Color mask in Windowblinds?

Wednesday, August 22, 2001 by paxx | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk

OK, for the first time, I am trying to get one of my skin color customisable. I have added a mask on just about every image of my skin, but now my problem is with the text and the system colors...
I saw that there is something called "Colours Mask". But the value has to be between 0 and 255. How does it work? 0 is to leave the original color intact and 255 is to apply the color completly, I think. Only problem is that the in-between doesn't seem to work. Wether I enter 30, 100, 200 or 255, the color is applied 100%. Maybe I'm just not getting it. Anybody can help, please?
feline
Reply #1 Thursday, August 23, 2001 9:54 AM
i dont actually know the answer, but i dont intend to let my total and complete ignorance of creating skins stand in my way

i beleive the NoOS skin supports this, and from looking at its bits, there are mask copies of lots (all?) the bitmaps, but there is no sign of any "Colours Mask" entry in the uis file.

since the percentage blend is set in window blinds, i would guess that this value is used at runtime when colour changing is enabled.

this fits with my memory of how this feature was described when it was introduced, which was that the skin files on disk were not effected, and they were only re-coloured in memory and then applied.

i would suggest playing around with NoOS, and comparing its construction with your skin.
paxx
Reply #2 Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:00 AM
Hum... will take a look at it. Thanks.
paxx
Reply #3 Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:04 AM
Where is that NoOS skin? I made a search for it with no results. Can you give me the URL please?
paxx
Reply #4 Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:26 AM
Forget it, I just got it. Two words: "No OS". Thanks.
paxx
Reply #5 Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:31 AM
OK. I looked at it, and the Windows colors are not affected by the colors, only the images where Renato chose to have a mask change color. I want to be able to have everything change color when a custom color is chosen by the user. I guess it's a bug. It proabably will be fixed in a future version of WB.
feline
Reply #6 Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:31 AM
strange, i cannot find it when searching either. it did come from here, and was the no.1 download for a while as i remember.

from the uis file:
SkinName=NoOS
SkinAuthor=treetog
AuthorsURL=http://www.integration-worx.com
[email protected]

however, i cannot see the NoOS skin at this site. if you want i can zip it up from my machine, and email it to you. the zip is 125k

any preferences for email account?
feline
Reply #7 Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:36 AM
posting delay
i see what you mean. if you can find a way of forcing the colour blend in the uis file, what about packing up several skins into one pack?

the idea is that they would share the graphics, and only the uis files would differ, and then only in the colours section.

of course, i dont know if you can force blend, and this is rather a crude brute force solution, but still it may be worth considering.

as for change colour being more global, definetly a stardock quesiton there. any comments anyone?
paxx
Reply #8 Thursday, August 23, 2001 10:57 AM
As I said, if I set up a "Colours Mask" section in the UIS, then the colors are indeed changed, but only either 0% (if I set 0 as a value) or 100% (if I set anything else but 0). But the documentation says any value between 0 and 255 is accepted.
I have emailed support at Stardock. I'll let oyou know when/if I get a solution to my problem.

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