per brad: msstyle v uis skin format
Wednesday, February 13, 2002 by mephisto corugant | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
has anyone here actually MADE an msstyles skin? do y'all even know what can and can't be done with them aside from the obvious 'it can't skin menus' or 'you can't have odd shaped windows or borders bigger than x pixels'?
i mean, it's one thing to be like apple and say that 'the competition' doesn't matter because they don't have the amount of class that apple does, but it's another to have competition sitting right there and just turn a blind eye to it and not admit that there's actually some things they can do that you don't.
i'm serious, brad, make an msstyle skin. having made one back at build 2419 doesn't count. i'm talking take some time this weekend and make something, anything, just to get an idea of just what's being done with them and what goes into making them. then you'll see that, (sweeping generalization) like most microsoft products, they may be unfinished and not quite up to snuff in some areas, but in general, they're not as bad as everyone thinks they are.
i'm not trying to get on here and talk as an msstyle advocate or a uis advocate or anything like that. i'm trying to get on here and talk as a skinner. someone who's used both styles and you can easily go out and find examples of work i've done. for some odd reason, i think that this gives me some clout and maybe a hint of knowing what i'm talking about. no, i'm not the next treetog or alexandrie, but that doesn't mean that i don't know what i'm talking about.
hmm, another angle...
fact: windowblinds skins more than msstyles. true. but the reverse is also true. it depends on from what standpoint you look at it. and i'm looking from a standpoint of 'i want windowblinds to be a true replacement to msstyles.' hell, it's not like making a wb skin is much different from making an msstyle skin...
fact: windowblinds gives you more control of windowborders. true. plain and simple. BUT...
fact: msstyles give you more control over controls in general. say what you will, but this also is true. msstyles gives you 8 states per captionbutton, though windowblinds is the same here since 2 of the 8 states are usually just rehashes of 2 other ones, msstyles gives you control over what the flashing state of a taskbar button looks like, skins the grouped taskbar button menu, gives 8 states per radio button to wb's 4, 12 states per check box to wb's 4, skins spin controls, sliders, allows for not having a user pic based on settings in the skin, allows for moving of the logoff/shutdown buttons (as seen here: http://www.themexp.org/view_info.php?id=2062 though you have to futz with content margins a lot to get that going), ability to have buttons like the back button in ie be all one button, not just a button for back and a button for the drop down arrow, ability to skin the arrows on the quicklaunch bar and toolbars that you push to bring up more choices on a toolbar and on the afor mentioned drop down buttons, ability to skin the excess area of folder headers where if you stretch a folder window beyond the last header where there's no header but still a header area (follow that?) tab body backgrounds (i know it's in uis, but it's not working yet), ability to skin the 'my places' area of open/save dialogs independent of toolbar buttons (which, as far as i can tell, is what they're being skinned as now), etc.
yes, windowblinds does do some marvelous things with groupbox headers which can be fun, and caption text backgrounds, etc, but...
what it boils down to is this:
windowblinds is fast. but, to get that speed, sacrifices were made in what was skinned and how. i feel that it's time to let windowblinds unfold it's wings a bit, if you will, and start to not only skin more controls, but skin more controls as though they were different controls (as seen with the afor mentioned 'my places' area and the back button/all similar dropdown buttons and even go so far as to have toolbar menus ala internet explorer skinned as menus and not toolbars as msstyles does) yes, windowblinds does skin more controls than msstyles, but, again, the reverse is true also. stepping back and looking at the whole of the two from a strictly quantity standpoint, msstyles wins by a small margin.
spit and polish, that's what windowblinds needs now, now that speed and compatibility are mainly in check.
again, i challenge anyone here to take the weekend and make an msstyle skin and to share their thoughts and opinions after they've done this.
i guess that's about it, so, let it begin.
and brad, if you wanna talk about this in more real-time form just say so, cause i really would like to see windowblinds even up with and, subsequently surpass, msstyles in control over controls and possibly the pairs figure skating area as well...
