New WB and SKS betas on OD (Impulse & SDC)

Saturday, June 21, 2008 by Neil Banfield | Discussion: Skinning

I just thought I would let everyone know about the new betas and mention some of the new features.

You can now create animated please wait screens - see please wait section under Edit Explorer/IE shell parts.  You need to create animations in NWA format which can be done from the Tools->Animation compression menu item.  This only accepts images stacked vertically so you will need to create your animation as a vertical frame sequence first.

The NWA files can also be used for startmenu animation though old style TGA files will also continue to work but NWA files are much smaller.

Another new feature to SKS is the layers tab on most controls.  This allows you to use multiple layers for a given section.  These layers have their own tiling and margin settings and can be used to achieve effects which were very hard or simply not possible before.  You cannot use layers on window frames yet.  Layers do not require the user to have the WB beta as they will also work on WB 6.02 and higher.

We have a document about layers here : https://www.stardock.com/products/skinstudio/SKSLayers.pdf

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ShelbyGT_The_Car
Reply #21 Sunday, June 22, 2008 9:15 AM
Cool ! I can just imagine who and why this was added in for.
Sounds really good...
Hey NT - looks like you are already having fun.

WOW I got updates for IP4, CursorFX Plus, SKS6 Pro and WB 6.1

Makes for a good Sunday morning with all of this stuff going on.

Thanks Stardock!


NightTrainthedark
Reply #22 Sunday, June 22, 2008 9:18 AM
nevrmind, I just found section 38?    I'll do some exploring their as it kinda looks pertinent.   

EDIT.. Got it. This has alot of potential. Good leap Neil.   


NightTrainthedark
Reply #23 Sunday, June 22, 2008 9:34 AM
The animated PW screens could use a "show once" option. If the skin continues to load and the ani repeats it gets sloppy.

eieio
Reply #24 Sunday, June 22, 2008 10:57 AM
I was feeling risky this morning so I went to download the SKS6 update and it gave me a message that a previous version needed to be removed.

Can I get confirmation that it removes SKS5 or 6? Both?

EDIT... I decided to leap. CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!! It uninstalled SKS5.

shoulda went to church first.


NT, was that the update in Impulse?

Neophil installed it from SDC and it didn't uninstall SKS5. Same version numbers but maybe the difference is using Impulse vs. SDC?

One other thing, NT, seeing as how you took the leap   
Does the latest SKS6 have the ability to do those things we still needed SKS5 to do?
eieio crosses his fingers   

NightTrainthedark
Reply #25 Sunday, June 22, 2008 11:31 AM
Does the latest SKS6 have the ability to do those things we still needed SKS5 to do?


I haven't gotten that far. I use SKS5 to skin XP and SKS6 to skin Vista. It appears that everything can be done in SKS 6. I haven't experimented with the substyle feature yet as that was what I used SKS 5 for the most. SKS 6's substyle thing amob didn't like me.

Updated through Impulse.

Cavan1
Reply #26 Sunday, June 22, 2008 11:40 AM
Does the latest SKS6 have the ability to do those things we still needed SKS5 to do?


Still don't see fonts for classic widgets, Hide start menu shadow is still just eye candy, it does nothing.

eieio
Reply #27 Sunday, June 22, 2008 12:00 PM
Still don't see fonts for classic widgets, Hide start menu shadow is still just eye candy, it does nothing.


  

Guess I'll hold off on updating. May try the update from SDC though ... I'd like to keep SKS5 until SKS6 has the capability to do it all.


I would use SKS6 exclusively if it could do everything SKS5 can do ...



Thanks for the feedback, guys

Neil Banfield
Reply #28 Sunday, June 22, 2008 12:13 PM

Nighttrain: You can loop once by setting the frame to loop back to as the last frame (well last frame-1 as it is 0 based)

Hide start menu shadow should work correctly.  There was a bug in the first SKS 6 release but that was resolved some time ago.


neophil78
Reply #29 Sunday, June 22, 2008 2:19 PM
Neophil installed it from SDC and it didn't uninstall SKS5. Same version numbers but maybe the difference is using Impulse vs. SDC?


and/or maybe XP vs Vista ?   

Neil Banfield
Reply #30 Sunday, June 22, 2008 3:05 PM
If anyone has found the SKS6 beta install is removing SKS5 then please let us know.  It is not intentional.

