WinXP skins / StyleXP
Wednesday, December 12, 2001 by Richard Haertl | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
I noticed that there is not much progress/output in the WinXP skin section. Only 27 skins within 2 months! Most of them are by adni18 and a lot of them vary only in coloration but not in style.
On the other hand, if you check ThemeXP.com for StyleXP Visual Styles, you'll find 127 (!) styles within 5 weeks! Some of them are very interesting, like "ChaNinja", "Rhodium Edge", "ThemeXP", "The Box", "Crizalys XP", "DarkZ XP", "AikonXP" or "Scribbles", just to name a few
Now don't get me wrong. I've been using WindowBlinds as a registered user for years, and I love it. But I'm a bit disappointed lately. Maybe WB lacks some flexibility?
Oh, just in case you missed it. There is not StyleXP section on winCustomize.com! Maybe on purpose?
Ricco
On the other hand, if you check ThemeXP.com for StyleXP Visual Styles, you'll find 127 (!) styles within 5 weeks! Some of them are very interesting, like "ChaNinja", "Rhodium Edge", "ThemeXP", "The Box", "Crizalys XP", "DarkZ XP", "AikonXP" or "Scribbles", just to name a few
Now don't get me wrong. I've been using WindowBlinds as a registered user for years, and I love it. But I'm a bit disappointed lately. Maybe WB lacks some flexibility?
Oh, just in case you missed it. There is not StyleXP section on winCustomize.com! Maybe on purpose?
Ricco
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paxx
Reply #3 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 6:26 AM
Reply #3 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 6:26 AM
That can be explained quite easily:
1 - Not a lot of people actually have XP yet, therefore don't make skins optimized for it.
2 - SkinStudio with support for the XP features was only just released recently, and nobody knew how to skin those features before.
3 - On Skinz.org, the only general skins site that has a StylesXP section, there are 11 submissions. It's quite normal that people who visit ThemeXP.com have Windows XP, since the site is dedicated to it. Not the case here. A great majority of skinners are on Windows 9x/2000.
1 - Not a lot of people actually have XP yet, therefore don't make skins optimized for it.
2 - SkinStudio with support for the XP features was only just released recently, and nobody knew how to skin those features before.
3 - On Skinz.org, the only general skins site that has a StylesXP section, there are 11 submissions. It's quite normal that people who visit ThemeXP.com have Windows XP, since the site is dedicated to it. Not the case here. A great majority of skinners are on Windows 9x/2000.
Jafo
Reply #4 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 6:47 AM
Reply #4 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 6:47 AM
Richard....while counting the 127, did you perchance notice how many of them were 'borrowed' from existing WB skins?...
GreenReaper
Reply #5 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 6:47 AM
Reply #5 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 6:47 AM
GreenReaper notes that WB features need more public documentation (not just SkinStudio).
Richard Haertl
Reply #6 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 7:05 AM
Reply #6 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 7:05 AM
Well, would it be possible to "borrow" those ideas from the ones I mentioned? Or is WB limited in that resepect? Or what is the limiting factor?
zathrus
Reply #7 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 7:25 AM
Reply #7 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 7:25 AM
heh, Jafo that was a nice way of putting it. I was expecting another mini-war or something.
zathrus rekons its safe to leave the shelter now.
zathrus rekons its safe to leave the shelter now.
zathrus
Reply #8 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 7:28 AM
Reply #8 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 7:28 AM
"Well, would it be possible to "borrow" those ideas from the ones I mentioned? Or is WB limited in that resepect? Or what is the limiting factor?"
1)
Actually I think you'll find that WindowBlinds is a bit more flexible that xpstyles.
2)
And it was all that "borrowing" that caused the rift in the first place.
1)
Actually I think you'll find that WindowBlinds is a bit more flexible that xpstyles.
2)
And it was all that "borrowing" that caused the rift in the first place.
Frogboy
Reply #11 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 2:55 PM
Reply #11 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 2:55 PM
I've been monitoring this for a few weeks now.
A couple of things on that:
1) Virtually every theme on that site has an existing WB skin that looks similar to it already. A skin author who has already made a skn like that isn't terribly likely to update it just to add a Start bar to it. Remember, with WindowBlinds, you can use the Start bar from any skin. There are actually 1500 or so WB skins here alone, not 27. There are just 27 in which someone has bothered to create a Start bar. I have a dozen or so skins here but I haven't bothered to make XP start bars for them. Why should I? I dont' have to because I can use the Start bar from one of the skins that do.
2) WB can change colors of skins on the fly. Out of the 127 skins, roughly 90 of them are Luna with just color changes. That leaves only 37 skins. While the 27 XP optimzied skins here may be similar, they are generlaly not the same skin with a different hue applied (i.e. Copperish is not the same as XP Blue). Out of the remaining 37 or so, 10 or so of them are Aqua skins. That leaves 27. Out of those 27 skins, another 10 of them are OS ports (QNX, Longhorn, Windows.net). That leaves 17 actual original skins (Prophecy, Acid Etch, NightVision, etc.).
For those who disagree, here's a quickie statistical look:
Take a look at the last 10 submissions:
7 are Luna with different hues and would likely be rejected here.
2 are original
1 is original but would have been rejected here on quality rejections.
Extrapolating that out (which is being kind because the earlier skins don't have 20% originals in them) you have 25 skins.
Statistically speaking, msstyles is not doing nearly as well as it should be doing. Our projections from October had msstyles gaining 4 original new skins per day. Instead it's doing less than 2. We're not sure why that is. eFX, when it was new, got over 3 per day for the first 90 days (remember the time period between eFX .2 and .4?).
