values, you will have to restart Skype.

Troubleshooting

It's not working, what should I do?

• If the program is complaining about some missing .dll files, install this.
• SUP menu doesn't show up? Make sure the d3d9.dll file is located in the same folder as the Skype.exe file.
  Also, if you're using Skype's "Split Window View", please be aware that the SUP menu will only show up in the "Tools" menu of the contact list window, not that of individual chat windows.
• Make sure you got the latest SUP version from here.
• Make sure you have the latest Skype version by downloading the setup from here.
  NOTE: You have to download the setup from the website, using Help -> Check for Updates from the Skype menu will not always give you the latest version. (Skype distributes updates to people over time, presumably to reduce server loads and to give them some time to react in case of some catastrophic bug. This means that using the update check may give you access to a new version only one or two weeks after its initial release, while the setup downloaded from the website will always contain the latest version.)
• Still doesn't work? Open a new issue here with a detailed description of your problem.

Who did it?

This project is a combined effort of David Lehn, Moritz Kretz and NDS.
Thanks to Chris McGrath for the Chocolatey installer script!

We hope this will be of use to somebody. If not, well... at least you didn't pay for it, I guess.