Vista WB skinning shared knowledge and tips thread
Don't keep us in the dark.......make us wise!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008 by 2of3 | Discussion: Skinning
As many have learned, Skinning for Vista has presented us with new challenges/limitations.
My hope for this thread is that skinners will send me tips and "rules" for building a Vista blind.
I can update this post (with credit to the sender) if skinners want to PM me with tips. That way they will be easier to find instead of people having to search through thread comments .
I'll also divide these tips into sections as more content gets added
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- Make sure to make the programslist (starpanel left side) wide enough for the application text's if you plan on having it animated. Failure to make i wide enough for the content and mouse over the to long text will repaint the startpanel and trigger the animation from the beginning again.
- the two small images that make up the bottom corners and bar in the IE7 tabs have to be saved as Indexed .bmps.
In Photoshop > Menu > Image > Mode > Indexed color > Save.
- Skin the right and left tab images. It looks much more refined when complete.
- The bottom bar content margins are based on your Start Panel's left and right pane margins. You cannot adjust the size of the Vista log off buttons. Trick it out with transparency.
-For the start menu search icon. Take a look at the size of your bottom image. If it's over 58 px tall, you need to bring it down below. 58 is the magic number before the search icon aligns properly.
- The favorites menu can't be transparent but the typical drop down menu can be. Make separate images for those menus.
- The Forward and Back IE7 navigational arrows are a nightmare to skin. We are currently limited as to what we can do due to different icon sizes.
- Use glyphs on buttons when possible to avoid stretching issues on buttons. The new layer feature will help a lot in this regard.
-The default white text on the command bar buttons is controlled by the 'windows background' color in the skins 'basic' color section.
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Color legend:
Night Train
Skoriginals
PixelPirate
Vstyler
Voidcore
Articles of interest:
The Blur feature and effecting Shadows
https://forums.wincustomize.com/319751
SKS6 - 'Edit Vista Part Colors'
https://forums.wincustomize.com/313381
http://wiki.wincustomize.com/wiki/SkinStudio_Help:_Edit_Vista_parts_colours
Learn together with I.R. Bainiac:
https://forums.wincustomize.com/319865
Start Menu Open help thread:
https://forums.wincustomize.com/337992
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Reply #2 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 5:36 AM
Reply #5 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 5:58 AM
even though its not a Vista exclusive tip/trick and more a general one.
Reply #6 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:03 AM
- You cannot alter the text shifting when pressing certain buttons.
- If you make your background colors too dark, the skin will be unusable.
- In my opinion, glyphs on title bar buttons make buttons from skin to skin look similiar. How many different ways is there to make an X for the close button using app. 8 x 8 pixels? When people suggest glyphs be added, I say to myself... why? you know which button is which?... heaven forbid you ever have to use a MAC!
- Making your start button smaller than the default /standard 100 pixels wide will allow more space on the taskbar and 100 pixels wide for a button is a bit too much.
- Standard Photoshop beveling tools make your images look like poop.
- Skin the right and left tab images. It looks much more refined when complete.
- For a clean result, always try to use the same text color throughout the skin. Using loud/ tacky colors will ruin the look of a skin.
- Too much transparency is too much transparency.
- The bottom bar content margins are based on your Start Panel's left and right pane margins. You cannot adjust the size of the Vista log off buttons. Trick it out with transparency.
- The favorites menu can't be transparent but the typical drop down menu can be. Make seperate images for those menus.
- The Forward and Back IE7 navigational arrows are a nightmre to skin. We are currently limited as to what we can do due to different icon sizes.
- Use glyphs on buttons when possible to avoid strteching issues on buttons. The new layer fetaure will help alot in this regard.
- You can't change the default blue text in Explorer's Favorite links/ Folder area. Actually alot of programs use blue text (Skinstudio) so medium blue backgrouns often result in a text problem.
- You can't change the default white text on the command bar buttons.
- You can make your window frames as wide as you want. They are completely hidden when maximized so I don't get when people say the frames are too wide.
- Avoid bold text whenever possible. It almost always looks out of place to me.
- They say that tiling images is faster loading than stretching.
- The latest version of Wb seems a little buggy. Don't spend too much time on an issue before asking for help. For all you know, there is a bunch of skinner's struggling through the issue.
- DON"T FORGET TO SKIN THE FLASHING TASKBAR BUTTON. (This one is for me)
- Skin the vertical taskber. More people than you think, use it.
- Don't struggle with a double taskbar issue if you have one. Make a substyle for double taskbar is necessary. conpromising the design isn't recommended.
- If you are going to use a windows flag on the start button, please rethink your decision.
- Skinning after doing tequila shots isn't recommended. The next morning you will have to undo everything you did the night before. Skinning on shrooms is highly recommended!
.... bathroom break (these are critical to skinning).
Reply #7 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:17 AM
um... read this NightTrain, ya musta missed it
SKS6 - 'Edit Vista Part Colors'
Wait, you didn't you commented on it
read it again heheThis color is controled by the 'windows background' color in the skins 'basic' color section (you can see its yellow on my Buzzz skin)
Reply #9 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:27 AM
Reply #10 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:29 AM
Reply #11 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:30 AM
Yep, very n00bish.
YES!!! And the active taskbar button should be noticeably different, nothing more annoying than not being able tell right off from the taskbar which button is active.
Which leads me to...
- Make sure the inactive window frame actually looks inactive. Simply changing the text color doesn't cut it. A desaturated window frame color helps (active is blue, inactive gray, etc).
LOL absolutely. Not very original. And also, DO NOT USE "START" TEXT ON THE START BUTTON. Any text for that matter, bleh.
**I am not a skinner, I just work with a lot of them**
Reply #12 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:30 AM
Reply #13 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:36 AM
Reply #14 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:41 AM
You are right SK, I was confusing it with the MODIFYING VISTA PARTS section.
Reply #16 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:56 AM
Yes, and remember that windows are still used when inactive so make things clear and legible.
Reply #17 Thursday, July 31, 2008 6:11 PM
A freakin men...as in stop using normal blend mode for all hilites...another neat trick is to change the altitude and depth to push the hilite slightly away from the edge...a teeny inner shadow can also help with that and helps disguise jaggies.This makes the brightest part of your hilite not sit directly next to your stroke.Get creative with stokes too...they add definition and they dont have to be black.
Reply #18 Thursday, July 31, 2008 6:24 PM
).. and for all the flag haters and text haters, lets hear all your suggestions on what would be good start button designs.. its not as easy as you think to continually come up with new ideas for a start button theme after theme after theme that ISNT a circle or a rectangle (not every creative either)
IR is exempt from point two, flowers are acceptable.
Reply #19 Thursday, July 31, 2008 6:37 PM
flags or text are fine with me...as long as they are not the default(ripped,copied,not designed by you))windows flag...or the word START.Even PROCEED would be better...but not much.
Reply #20 Thursday, July 31, 2008 7:00 PM
How about "Make it so"?
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Reply #1 Wednesday, July 30, 2008 5:30 AM