WB11/Skin studio 11 Request & Issues
Saturday, October 15, 2022 by SimplexDesigns | Discussion: WindowBlinds
Skin studio is a mess, it really needs an overhaul this time around. Actually organize it better and update the tutorial section so that new people looking into creating themes can actually know whats what. Its super dated and feels like it has not been touched since the windows vista era of skinning.
Im looking into updating one of my themes for windows 11. Currently working on making a dark style for it and I cant seem to find where the Toolbar in file explorer is pulling the texture from. I would have thought you guys would of added a new section in skin studio for it but it just seems to be doing as stated above.
Secondly, where do I change the black text where it says folders, drives etc... It seems to only change white when I select dark mode when applying the theme. This causes certain elements of my theme to darken and should not be doing so. When I asked about it, a stardock person says its working as intended and that I have to define dark mode stuff. I dont see anything in skin studio about it, only substyles which I have already tested and get this outcome. In the substyle management section of skin studio, there should be a "is dark mode?" button to define it. The dark mode causes more than just the titlebar to darken. The titlebar title text darkens along with some elements on the taskbar such as the notification button. It should not darken stuff if that option should be checkmarked in the substyle. Ruins parts of the theme.
Last thing, is the bottom statusbar no longer skinnable in wb11? It does not seem to be loading from the statusbars background section. Seems to be a solid color now.
(Normal mode)
(Dark mode applied in WB11)
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Reply #22 Monday, October 17, 2022 4:36 PM
This is because every existing skin is designed for light mode windows.
Reply #23 Monday, October 17, 2022 5:23 PM
This is because every existing skin is designed for light mode windows.
It was fine before you added that function. I have already had 2 master skinners complain that my using dark mode ruins their skins.
Reply #25 Monday, October 17, 2022 5:28 PM
I guess what I'm saying is that I always use dark mode in windows settings, and never had this problem. Discoloration of frames and buttons due to your added "function".
Reply #27 Tuesday, October 18, 2022 8:25 AM
I also prefer Dark Modes in pretty much all my Desktop customising, wonder how this will effect me, all my skins when we reach a Final WB 11.
Reply #28 Wednesday, October 19, 2022 5:33 PM
I can see that oldnewexplorer is a popular choice early on in windowblinds 11 use. However, for the other half of people that enjoy explorer tabs this means windowblinds will never resonate with them. This is because explorer tabs requires a different form of artwork to look good and if artists all chose to only make their work by old standards then we will be left with a bunch of artwork that looks awful with explorer tabs in use.
Personally, I would like to see some streamlining to make it easy to edit the parts that could transition a command bar 7 or ribbon menu to a command bar 11 / explorer tabs menu easier. This way artists that favor the command bar 7 could still throw in a explorer tab version of their work with little fuss AND / OR a more amateur user could fix areas to match the explorer tabs better.
Reply #29 Wednesday, October 19, 2022 5:46 PM
It seems to me, it depends on wether SKS (an updated version) will support the Win 11 ribbon/tab style or not, I don't think SKS 10 does, but, I could be wrong too. 
Reply #30 Wednesday, October 19, 2022 6:09 PM
It seems to me, it depends on wether SKS (an updated version) will support the Win 11 ribbon/tab style or not, I don't think SKS 10 does, but, I could be wrong too.
skin studio 11 beta is out now
Reply #31 Wednesday, October 19, 2022 7:50 PM
The dark text on the This PC bit on the right may be a bug as that should have flipped to white in that situation so we need to look into that.
For the statusbar, they are indeed just colours on Windows 11, but you can control this from the Statusbar section in SkinStudio under the extra settings tab.
Given your first screenshot I do need to mention something which is you should not be making a new skin or substyle for dark mode, you just need to edit an existing skin and also define the dark mode images (on the image tab) and colours on the text tabs. You also have some extra colours in the system colours page.
The top area on your window comes from one of a few places depending on the skin. Most modern skins would pull that from the window glass area images under per pixel frames. Note there is a light glass area 11 section which is specifically for light mode. This is VERY important if you are making a light mode skin on Win11 where you would traditionally have darker titlebar + glass areas as Win11 will use black text on that toolbar so we have to have an alternative image.
If your skin is older and lacks these sections, then the rebar background is typically used.
Status bar color remains unchanged no matter what color I choose. Also seems to show the wrong name in Skin studio. Displays as dark mode for the option but on the right tooltip shows light mode.
Reply #32 Monday, February 6, 2023 9:42 PM
Reply #34 Tuesday, February 7, 2023 12:51 AM
https://forums.stardock.com/516096/page/1/#replies
Skin studio download link is in the 2nd post along with the skin studio changelog.
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Reply #21 Monday, October 17, 2022 4:01 PM
I prefer to run Windows in Dark Mode too. I guess that shows just how "not crazy" I am about the darkened frames.