x360a Elite Skin WIP
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 by Kevin_Walter | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
Something I've been working on ever since I uploaded the regular version a while back. This is the dark version, still unfinished. So far, entirely for Vista though I hope this one will be fully compatible with the other OSs.
Reply #2 Tuesday, April 27, 2010 8:26 AM
Thank you. I still need to make new shutdown/logoff buttons, tons of tiny frickin' images, and there's that daunting list of things under the "Edit Controls" section... most of that stuff is incomplete. I look at these things and want to quit but I've been trying to mush on. (no, I didn't mean to say push).
I have to say, it seems to be far harder to work on a dark skin than a lighter one. A lot of programs aren't fully compatible with WB and it can be frustrating to get things to look right. Especially FireFox. I've resorted to simply setting that to a different skin entirely for now. :/
I'll post more updates as I go along.
Reply #3 Tuesday, April 27, 2010 8:41 AM
I'd suggest using light window text, that will make FF useable too if your rebar is also dark.
Good looking skin 
Reply #5 Tuesday, April 27, 2010 10:43 AM
good looking blind Skillet. Can't wait to see more..
Reply #7 Tuesday, April 27, 2010 1:23 PM
so why are not the flashing button and active button uber-epic omg ? 
nice clean work 
Reply #9 Tuesday, April 27, 2010 8:53 PM
nice clean work
Because adding uber-epic-omg-flashing button and uber-epic-omg-active button would take up too much space and you couldn't see the uber-epic-omg-overall design!
Thanks for the comments. Very encouraging... actually.
Here's another pic. Just to show that it recolors very well. Though red is a bit intense. I also finished the Header Bars. The white default ones were really annoying me.
Reply #10 Wednesday, April 28, 2010 3:06 PM
red is always hard to get to from green...gold is easy from green...always looks great.
A suggestion...your titlebar text back needs a stroke around it to set it apart from the inset beveling...plus the hilited bit on the underside is too strong...especially when looking at the red recolor. 
Reply #11 Wednesday, April 28, 2010 5:42 PM
Not sure I understand exactly what you mean there, Brainiac.
Reply #12 Monday, May 3, 2010 9:17 AM
Here's another pic showing off my recently added checkboxes and dropdown menus. Both of which, I'm rather proud of.
I don't know if I want to keep the buttons or not. They seem to go well with the skin, imo... but they're a little too square for my liking.
Noticeable things in this picture that probably seem odd, the logoff/shutdown buttons, which I haven't modified since posting another thread about them a while back. Some of the text colors and tables are also a little off. I'm still trying to tweak those a bit. As vStyler said the other day, you change one setting and it borks another.
But so far, I have to say am pretty happy with it.
Also, I'm going to eventually need a couple people to help me test this on Windows 7 and XP. And maybe help me skin those platforms. I have access to an XP machine but I don't know anyone with Windows 7. So help with that would be amazing. Since x360a is such a large site, I want the skin to be available to all of the members. Not just the people who have Vista.
Thoughts? Praise? Ideas? Slanderous diatribe and angry ranting? I read it all.
Reply #13 Tuesday, May 18, 2010 4:22 PM
BUMP!
With content. 
Hey, it's better than making a new topic, right?
Anyway, I think I almost have the Windows 7/Vista versions of this done. There's still a few things to do like task dialogues and some of the navigation buttons (like those ugly little blue magnifying glass search icons). Then I still have the XP parts to test and add... but for the most part, the start menu, windows, drop down menus, taskbar, buttons... all of that stuff is finished. Preview and more info below. 
Thoughts, comments, and questions greatly appreciated. I also seem to be in need of a tester for Windows 7 to send me pics and junk so I can mare sure everything looks good in 7. So volunteers.... step up.
I know Karmat will.
A few this to note. No... this is not released yet. Sorry. Still a work in progress but I'm hoping to upload the skin file soon. This is just a preview... I still have a few things to do like some custom navigation icons and a few sections of the XP UI. I need to test it on XP first though. Which I'm hoping to do today sometime.
Just as a quick rundown...
* This is Vista and Windows 7 only at the moment. So no XP features are shown.
* The preview is taken entirely from Windows Vista which has some weird quirks. Which is why the command bar text is black. I can't have dark window tables and light command bar text with Vista. It's just not possible. It will be fixed in Windows 7 though.
* For the most part, the drop down menus, the Start Menu, the windows, and the taskbar are FINISHED. Almost everything you see here is exactly how it should look in the final release of the skin.
* The large logo in the upper left is the please wait... thingy. It appears when you switch to this skin.
" width="15" height="15" />* I can't give a certain release date. There's still quite a bit to do in XP. But I've been working on this more lately so hopefully within a week or two. As long as I don't hit many snags.
* When I DO upload the final release, I'll do it solely on Wincustomize.org. I'll be sure to post a link here though.
" width="15" height="15" />Things that will most likely change:
1: The start menu's shutdown/logoff buttons. Those are broken at the moment. (as you can see in the pic)
2: The tray expander for the system tray.
3: The search/navigation buttons. Those little blue and red icons that look really ugly on the window and start menu.
" width="15" height="15" />4: Possibly the dark gray selection image on the start menu (highlighting Photoshop in the pic). I'm not sure if I like it or not.
5: There's a large possibility that the scroll bar will change. I don't really like it.
I'm sorry this is taking so long... I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I wasn't really happy uploading the light version without it being complete. I will be finishing that one eventually, by the way.
" width="15" height="15" />Anywho, comments are appreciated and encouraged. If there are any questions, please feel free to ask them.
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Reply #1 Tuesday, April 27, 2010 8:02 AM
haha 'UBER EPIC OMG' design. Looks great Skillet!