meph
i mean, it's one thing to be like apple and say that 'the competition' doesn't matter because they don't have the amount of class that apple does, but it's another to have competition sitting right there and just turn a blind eye to it and not admit that there's actually some things they can do that you don't.
i'm serious, brad, make an msstyle skin. having made one back at build 2419 doesn't count. i'm talking take some time this weekend and make something, anything, just to get an idea of just what's being done with them and what goes into making them. then you'll see that, (sweeping generalization) like most microsoft products, they may be unfinished and not quite up to snuff in some areas, but in general, they're not as bad as everyone thinks they are.
i'm not trying to get on here and talk as an msstyle advocate or a uis advocate or anything like that. i'm trying to get on here and talk as a skinner. someone who's used both styles and you can easily go out and find examples of work i've done. for some odd reason, i think that this gives me some clout and maybe a hint of knowing what i'm talking about. no, i'm not the next treetog or alexandrie, but that doesn't mean that i don't know what i'm talking about.
hmm, another angle...
fact: windowblinds skins more than msstyles. true. but the reverse is also true. it depends on from what standpoint you look at it. and i'm looking from a standpoint of 'i want windowblinds to be a true replacement to msstyles.' hell, it's not like making a wb skin is much different from making an msstyle skin...
fact: windowblinds gives you more control of windowborders. true. plain and simple. BUT...
fact: msstyles give you more control over controls in general. say what you will, but this also is true. msstyles gives you 8 states per captionbutton, though windowblinds is the same here since 2 of the 8 states are usually just rehashes of 2 other ones, msstyles gives you control over what the flashing state of a taskbar button looks like, skins the grouped taskbar button menu, gives 8 states per radio button to wb's 4, 12 states per check box to wb's 4, skins spin controls, sliders, allows for not having a user pic based on settings in the skin, allows for moving of the logoff/shutdown buttons (as seen here: http://www.themexp.org/view_info.php?id=2062 though you have to futz with content margins a lot to get that going), ability to have buttons like the back button in ie be all one button, not just a button for back and a button for the drop down arrow, ability to skin the arrows on the quicklaunch bar and toolbars that you push to bring up more choices on a toolbar and on the afor mentioned drop down buttons, ability to skin the excess area of folder headers where if you stretch a folder window beyond the last header where there's no header but still a header area (follow that?) tab body backgrounds (i know it's in uis, but it's not working yet), ability to skin the 'my places' area of open/save dialogs independent of toolbar buttons (which, as far as i can tell, is what they're being skinned as now), etc.
yes, windowblinds does do some marvelous things with groupbox headers which can be fun, and caption text backgrounds, etc, but...
what it boils down to is this:
windowblinds is fast. but, to get that speed, sacrifices were made in what was skinned and how. i feel that it's time to let windowblinds unfold it's wings a bit, if you will, and start to not only skin more controls, but skin more controls as though they were different controls (as seen with the afor mentioned 'my places' area and the back button/all similar dropdown buttons and even go so far as to have toolbar menus ala internet explorer skinned as menus and not toolbars as msstyles does) yes, windowblinds does skin more controls than msstyles, but, again, the reverse is true also. stepping back and looking at the whole of the two from a strictly quantity standpoint, msstyles wins by a small margin.
spit and polish, that's what windowblinds needs now, now that speed and compatibility are mainly in check.
again, i challenge anyone here to take the weekend and make an msstyle skin and to share their thoughts and opinions after they've done this.
i guess that's about it, so, let it begin.
and brad, if you wanna talk about this in more real-time form just say so, cause i really would like to see windowblinds even up with and, subsequently surpass, msstyles in control over controls and possibly the pairs figure skating area as well...
meph
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Frogboy
Reply #22 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 12:24 PM
Reply #22 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 12:24 PM
Jut as a clarification - what I meant by "completely skins XP" is not that every control is skinned, but that all of your applications are skinned, not just "theme aware" ones.
