Vista and WB skinning issues.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 by vStyler | Discussion: Community
Ok, Yes, i am slowly coming to term with the fact are converting slowly to Vista and we all knew it wouldnt be an easy transition especially when it comes to skinning. However, I personally have not dual booted it yet for a variety of reasons. The reason I would like to cover here is just skinning it adequately with WB.
It has come to my attention that there are many areas of Vista that are currently not skinnable or moveable. Most noteably the tabs, toolbars, Shellstyle and search boxes. Just taking these areas to task I would like to ask the good folks who code Windowblinds and SKS whether these parts and all the others are going to be skinnable soon.
It would be different if you could actually change the colors of these unskinnable areas. Apparently that is not the case. it got me thinking so I went and looked at the recent master skins, pay and non pay skins.. turns out nearly all of them are either grey or blue or grey and blue. ( Aeros, Optix, Pantheon, Adrenaline Argos )
What happens when Vista users get tired of having to use grey and blue themes? If an orange skin is going to look totally out of place on Vista.. what is the fix going to be.. and is there going to be a fix? I'm curious to see what happens when some posts a non Vista colored pay theme how well it will go over.
Also, Seems to me..and I may be wrong but.. in a skin specifically designed for XP its going to be a laborious task to make a Vista-ized substyle. I would propose that until Vista, XP and WB play together nicely that WC and SD should consider an XP and Vista section for pay themes and community themes. To me, and alsmost everyone I have discussed this with it make a lot of sense. if nothing else it stops people from wasting their time downloading skins that are going to look bad or are not going to work correctly on their systems.
I for one like to skin outside the box, I consider it an art and although im dying to skin Vista and move on as everyone else wants to..at this time.. it seems futile.. unless you know something I dont.
If anyone wants to post screens of the issues they are having with WB's running on Vista I would be interested in seeing them and I would dearly love to know Stardocks plans as far as making the Vista skinning experience more versatile and user friendly.
Thanks and Keep on skinning !! 
Reply #2 Thursday, March 15, 2007 4:14 AM
SkinStudio for Vista is in development and is due shortly. There are a lot of areas in Vista currently not skinned, but on the whole XP skins look a whole lot better than I'd expected.
A solution to your suggestion about XP/Vista skins being seperated maybe for WB to skin all elements of both O/S'. Though unless you have dual boot it may be difficult to test. I suspect skinners may have to be content with releasing two versions of a WB and for WC to have two sections, one for XP and one for Vista.
I would prefer the latter. What does everyone else think?
Reply #3 Thursday, March 15, 2007 5:40 AM
I agree that Skinners will need to decide if they want to add substyles for XP and vice versa. It shouldn't be "expected" though.
Reply #4 Thursday, March 15, 2007 6:22 AM
Thats basically what I think would be the best idea...however for the meantime I would like to have the opportunity to skin both or either and not be committed to Vista.. YET.
It only makes sense. Even with Master skins, If your designing to please Vista users..who are a small market share at this point then you are really restricting how you can design for XP users..even with a Vista substyle. Example: it would have been terribly difficult to make a Vista version of Stargate SG1. The animations in SG1 don't even work in Vista.
Also your really restricted on your color schemes on Vista also.. all reasons to implement these suggestions at this time.
Reply #5 Thursday, March 15, 2007 6:41 AM
how can i tell which styles are for vista and which are for xp in the gallery
It's My Secret
Reply #6 Thursday, March 15, 2007 6:49 AM
Normal Tabs are skinned as normal under Vista.
IE7 tabs are skinnable under Vista by using the [Tabs.IE7] section. The bottom bar under the tabs cannot currently be skinned but the tabs themselves can.
There are many new sections added even to WB 5.5 and they are listed in the VistaExtras.UIS file which is in the Vista Images subdirectory in the WB directory.
The default shellstyle that WB creates tends to be blue due to the skin, but this does change on some skins. Cyclops has a red one, RIP has an orange one etc.
If you add any of the sections in the VistaExtras.uis file to your own .UIS file then WB will use those in place of the defaults. So if you add [Vista.Shell] to your UIS file you can override what the shellstyle bar looks like.
With the exception of very dark skins (Microsoft hardcoded some white colours in places), most skin colours should work fine on Vista.
If there is a particular section you would like to see skinned more, please let us know so we can add it to the list.
Reply #7 Thursday, March 15, 2007 7:05 AM
Reply #8 Thursday, March 15, 2007 9:55 AM
Menubars please.
Reply #9 Thursday, March 15, 2007 10:32 AM
Sounds for perpixel titlebar buttons.
The toolbar remnants problem fixed.
I second NT's menubars and menubar button suggestion.
Being able to tile the scrollbar background without it moving with the scrollbar itself.
PerPixel Favs menu.
3 state toolbar icons (if possible)
Im sure theres more, I'll post more as I come across them.
Reply #10 Thursday, March 15, 2007 11:08 AM
Ummm, thanks alot John. If it gets implemented there will be more useless icons to skin.
I'm stopping making icons since IE7 is taking over. Windows explorer icons might get done but who knows.
Reply #11 Thursday, March 15, 2007 11:21 AM
I mean if im gonna skin em, may as well have three states.. if at all possible.
Reply #12 Thursday, March 15, 2007 11:22 AM
Well they can call me on their telegraph should they have an issue.
Reply #14 Thursday, March 15, 2007 9:16 PM
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Reply #1 Thursday, March 15, 2007 2:33 AM