The Un-Official WindowBlinds/SkinStudio Documentation Project

Published on September 11, 2003 By Koasati In Skinning

The Un-Official WindowBlinds/SkinStudio Documentation Project

Documentation for skinning WindowBlinds using Skinstudio is sorely lacking. The intention of this thread is to gather as much info as possible about the subject. I think a few rules need to observed, to keep this thread on track.

1. Keep the chit-chat to a minimum.... any comment that doesn't contribute to the purpose of this thread, and threatens to hijack it, will be deleted.

2. If you have a question, begin the comment with QUESTION:

If you have an answer to a Question, begin your comment with ANSWER to #xx: (#xx being the post number of the question)

If you have a tip, start the comment with TIP:

You get the idea.

3. Please do not post a solution if you're guessing. Be sure you know what you're saying is correct, otherwise you're not helping anyone.

4 I would like to see images in this thread only when that would help explain the problem or solution, BUT optimize your images before you post them here.

Use jpg, and compress until it hurts.

Learn to use the image insertion feature before you post the image. (I don't want to see a bunch of red X's) (You can't uploaded images from your harddrive)

Your image should only show the relevant parts of the skin, or SkinStudio interface. (NO FULL DESKTOP IMAGES!) Some of us are on dialup.

If you don't know how to use the feature, or how to optimize jpgs, don't ask in this thread, start a new one in the HELP section.

Hopefully we will have most of our top skinners contributing to project... you know how you are..

LET'S DO IT! Who will be the first to contribute?

[Message Edited]

Comments (Page 5)

DigitalCHET

on Mar 10, 2004

QUESTION:

How do I go about automatically removing the user icon from the user panel? I remember seeing a skin which, I think, did this automatically.

Ingui

on Mar 10, 2004

I believe if you set the LEFT CONTENT MARGIN of the StartPanelUserPane to -48 (negative48), that will push the Icon off screen leaving only the User Name visible

DigitalCHET

on Mar 11, 2004

Oh, that sounds easy enough. Thanks.

Koasati

on Mar 15, 2004

TIP: When using Roll-up, you will often have a bit missing on the bottom left. Sometimes you can fix this
by adjusting the sizing margins on the left and/or bottom frame, or by adjusting the height of the roll-up. But this doesn't always work, and you may have to alter your design........... or... you can create a "fake titlebar button" to cover the missing bit, and set it to "show if window is rolled up" in Visibility Settings, "Add area to border" in Painting Options, and "Do Nothing" in Actions

DigitalCHET

on Apr 03, 2004

QUESTION:

Who can tell me what's going on here...? http://members.iinet.com.au/~sojeda/images/FrameProb.jpg

See the right window frame? The transparency is being tiled for some reason. I've checked all the settings and found no cause for this.
I'd love some help on it.
[Message Edited]

digital_trucker

on Apr 04, 2004

TIP:

Be careful with transparency use in top window borders. Apps with MDI windows have problems. When you minimize an MDI window, it 'inherits' any transparency from the normal amximized window. Also, if the MDI window is exceptionally small to begin with, the resulting minimized bar will be clipped, chopping buttons.

Possible bug? Clipping problem does not appear when WB is unloaded.

Essencay

on Apr 04, 2004

SkinStudio 4.20, Build 900 Beta
WindowBlinds 4.29 Build 136 Beta

TIP: In SkinStudio...The Hide User Picture attribute under User Pane when enabled, now works

I don't know when this was fixed. Previously I would set the left Content Margin to -60. Can anyone else verify that this works or at least let me know I'm not crazy in thinking that it didn't work before.

TIP: To make the User Name invisible on the StartPanel User Pane. Set the font to one that contains in alpha-numeric characters. A good one is FreeHand 9 Symbols 9,12 FreeHand9Sym.FON. Also make sure to add it as a font to be installed.

Essencay

on Apr 04, 2004

QUESTION:

Is this a bug? Top image is from when I first open the Display Properties by right-clicking on the desktop. Bottom image is from after hitting one of the other tabs then going back to the first tab. Seems to fix itself and display the Tabs Border TabPane.bmp and Tabs Page TabsPage.bmp correctly.

Koasati

on Apr 04, 2004

RESPONSE TO #68: The same thing happens here, so yes, it appears to be a bug.

Essencay

on May 09, 2004

SkinStudio Professional 4.20, Build 908

TIP:

If you Delete the Taskbar QuickLaunch images in a skin the QuickLaunch Buttons will use the same images for the Taskbar Buttons. The benefit of this is that you don't end up with half-funky shaped buttons for the ">>" button. Instead, the ">>" isn't skinned and looks much cleaner. essorrant's Grift WB available at the GUIOlympics is an example of this.

smoke-tetsu

on May 15, 2004

QUESTION:

This might be an obvious one but how does one specify a shadow in a WB skin?

Essencay

on May 16, 2004

QUESTION:This might be an obvious one but how does one specify a shadow in a WB skin?

RESPONSE:

The only shadows that you can specifically set in a WB skin is for text. Any other shadow effects a skin might have are done by the author through how he creates his images using tga files in the areas that allow them. To add shadow effects to window frames you need to run WindowFX. This info is to the best of my experience correct

CerebroJD

on Jul 07, 2004

QUESTION: What is the difference between .png and .tga and why has stardock chosen tga over png?

CerebroJD

on Jul 08, 2004

QUESTION: Using the "Titlebar - Front Caption Text" and "Titlebar - End Caption Text" features causes there to be an unknown character box after the text I put in each of these values. Example: "Front(character box) (windowtext) End(characterbox)"

Anyone else seen this?
[Message Edited]

Koasati

on Jul 08, 2004

QUESTION: What is the difference between .png and .tga and why has
stardock chosen tga over png?

I don't know the technical differences between the two.
I believe it was Nakor that once explained that png would use more resourses to be rendered in WindowBlinds.

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