To the aveage user, the first thing they'll notice on XP is that half their apps look like Windows 95 in the client area. Install WindowBlinds and that problem goes away.
To the aveage user, the first thing they'll notice on XP is that half their apps look like Windows 95 in the client area. Install WindowBlinds and that problem goes away.
GreenReaper
Reply #23 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 12:44 PM
Reply #23 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 12:44 PM
Well, what *we* think of as "completely skins XP" is "completely skins every element of XP's UI". So that's where the problem is. 
Jafo
Reply #24 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 5:37 PM
Reply #24 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 5:37 PM
I have absolutely NO interest in msstyles if all it does is skin absolutely all of the boring old standard features of an OS....who really cares?...it's just like having Windows 3x with a different colour applied.
I see msstyles as akin to a colour change of 3x, whereas WB is like Calmira...capable of totally altering the 'feel'.
I look at the standard 'legitimate' styles as released with the XP OS and just say 'thank god for the silver one - the default looks horrid' but that's it.
As soon as possible, on goes Windowblinds, and on goes LiteSTEP and I say goodbye to the horrible Tupperware look forever.
Pedantry about states of skinning of a radio button is pointless when what a skinner really wants to do is "SOMETHING DIFFERENT"[tm].
If every skinnable object needs to stay essentially in the same place and remain the same size, well, woopee-do....what you end up with is good old WinAMP 2x, when there are the likes of Sonique, QCD, Kjofol, Coolplayer, even WMP....[for the un-initiated, they are free-form, not restricted format].
So, WinAMP is popular....but just ask what Player skinners prefer....
I see msstyles as akin to a colour change of 3x, whereas WB is like Calmira...capable of totally altering the 'feel'.
I look at the standard 'legitimate' styles as released with the XP OS and just say 'thank god for the silver one - the default looks horrid' but that's it.
As soon as possible, on goes Windowblinds, and on goes LiteSTEP and I say goodbye to the horrible Tupperware look forever.
Pedantry about states of skinning of a radio button is pointless when what a skinner really wants to do is "SOMETHING DIFFERENT"[tm].
If every skinnable object needs to stay essentially in the same place and remain the same size, well, woopee-do....what you end up with is good old WinAMP 2x, when there are the likes of Sonique, QCD, Kjofol, Coolplayer, even WMP....[for the un-initiated, they are free-form, not restricted format].
So, WinAMP is popular....but just ask what Player skinners prefer....
mephisto corugant
Reply #25 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:55 PM
Reply #25 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 8:55 PM
well, looks like we can all go home then because now we know what a "real" skinner thinks...
gimme a break
i just took a browse through the 'winxp' skins here and notice that perhaps just 15-20% of them couldn't be ported to an msstyles skin without much trouble or loss in functionality...
why's that you ask?
simple, because they don't deviate far from the standard windows control layout. sure, there are exceptions, like spirit for instance (which i really like even though it is hard to use at times with most colors being the same shade) and the floating fish in aquarium, but aside from that, there's not really much free form skinning going on with xp, or really anything that's come out in the past few months. now, these are pretty big generalizations i'm making, and i'm not denying that there's 40 different versions of luna floating around (at least), but, then again, i'm not dismissing everything as merely a recolored luna either. just because it's on the same size piece of paper doesn't make all photographs just different colors of each other, does it?