A couple of things on that:
1) Virtually every theme on that site has an existing WB skin that looks similar to it already. A skin author who has already made a skn like that isn't terribly likely to update it just to add a Start bar to it. Remember, with WindowBlinds, you can use the Start bar from any skin. There are actually 1500 or so WB skins here alone, not 27. There are just 27 in which someone has bothered to create a Start bar. I have a dozen or so skins here but I haven't bothered to make XP start bars for them. Why should I? I dont' have to because I can use the Start bar from one of the skins that do.
2) WB can change colors of skins on the fly. Out of the 127 skins, roughly 90 of them are Luna with just color changes. That leaves only 37 skins. While the 27 XP optimzied skins here may be similar, they are generlaly not the same skin with a different hue applied (i.e. Copperish is not the same as XP Blue). Out of the remaining 37 or so, 10 or so of them are Aqua skins. That leaves 27. Out of those 27 skins, another 10 of them are OS ports (QNX, Longhorn, Windows.net). That leaves 17 actual original skins (Prophecy, Acid Etch, NightVision, etc.).
For those who disagree, here's a quickie statistical look:
Take a look at the last 10 submissions:
7 are Luna with different hues and would likely be rejected here.
2 are original
1 is original but would have been rejected here on quality rejections.
Extrapolating that out (which is being kind because the earlier skins don't have 20% originals in them) you have 25 skins.
Statistically speaking, msstyles is not doing nearly as well as it should be doing. Our projections from October had msstyles gaining 4 original new skins per day. Instead it's doing less than 2. We're not sure why that is. eFX, when it was new, got over 3 per day for the first 90 days (remember the time period between eFX .2 and .4?).
Silverado Trucker
Reply #13 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 8:21 PM
Reply #13 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 8:21 PM
Just one mo thang. I think customizing your desktop should be fun. As far as people making recolored versions of luna for StyleXP, So What. If they want to do that why does it bug people? It's just like the old days before skinning when people were making desktop themes with wallpaper, icons and color schemes for the GUI. Recolored Lunas is just another color scheme to me. As long as no one rips a skin I see no prob. NOW, don't get me wrong I love my Windowblinds and have been using it for a few years and will continue using it as my preferred Win skinner. I totally agree with the fact that people should get permission for using other skinners graphics and to give them credit for it. But it just boggles me why people get so upset, well maybe not upset, with Style XP. If you don't like it don't use it, end of story. Like I said customizing should be FUN! Too many people gripe. Use that energy for positive things. Live and let live, life is too short, just have fun. Oh and I know this is a Stardock site and I realize there's competion from software developers, one wants more customers than the others, although StyleXP is free as far as I know. That's why we got a Wincustomize site and a ThemeXP site. It just gives us all another way to go. Just relax people, enjoy life and have fun customizing your desktop.
Silverado Trucker
Silverado Trucker
Frogboy
Reply #14 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 8:26 PM
Reply #14 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 8:26 PM
Who's complaining that most of the msstyles are just different hues? Richard asked why so many new msstyles are getting created, that's why.
Why do some sites get a lot more wallpapers than here? We moderate them, some sites don't. Same sort of thing.
I don't see anyone upset about Style XP. It's creating a lot of new WindowBlinds users.
Why do some sites get a lot more wallpapers than here? We moderate them, some sites don't. Same sort of thing.
I don't see anyone upset about Style XP. It's creating a lot of new WindowBlinds users.
mephisto corugant
Reply #16 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 9:31 PM
Reply #16 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 9:31 PM
i just wanna say thanks for mentioning my skin there, frogboy (acid etched) and i'm actually looking into starting to port it to windowblinds. course if there'll be a mainly negative sentiment around here towards that kinda thing, then please, stop me before i start redoing bitmaps. 
GreenReaper
Reply #17 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 10:07 PM
Reply #17 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 10:07 PM
You're the original author. Nobody tells you what to do.
It'd be great to have more original WBXP skins to play with, and I'm sure your port would certainly be welcome.
It'd be great to have more original WBXP skins to play with, and I'm sure your port would certainly be welcome.
TasT
Reply #18 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 10:50 PM
Reply #18 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 10:50 PM
MOst definatly port it!
Also as always I agree with the reaper we need more documentation. for Example I made the Myopia UIS1+ skin with the shoddy documentation we had with WB 2.x and there are still bugs in It I cant crush. I have asked in the newsgroups to no avail. It appears to work fine till tool windows come into play, such as PSP..
I know it's not a very popular skin but I use the UIS2 version regularly and would really like to get the tool window skinning working in the UIS 1+ version working but of course due to lack of documentation I have no Idea what to look at...
Also as always I agree with the reaper we need more documentation. for Example I made the Myopia UIS1+ skin with the shoddy documentation we had with WB 2.x and there are still bugs in It I cant crush. I have asked in the newsgroups to no avail. It appears to work fine till tool windows come into play, such as PSP..
I know it's not a very popular skin but I use the UIS2 version regularly and would really like to get the tool window skinning working in the UIS 1+ version working but of course due to lack of documentation I have no Idea what to look at...
Frogboy
Reply #19 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 11:59 PM
Reply #19 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 11:59 PM
Mephisto, as you know, I'm a fan of yours regardless of what you make your skins for.
mephisto corugant
Reply #20 Thursday, December 13, 2001 12:15 AM
Reply #20 Thursday, December 13, 2001 12:15 AM
awww, shucks
there's no smug looking smiley, so i guess
will have to do?? maybe? by the way, how would one go about getting xp webviews to work with windowblinds skins??
there's no smug looking smiley, so i guess
will have to do?? maybe? by the way, how would one go about getting xp webviews to work with windowblinds skins??Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
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Reply #1 Wednesday, December 12, 2001 5:36 AM
zathrus retreats to the fallout shelter.