alot of people have said it dosent matter which os you skin first....so i dont seem to think that, that would be the cause....im rather stumped with this one.....maybe this is why im having so much trouble with my subies??

Kitty, I may be wrong, but I think you have to make your substyles right away when you start.  What I do is make my XP blind first on my XP machine, install it on my Vista machine, then open the XP version in SKS 6, and immediately make it the substyle, and Vista the default. 

Maybe you have to do the same thing when you start with a new skin from scratch.  Add your XP substyle right away, even though you haven't made it yet.....and be sure to make Vista the default.

That seems like double work to me because then you have to in essence skin 2 blinds. If you import some images into one substyle or make changes, you have to keep going back and manually updating the other.

Here's what I did for my latest:

I completly finished the Vista version. Then made a .wba and installed it into my xp machine. I opened it in sks and created a substyle. Then I went through the skin adjusting it to fit xp. The original (Vista) is skiname.uis and the substyle (xp) becomes skinname.sss. I suppose that if you skinned the xp version first it would be the other way around.

Vstyler skins for xp first and adds vista substyles later and SKoriginals skins for vista and adds xp subs. IMO, it makes no difference.

okay, so it dosent matter about the sss, uis thingy?.........

i will do it your way 20f3...i normally skin vista then make the sub then do a wba then go to xp. this time i will just make a wba and make a sub in xp like you did......

thanks for your advice jazzy.....im still having probs with subs even after this long!!! lol

2 of 3 is right the original is UIS everything after is sss.

okay this is what happens everytime i do a substyle....no joke! i get this, and no matter what i do to the margins, ect, nothing changes.......night train once suggested i delete all the wb4 files ......i did that but it only worked for a moment, then back tonothing moving........ does this happen to anyone else or is it just me?....maybe this is the reason im having soo many subby problems?

for the record this is what i did..

skinned in vista with sk6. made a wba. shut down vista and restarted in xp, opened the wba in xp and made the substyle and made vista default, then blammo, as always the startmenu is horrible and cant be fixed....

any ideas? i need this fixed..i really dont want to go back to making seperate skins,

i just thought id make a note....the vista menu is still okay...its just when i do a new sub, the startmenu for that sub is always well....out of sorts, like this one, even if i do xp first and then make vista the sub...same thing.....so its something to do with making the sub........(well..thats what i think anyways...)  but i cant believe im the only one who seems to have  this problem..its really fustrating...

Try this:

In the extra tab on all sections of the start panel set all the width and height values to 0 on both the vista values and the xp (Only on the xp substyle, mind you!) this will set everything to the os default.

Now change your height and width values using the xp settings only. It is important to set the width too even if the os default looks right. I found out last time that you can't change the height of a section if the width is set on 0 (os default)

Let me know if this works!

just a general comment along with what 2of3 stated, by making your blind complete before including your substyles your substyles will use the margin settings from the original. saves a ton of work.

clarification please, so if the default os value is 5 and I set the value to 0 that I'm actually setting it back to 5?

In this case, 0= OS (operating system) default, not the "default" values of the template (in this case diamond which is the template provided when you start a new skin in vista)

thanks 2of3

i tried that 20f3........ it didnt work........

Well crap!

Sorry, Kitty.........I'm stumped

Hang tight. I'm sure someone who knows more than me will show up with the answer!

no worries.... ill be back in the morning.......

make 2 tga for start menu parts, 1 for xp, 1 for vista.

that looks like the height width extra tab isnt right... but i think you know this and know's how to set them the right way

Might the startpanel maybe be animated?... i sometimes run into problems when it is and they turn out like the pic you have. Even if everything is set to the correct values... it just wont line up correct.. it does in sks but not when applied.

If it is animated open up the animaton file and check length so it has the correct values... and try adding the animation manually and/or with startmenu animation app in sks.

Remember it only takes one part of the startpanel to be wrong for the whole thing to get messed up and missaligned.

good luck

I have not had any problems with the start menu.  Like I said earlier, I make the xp version first on my other machine, install it on the Vista machine, etc.

Then I open the Vista version....in the start panel, I go to the extras tab, and set my margins for Vista there:  the top and bottom bar I make the same as for XP.  The left panels, I make them 230 px wide (my XP version is 190).  I make the right panel 150 px wide (my XP version is 190).  Works for me every time.....then I can proceed with tweaking the Vista version, and adding the Vista only stuff to the blind.  If you have a weird shaped start panel, you may have to re-cut your start panel into the specific sizes for Vista, or you will have alignment problems.  I had to do that with Scapolite.

For me, it is quicker building the XP version first, so that is why I start with it first. 

the animations are okay.......i checked..... looks like i will have to make a seperate vista skin and xp skin for intoxica.......... substyles are driving me mad as this problem just cant be solved for me...........

i will try what you said Jazzy, but it will have to be on my next wb.

does anyone else have a solution to offer before i commit myself to making two wb's instead of one?

well if you want maybe i can have a look at it?... im running vista atm.