"If every skinnable object needs to stay essentially in the same place and remain the same size, well, woopee-do"
i challenge you to show me a skin that moves buttons or checkboxes or radio buttons around inside a window, no, not inside a caption bar, inside a window itself, as in physically alters the location of buttons within a dialog.
and to frogboy: since when have 3rd party apps counted as part of windows xp and therefore count toward the 'completely skins xp' quota?
to all: you're trying to argue a point that doesn't exist. at what point in time did i ever hype up either msstyles or uis skins beyond what they can do? when have i stated something that can't be easily proven by just turning on a respective windowblinds or msstyle skin? and in the cases where i have been wrong, when did i not admit that? i remember an old saying from high school " R.T.Q., A.T.Q." which stands for "read the question, answer the question"
in other words, don't continue an argument that isn't being argued...
now, i must go drink heavily and 'wash away the pain' of having crammed most of the last 24 hours for a dynamics test which no one aside from an elite 5 people in the world had any chance of passing...and there could be poker involved, but, i digress
gimme a break
i just took a browse through the 'winxp' skins here and notice that perhaps just 15-20% of them couldn't be ported to an msstyles skin without much trouble or loss in functionality...
why's that you ask?
simple, because they don't deviate far from the standard windows control layout. sure, there are exceptions, like spirit for instance (which i really like even though it is hard to use at times with most colors being the same shade) and the floating fish in aquarium, but aside from that, there's not really much free form skinning going on with xp, or really anything that's come out in the past few months. now, these are pretty big generalizations i'm making, and i'm not denying that there's 40 different versions of luna floating around (at least), but, then again, i'm not dismissing everything as merely a recolored luna either. just because it's on the same size piece of paper doesn't make all photographs just different colors of each other, does it?
"If every skinnable object needs to stay essentially in the same place and remain the same size, well, woopee-do"
i challenge you to show me a skin that moves buttons or checkboxes or radio buttons around inside a window, no, not inside a caption bar, inside a window itself, as in physically alters the location of buttons within a dialog.
and to frogboy: since when have 3rd party apps counted as part of windows xp and therefore count toward the 'completely skins xp' quota?
to all: you're trying to argue a point that doesn't exist. at what point in time did i ever hype up either msstyles or uis skins beyond what they can do? when have i stated something that can't be easily proven by just turning on a respective windowblinds or msstyle skin? and in the cases where i have been wrong, when did i not admit that? i remember an old saying from high school " R.T.Q., A.T.Q." which stands for "read the question, answer the question"
in other words, don't continue an argument that isn't being argued...
now, i must go drink heavily and 'wash away the pain' of having crammed most of the last 24 hours for a dynamics test which no one aside from an elite 5 people in the world had any chance of passing...and there could be poker involved, but, i digress
paxx
Reply #26 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 9:59 PM
Reply #26 Tuesday, February 19, 2002 9:59 PM
Boty msstyles and WB have their own strenth and weaknesses. It's a matters of choice, that's all. As I've said above, as a skinner, I mostly like Windowblinds better, as a user... hum... tough choice. Windowblinds would win me over because there are more skins available for it.
Frogboy
Reply #27 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 1:55 AM
Reply #27 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 1:55 AM
re Third party apps - Style XP and any other patch is a third party app.
So if you want to stick with "first party" solutions then we can end the debate now since there is no first party solution.
I don't think of you as pushing msstyles. I see you as someone who is trying to make WindowBlinds UIS better.
I disagree with your 15% to 20% estimate because msstyles cannot do title bar text back and without that feature, a LOT of skins can't be ported. Also, many skins have rounded bottom corners. It may seem minor but it would prevent porting.
I know this because I wanted to port a lot of the WBXP skins from UIS2 to UIS1 and could not port most of the ones I wanted because of those reasons.
I don't think we disagree on any particular issues except perhaps whether more GUI elements being skinned should take priority over stability and performance. Given the choice, stability and performance will always get more priority because it is that the keeps people from purchasing software far more than whether minor GUI elements are handled.
So if you want to stick with "first party" solutions then we can end the debate now since there is no first party solution.
I don't think of you as pushing msstyles. I see you as someone who is trying to make WindowBlinds UIS better.
I disagree with your 15% to 20% estimate because msstyles cannot do title bar text back and without that feature, a LOT of skins can't be ported. Also, many skins have rounded bottom corners. It may seem minor but it would prevent porting.
I know this because I wanted to port a lot of the WBXP skins from UIS2 to UIS1 and could not port most of the ones I wanted because of those reasons.
