SkinStudio 7.3 Released
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 by Island Dog | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Stardock has released SkinStudio 7.3 today. SkinStudio is an application that lets you create visual styles, also called skins, for Windows 7, Vista, and XP. These skins are applied using WindowBlinds and can change the entire look and feel of the Windows user interface. This upgrade brings several enhancements to the default skin and content settings.
Update includes:
- Updated included template skin for improved Windows 7 support for new skins
- Updated settings definitions
- Added white button text setting validation for Office high-contrast compatibility
- Fixes for paths not rewriting for colors/fonts on Save as operations
SkinStudio is available as a free download, and a Pro version is available with advanced features like Animation Builder, substyle syncing, and more.
Visit www.skinstudio.net for more information.
Reply #2 Wednesday, November 9, 2011 3:06 PM
Thank you for the update. Also thank you for the continued effort you are putting in to improve your programs.
Reply #4 Wednesday, November 9, 2011 3:19 PM
Reply #5 Wednesday, November 9, 2011 3:48 PM
Updated settings definitionsNo idea what that means, and if it affects the way we skin things in any way.
Added white button text setting validation for Office high-contrast compatibilityCan we get a bit more detail on this? Does this mean we can have black buttons without issues? Is there anything we have to do in SKS to use this or is it something that runs in the background that we don't see?
The skin definition fixes just mean some errors were corrected.
The high contrast fix is just a warning telling the user of a problem if they set the OS system colour for button face (not text) to pure white as this triggers office into a compatibility mode.
Reply #6 Wednesday, November 9, 2011 4:24 PM
The high contrast fix is just a warning telling the user of a problem if they set the OS system colour for button face (not text) to pure white as this triggers office into a compatibility mode.
Reply #7 Wednesday, November 9, 2011 4:39 PM
so, download the file, double click on the exe and let it do it's thing, does this work?
Reply #10 Wednesday, November 9, 2011 11:02 PM
Would be nice to have a feature to port Win7 styles to WB7. I see so many I would like to use with windowblinds.
Reply #11 Wednesday, November 9, 2011 11:13 PM
WB will apply .themepacks if that is what you mean. Just go to Windows Aero and select one from the substyles tab. You can even apply textures to them.
Reply #12 Thursday, November 10, 2011 2:31 PM
Did you fix the buggy thing which gave a wrong size too rollup sized feature which is existing tll years ??
Reply #13 Thursday, November 10, 2011 2:39 PM
WB will apply .themepacks if that is what you mean. Just go to Windows Aero and select one from the substyles tab. You can even apply textures to them.
I think he meant "Visual Styles" or msstyles skins. But, could be wrong.
The way I understood that, the porting utility stopped working with OS's after XP.
Reply #14 Friday, November 11, 2011 3:22 AM
Does anyone know if skinstudio 7.3 is capable of re-coloring the preview pane or library pane the section to the right in windows explorer yet ?
I know the code exists or at least the program VistaStyleBuilder has been capable of doing this for a long time.
The ability to port msstyles to WB7 would be so useful, what a shame the utility was dumped, I presume it was probably a supply and demand scenario or similar. It's tough being a skinner when there is more money in games.
Reply #15 Friday, November 11, 2011 4:08 PM
okay, I just started looking at the new sks and noticed a few things that I thought I might mention.
the default skin, diamond, has been created with substyles already in place, It's pretty easy to delete those substyles that are unwanted but generally aren't substyles created after the main blind has been created to maintain margins and settings. now one would have to go a change all the settings and margins twice again.
I've only just looked at the edit start menu page there appears to be additional graphics not encountered being in place with the previous version. the 'search mode' graphic has been usually taken from the 'edit vista/7 explorer parts', not the start menu as there were some issues using this graphic. sorry, don't remember what.
also the bottom bar is now broken into a right and left graphic instead of one solid graphic. this appears to be a vista option.
the 'expanded start menu' is now a default graphic. one may not choose to use this option.
I guess I need to create a template from the diamond default blind to remove substyles and unwanted graphics before making another blind. I realize that I can just delete those graphics not wanted but I think that maybe the developers attempting to help have made the program more difficult to work with.
and it would have nice to update those "examples" to make them examples of what actually the graphic was suppose to represent. I guess a beta for feedback would have also been a consideration not employed.
Reply #16 Saturday, November 12, 2011 6:09 AM
Saturday bump:
so I did notice a button on the substyle menu that indicated "substyle sychronizing". I kind of wonder if this feature addresses what I mentioned above or if it has to do with something completely different. Would be nice to know what the various buttons, bells and whistles actually do and whether or not they are actually a useable tool to enhance my skinning experience or just some fluff to confuse the average user.
Reply #17 Saturday, November 12, 2011 8:45 AM
@ Neil is there a way to define the size of perpixel frames with a value- iam asking this since some applications seem to have a lower value and can therefore be shrunkn to almost the rollup state with a width of 50 like skinstudio itself.
Most skins with a little bit creativity in windowframes will be cut off or the margins settings will be scaled and the whole look will change when the window gets reduced to that 50x20 size.
So i was thinking maybe just maybee there is a way to build something into sks to define that size by a value? Or maybee WB itself like the per application setting ?
I just want to know if that is possible or not- thanks in advance btw ty for the early update on SKS
Reply #18 Saturday, November 12, 2011 12:23 PM
have updated,now mine just gos tits up now start panel all over the place,,thats bad,,looks like i wount be doing anymore blinds for now,,
Reply #19 Saturday, November 12, 2011 12:34 PM
When is the Start Menu not working right for you?
Reply #20 Saturday, November 12, 2011 1:04 PM
Quoting madcat21,
reply 18
have updated,now mine just gos tits up now start panel all over the place,,thats bad,,looks like i wount be doing anymore blinds for now,,
When is the Start Menu not working right for you?
may have something to do with the bottom graphic being split in two (left and right)
Neil, I'm finding more things to mention (both good and not so good) I'll help to keep the thread alive for awhile.
Madcat, make your graphics and size them, the problem shoould go away, oh and delete the right side bottom portion unless you plan to use it.
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Reply #1 Wednesday, November 9, 2011 2:25 PM
Wuuuw....






*excited*