Suites - which apps to support
Friday, July 18, 2003 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
For a suite to be useful, it needs to support the applications people use.
But this also has to be carefully balanced -- every application that is skinned adds time and effort to the project. So what do you think would be the list of core apps that need to be skinned for something to be complete for the mainstream user?
Here's what I would pick:
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IconPackager for the icons
CursorXP for the cursors.
WindowBlinds for the GUI
DesktopX for the desktop
ObjectBar for the bars and menus
Windows Media Player for the MP3 player (or Winamp)
Maybe Trillian but probably not (I use MSN now).
And WinStyles to put it all together.
What apps do you think really need to be skinned for a complete suite?
Reply #2 Friday, July 18, 2003 10:41 AM
I very rarely feel the need to have matching icons, as I prefer them to be easy to identify more than anything, so a whole set of icons in the same colours don't really work for me.
I'd perhaps also add ObjectBar for the non-XP folk, and maybe some cursors if there's time.
Reply #4 Friday, July 18, 2003 11:38 AM
I had high-hopes for DesktopX when I subscribed to OD, however I've found that nearly every DesktopX configuration I've tried hinders my work adds very little value. (I'm still hoping to find it useful, but as of now I'm not using it.)

Reply #5 Friday, July 18, 2003 11:43 AM

Reply #6 Friday, July 18, 2003 11:43 AM
Reply #7 Friday, July 18, 2003 12:01 PM

Reply #8 Friday, July 18, 2003 12:08 PM
Reply #9 Friday, July 18, 2003 12:13 PM
Logon
Iconpackager
CursorXP
Winamp or WMP
SysMetrix
Yahoo messenger.
Reply #10 Friday, July 18, 2003 12:17 PM
WindowBlinds
Wallpaper
IconPackager
DesktopX
Windows Media Player
ObjectBar
Cursor XP
A logon would be nice, but honestly, I barely ever see it. Although it is nice to have EVERYTHING match, if it requires a raise of price to make a logon, then I would leave it out.
[Message Edited]
Reply #11 Friday, July 18, 2003 12:49 PM
WindowBlinds
Icon Packager
CursorXP
WMP or Winamp or MMjukebox
Wallpaper
Sysmetrix
Rainlendar
Reply #12 Friday, July 18, 2003 1:08 PM
Icons packager
DesktopX
Windows Media Player
Wallpaper
Icq
Icq
Icq
Icq
Did I mention.. ICQ ?

Reply #13 Friday, July 18, 2003 1:13 PM
IconPackager
ObjectBar
CursorXP
Windows MediaPlayer
Trillian
Logon
Sysmetrix
Reply #14 Friday, July 18, 2003 1:19 PM
Also winamp and WMP support, since I don't believe you could reach a consensus, and those two cover many users.
I would have added trillian, but I stopped using it with MSN6 (plus hardly need the other IM's now anyway). But Wincustomize doesn't support Trillian anyway atm.

Reply #15 Friday, July 18, 2003 1:25 PM
| IconPackager | 12 |
| CursorXP | 9 |
| WindowBlinds | 13 |
| DesktopX | 6 |
| ObjectBar | 6 |
| Windows Media Player | 8 |
| Trillian | 4 |
| Logon | 6 |
| Wallpaper | 7 |
| Winamp | 3 |
| sysmetrix | 5 |
| rainlendar | 2 |
| Yahoo | 1 |
| MMjukebox | 1 |
| Icq | 1 |
| WinStyles | 2 |
Reply #16 Friday, July 18, 2003 3:40 PM
Reply #17 Friday, July 18, 2003 5:08 PM
Sysmetrix
Rainlendar
Winstep
Wallpaper
CursorXP
Reply #18 Friday, July 18, 2003 5:10 PM
WB, IconPackager, Winamp, Wall, Sysmetrix, ICQ, OD and Logon.
Reply #19 Friday, July 18, 2003 5:35 PM
For me, if I buy another suite, what I look for most are... (in order of importance)
1) WindowBlinds
2) IconPackager
3) CursorXP
4) Wallpaper (I rarely use the matching walls, but sometimes its nice to have)
5) Logon
6) Media Player skin (WMP, Winamp...whatever)
I never use Sysmetrix or DesktopX or anything like that and I lost my music collection about a year ago and since then, been unmotivated to gain it back so I hardly use media players anymore. Also being an XP-user, I find ObjectBar themes rather useless, unless they are meant to run along side XP.
Reply #20 Friday, July 18, 2003 6:09 PM
I get by with...
LiteSTEP [with wall]
Windowblinds
Sysmetrix [a beta...this proggy just gets better]
WinAMP
ICQ
The Logon isn't critical....you only see it rarely, though it 'does' make things more 'complete'...
And I made some custom cursors ages ago....but again not critical....
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Reply #1 Friday, July 18, 2003 9:59 AM
To me, the essentials would be these:
- Windowblinds
- Iconpackager
- Logon
- Wallpaper
- Trillian
I don't really use anything else.