I don't think we disagree on any particular issues except perhaps whether more GUI elements being skinned should take priority over stability and performance. Given the choice, stability and performance will always get more priority because it is that the keeps people from purchasing software far more than whether minor GUI elements are handled.
Jafo
Reply #28 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 3:10 AM
Reply #28 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 3:10 AM
Mephisto....my comment was 'what a skinner really wants...', not 'what a real skinner wants'....call it semantics, I call it cogency/accuracy...
It is not a matter of playing 'transformers', and re-structuring the Program's window...it's all about being given more 'freedom' to be 'different'....to show some semblance of individuality. It's not all that important exactly whose 'tackle' is bigger/better than whose, but how well/effectively it can be played-with to get results...
It is not a matter of playing 'transformers', and re-structuring the Program's window...it's all about being given more 'freedom' to be 'different'....to show some semblance of individuality. It's not all that important exactly whose 'tackle' is bigger/better than whose, but how well/effectively it can be played-with to get results...
mephisto corugant
Reply #29 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 1:35 PM
Reply #29 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 1:35 PM
no, frogboy, i asked when does skinning a 3rd party app count as skinning windows?
and no, the sarcasm before wasn't directed at you. it was mainly directed at jafo
now, onto the matter at hand.
i'm still gonna stick to my 15-20% of skins that just can't be reproduced in msstyles. now, just hear me out first...
no, msstyles can't reproduce a windowblinds skin exactly. but, it can come to within 90% of it's core look.
take metal x for example. this one should be one of the skins that can't be ported because of the text background on caption text, right? well, to that i say...
BAM!
http://www.geocities.com/mephistocorugant/proof_of_concept.png
don't worry, the images are being deleted as i type this, and this'll never see the light of day in msstyles form aside from that pic. i just took the past, um, about 45 minutes to an hour to show that it can be done, with a few compromises mind you, but still, it can be done...hell, i only ported enough to get that pic going, so titlebar, buttons, scrollbar, and that's it...
now, the next little bit is directed at jafo, so, you've been warned.
frankly, i don't care about your feelings towards skinning. as you yourself said, you're a "As a small-time WB skinner [of horrid results]" and your philosophy on the art of windows customization just doesn't flow with the rest of the thread. i don't care about your computer usage habits or your ideas of what a skinner wants which your condescending tone about things is not helping anything at all. so please, either contribute with something valid for the rest of the thread, or don't post, because your remarks just diluting things further than they need to be.
sorry about that folks.
anyways, i'll rephrase my earlier figure to say "15-20% of windowblinds skins can't be ported over to msstyles within 90% of their original core look/feel still intact."
that make everyone happy?
and no, the sarcasm before wasn't directed at you. it was mainly directed at jafo
now, onto the matter at hand.
i'm still gonna stick to my 15-20% of skins that just can't be reproduced in msstyles. now, just hear me out first...
no, msstyles can't reproduce a windowblinds skin exactly. but, it can come to within 90% of it's core look.
take metal x for example. this one should be one of the skins that can't be ported because of the text background on caption text, right? well, to that i say...
BAM!
http://www.geocities.com/mephistocorugant/proof_of_concept.png
don't worry, the images are being deleted as i type this, and this'll never see the light of day in msstyles form aside from that pic. i just took the past, um, about 45 minutes to an hour to show that it can be done, with a few compromises mind you, but still, it can be done...hell, i only ported enough to get that pic going, so titlebar, buttons, scrollbar, and that's it...
now, the next little bit is directed at jafo, so, you've been warned.
frankly, i don't care about your feelings towards skinning. as you yourself said, you're a "As a small-time WB skinner [of horrid results]" and your philosophy on the art of windows customization just doesn't flow with the rest of the thread. i don't care about your computer usage habits or your ideas of what a skinner wants which your condescending tone about things is not helping anything at all. so please, either contribute with something valid for the rest of the thread, or don't post, because your remarks just diluting things further than they need to be.
sorry about that folks.
anyways, i'll rephrase my earlier figure to say "15-20% of windowblinds skins can't be ported over to msstyles within 90% of their original core look/feel still intact."
that make everyone happy?
