Bootskins.....what 'should' be in them
Friday, July 14, 2006 by Jafo | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
Lately there's been one or two people uploading 'large' Bootskins.
'Large' as in 500k.... 1 meg....etc.
A Bootskin is [in theory] only 3 files.
A main [wall] image... a bitmap in 640x480 16 colour [compressed in zip is about 50-70k].
A progress animation image...a bitmap also in 16 colour [compressed in zip is about 0.15k]
...and an ini file [text] [compressed in zip is about 0.15k]
Total?....probably something like 75k .... unless you add a jpg preview... OF THE 16 COLOUR RES bootskin.... maybe another 50/70k compressed.
All up you would anticipate nothing more than 150k. So why the heck do we get 1 meg bootskins?
Because all sorts of 'junk' are in the zip....even PSD files....[heaven knows why you'd need PSDs for a simple wall dither]. Or even 2 or 3 previews [again lord knows why] and full colour uncompressed ones to boot [pun], at that.
Let's remember to check what we're uploading. Remember...sometimes even the thumbs.db can be bigger than a Bootskin 'file'....
Reply #2 Saturday, July 15, 2006 1:31 PM
Reply #3 Saturday, July 15, 2006 6:43 PM
Reply #4 Sunday, July 16, 2006 8:06 AM
And another thing....
To be fair and equitable, any Bootskin preview SHOULD be of the actual bootskin, not some high-res high-colour high-clarity false impression of what it 'might have been' had it NOT been a bootskin.
Just do the BEST you can with a dithering to 16 colours....and leave the 16 bit ones for wallpapers....
Reply #5 Monday, August 7, 2006 9:09 PM
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Reply #1 Saturday, July 15, 2006 1:05 PM