Astyanax
Reply #31 Sunday, June 22, 2008 3:55 PM
I got them, also went to install Loginstudio for Vista, it crashes when I try to open it.

NightTrainthedark
Reply #32 Sunday, June 22, 2008 4:11 PM
If anyone has found the SKS6 beta install is removing SKS5 then please let us know. It is not intentional.


SKS6 uninstalled SKS5 when updating through Impulse this morning.

I could really use it back.
SKS 5.01 is available through Stardock Central. Is it safe to reinstall?

Also feedback...

I can't seem to be able to turn off the "Please Wait" text when using an animated image. (This is something I would use SKS5 for previously)

I also can't get the loop to play once. I am trying to understand your directions Neil but I am missing something.

While messing with frame rate settings. Screen.exe crashed and it took Explorer.exe with it. A reboot has everything working fine. I am hesitant to flirt with anymore settings now. If it happens again, I'll save the error info.


eieio
Reply #33 Sunday, June 22, 2008 4:41 PM
If anyone has found the SKS6 beta install is removing SKS5 then please let us know. It is not intentional.


That is good news. I'll wait to update until it is resolved.

Thanks for the info, Neil!

eieio
Reply #34 Sunday, June 22, 2008 4:47 PM
I can't seem to be able to turn off the "Please Wait" text when using an animated image. (This is something I would use SKS5 for previously)


NT, in SKS6; XP Specific Sections>Please Wait Screen>Image>Code Editor tab, I added TextShiftY=900 and that moved the text off the screen so as to make it not visible. That value may need to be adjusted for various resolutions; I haven't had anyone test this skin I'm working on yet.

Not exactly elegant, but it worked

I.R. Brainiac
Reply #35 Sunday, June 22, 2008 5:05 PM
Love the concept of layers and I can see some uses for it even in its current blend mode.

Problem is,a good photoshopper rarely uses the normal setting for blending a layer.For instance,a good glass shine is screened...it gives a nice gradient...quite different from the same thing blended normally.

Another example is overlay or vivid blend modes...2 modes that look incredible inside PS,but unless merged properly before export look terrible as single layers.

Still,its great step forward...would have been awesome 1 or 2 years ago before the trend was aero glass,glass,glass.

Heres hoping textured WB's make a comeback.

Animated please wait sounds great.  

NightTrainthedark
Reply #36 Sunday, June 22, 2008 5:17 PM
I tried that Pictoratus. No go.

eieio
Reply #37 Sunday, June 22, 2008 5:21 PM

I tried that Pictoratus. No go.

Maybe due to the new animation feature?

 


eieio
Reply #38 Sunday, June 22, 2008 5:24 PM
I tried that Pictoratus. No go.


Maybe because of the new animation feature?





... I just responded to this in Impulse but my post is not showing here.   




   ... and there it is!   

I.R. Brainiac
Reply #39 Sunday, June 22, 2008 6:08 PM
The holy grail of layered skinning is going to be psd integration with layers,layerstyles(or at least blend modes)intact.

Xion player is half way there...it reads layers but they have to be premerged.(blend modes dont work)

A single image may have several layers,each blended differently...or a single layerstyle...but once merged to nothing...may look way different.

Photoshop CAN seperate these individual parts of the layer style into seperate layers.

If those pieces could make a single image blended correctly...you would have something special.Glass buttons or frames that really reacted to whatever was beneath them.Droooooooooooooool!  

NightTrainthedark
Reply #40 Sunday, June 22, 2008 10:33 PM
So, I reinstalled SKS5 because SKS 6 won't save wba files properly. When you save as a wba it leaves any old uis files in the folder and when you go to install the skin, it reads as another skin (the original file used as a template). SKS5 wraps the skins fine.

But now after reinstalling sks5 , the new animated please wait feature doesn't work any more. I lost the abilty to import/ selct an image. SKS keeps crashing with a "outside Parameters" warning. I have to shut down via task manager.

I think I may have lost the skin I was working on trying to get SKS 6 to save. I certainly lost alot of work on another skin because windowblinds read the file as the old and rewrote over my work. I don't believe I am doing anything wrong.   

I'll let yo others experiment with the new features from now on. The road is too bumpy.




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