Frogboy
Reply #30 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 2:12 PM
Reply #30 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 2:12 PM
The image got deleted before i could see it. But without the text back image, that skin would be pretty weak compared to the original.
mephisto corugant
Reply #31 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 2:47 PM
Reply #31 Wednesday, February 20, 2002 2:47 PM
i'm a moron, wrong link
http://www.geocities.com/mephistocorugant/proof_of_concept.x
http://www.geocities.com/mephistocorugant/proof_of_concept.x
feline
Reply #33 Thursday, February 21, 2002 10:58 AM
Reply #33 Thursday, February 21, 2002 10:58 AM
feline waves 'white flag' of an innocent user
mephisto corugant - simple, because they don't deviate far from the standard windows control layout. sure, there are exceptions, like spirit for instance (which i really like even though it is hard to use at times with most colors being the same shade) and the floating fish in aquarium, but aside from that, there's not really much free form skinning going on with xp, or really anything that's come out in the past few months.
speaking as a user of window blinds for several years, this is one reason why i download very few skins these days.
over a long period my all time favorate skins have been:
liquid - the one with the animated window borders
aquarium - the one with the animated fish
i dont claim to be representative of anyone other than myself. however, the things i notice most, and that are common across all programs i use are the title bars and borders.
making these look interesting, fun and entertaining is the main purpose of WB for me.
at work i spend most of my time using terminal emulators to work on UNIX boxes, so about the only things for WB to skin that i see are the window edges. there arent even any scroll bars.
all the other controls this discussion is centering on are interesting, and it would be nice to see them skinned. however, i would (and have) used a more attractive skin on less controls over a more complete skin.
mephisto corugant - simple, because they don't deviate far from the standard windows control layout. sure, there are exceptions, like spirit for instance (which i really like even though it is hard to use at times with most colors being the same shade) and the floating fish in aquarium, but aside from that, there's not really much free form skinning going on with xp, or really anything that's come out in the past few months.
speaking as a user of window blinds for several years, this is one reason why i download very few skins these days.
over a long period my all time favorate skins have been:
liquid - the one with the animated window borders
aquarium - the one with the animated fish
i dont claim to be representative of anyone other than myself. however, the things i notice most, and that are common across all programs i use are the title bars and borders.
making these look interesting, fun and entertaining is the main purpose of WB for me.
at work i spend most of my time using terminal emulators to work on UNIX boxes, so about the only things for WB to skin that i see are the window edges. there arent even any scroll bars.
all the other controls this discussion is centering on are interesting, and it would be nice to see them skinned. however, i would (and have) used a more attractive skin on less controls over a more complete skin.
Frogboy
Reply #34 Thursday, February 21, 2002 11:45 AM
Reply #34 Thursday, February 21, 2002 11:45 AM
Mephisto, that's a good port of MetalX but still you must admit it's not that much like it. Without the extra buttons and the proper text back, it's preetty similar to any number of skins. But having the icon in the center, the text back adn extra buttons and extra styles and that it can be made any color (I'm running it now and it's blue) are pretty significant advantages.
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Reply #21 Monday, February 18, 2002 11:32 PM
Also, I wish there could be a way for the user to change the titlebar size, and therefore having the skin's titlebar graphic stetch in consequence, as XP does. Some people like thick titlebars, some people like thin ones, it would be nice if the user had the control.
Lastly, another thing I noticed that wasn't skinned. I have installed the XP power toys, among which there is a taskbar media player. It's really cool. Now, I've been wondering why it wasn't skinned by Windowblinds skins. All the default XP skins skin it, so I don't know...
But I still like Windowblinds better, simply because it gives more flexibility to the skinner.