AR.....no...I think it's more about the true innovation and whacky diversity of the early skins....by early I mean pre-XP.

We have XP to thank for for skin popularity...but also to rue for mediocrity as everyone recolours the same old crap...

I think the challenge in being different is, most everthing that can be done has been done.
When I think specifically of Litestep which customized your entire desktop, even there there seems to be a lack of "uniqueness".
I don't have any quick answers unfortunatly.

Phil....same issue applies with LS....perhaps more accessibility via OTS leads to more 'ho-hum' mediocrity.

While things were truly 'geek-run' and people were ALL new to the concept...the boundaries were still yet to be tested.

An example would be an early theme of mine....5 or 6 years old....had 2 wharfs.....back before it was supported.  I simply ran two instances of the shell....a primary and a second to load wharf 2.

These days people just want LS with icons on the desktop....they may as well be running Exploder.....why bother?...

I think there is a natural limit on how different designs can be though....and that's because people need to learn any interface in order to use it effectively.

Since the Windows interface is the defacto standard (on PCs), then to keep any design easy to pick up and use quickly, it has to mirror the standard layout, functionality and graphical metaphors at least to an extent.

For instance, with WB it is possible to shift most design elements to the bottom, or side of a window, but few (if any?) designs do this because people will be fighting the interface all the time. There was a HandOfxyz fashion for a while with Kalidescope skins on the Mac back in '97 time which had the controls shifted to the side, which had a certain novelty value, but I wouldn't choose to use an interface like that on a daily basis now.

Any GUI design walks a path between style and functionality. As an example of how that can be done well though, we've become so used to the pseudo-3d visual metaphor that it's hard to imagine something else...one reason why I think Boxxi's isometric view skin in the GUIO submisions is so impressive as (forgive the pun....) it's thinking outside the box

An example would be an early theme of mine....5 or 6 years old....had 2 wharfs.....back before it was supported. I simply ran two instances of the shell....a primary and a second to load wharf 2.

you should have edited wharf.dll with a hex editor and replace every "wharf" with "vharf". then you would have had a second, independent module. of course all the settings in modules.ini and step.rc also should have used "vharf" for the second module.
i did that with chronos.dll a while ago, before label.dll supported timezones. done with three clicks and pretty comfortable when one is not familiar with compiling from the source (as i was at that time).

Since the Windows interface is the defacto standard (on PCs), then to keep any design easy to pick up and use quickly, it has to mirror the standard layout, functionality and graphical metaphors at least to an extent.

That's where you are wrong.

You'd be surprised just how quickly you can adapt to totally different button placement [for example].

Keeping things 'normal' is just people's fear of the different or confrontational....and it is a force of ennui that drags skinning into the doldrums.

People need to get out there and make STUPID insane skins....ones that require intuition to use...not the same blasted 3 buttons on the right, etc.

Like polling for 'features you'd like to see'...what's that all about?  Making sure you keep as many people happy as possible to snag the big DL numbers?

Forget downloads....they are irrelevant.

Just 1 person using your skin [because it is unique] and saying 'I like it...it is innovative and refreshing'....that's all that matters...the rest is for people with EGO deficiencies and an infantile need to be 'popular'.

jafo - I used to think the same about customization, but the novelty wore off. I played with all sorts of weird and wacky layouts and different button configs initially when I discovered skinning on a Mac, but these days I want something that I don't have to think about using, but which looks very cool. Since my hand/arm/muscle memory knows what to do to close a window, minimize it, drag it about the screen, (and these days) roll it up, then any design which deviates on those drives me nuts the first time I end up closing a window without saving something just because someone thought it was cool to switch the minimize and close buttons....

If all I was doing was playing with skins, then I'd love to mess with the most bizzarly layed out designs, but I have to work too...and when I'm working, the last thing I can aford is having to waste valuable thinking effort on trying to remember which anonymous button scattered around a window is the one I need to just minimze a window.

HOWEVER - I also agree that there is milage in some skins being done to push the envelope...I've posted here in the past on my keeness on this such as using big chunky frames because increased resolution and graphics speed makes this feasable....the first (and so far only) skin I've got here was my attempt to try something different - but I kept the buttons in the same place still

Interestingly, the skin I'm working on at the moment to try for the GUIO is just at the stage of pondering what to do with the buttons, and I've been toying with how to do something creative...any ideas to try I can "borrow"?

The best I came up with so far is based on noticing that you can make buttons appear base don clicking other buttons - so I thought a "combination lock" in order to close a window might be amusing (not serious!)

Oh...and I agree somewhat about downloads, though I've found it facinating to watch which of my efforts gets the better numbers. In a similar way, I put together some web pages with photos on many years ago and then "played" with different ways to promot the site with keywords and things on google and other search engines, and then I'd watch the hit counts over the next months and the search terms people had used to find the pages (using a nice free web counter)...I guess I just like studying people

moshi...yes...but back then I had no idea about how to edit dll's....though prior to then I'd 'edited' the XTreeGold startup screen in hex to 'personalise' it....

Sput....still, if someone actually creates a skin [that has odd placements] and actually stays with it as a default use there's no functionality loss.  Sure, if you flit around from one skin to another...then you can confuse yourself....but then if all the skins are essentially 'alike' why bother changing them at all?

Skinners who persist in churning out re-hashes of the same old skin [usually their most 'popular'] do so not to appeal to the masses [though that'll be their justification in their minds], but to boost their prominence in a 'Top Authors' list....be it here or any other site.

If they were actually honest about their motives they'd perhaps design for themselves first and for others second [purely incidental]...

Jafo - ahhh, but when I tried something "original" with my submission to the GUIO it was rejected on the basis of something I'd done different I will freely admit that I've now found ample other areas to improve that skin anyhow, and I'm awaiting a decision on if it'll be accepted for inclusion this now I've worked on it again, but what is wrong with white text on a white background on the start menu?

If a compact start menu is a good idea, then why does anyone need to see the text on the left either? .... I had thought the GUIO would be the ideal place to try something new and see if it floats with everyone out there, only to find that something has to get through moderation first which then could be seen to be stiffling inovation?

I'm not particularly serious, it's just a bee in my bonnet about the white on white as I was so chuffed when I thought of that, that when it was cited as a reason for rejection it was disappointing...

Sput....some 'innovation' can be constued as impractical....particularly if it receives numerous complaints about issues of actual functionality....but I personally would not care if certain parts were 'difficult' to live with...only those that are likely to have people 'hating' the result in droves.

It doesn't have to have popular appeal, just not popular dislike...

..one reason why I think Boxxi's isometric view skin in the GUIO submisions is so impressive

I'm lost....did I make an Isometric view? Thanks for the compliment though..... which skin did you mean Sput?

Skins being alike - that's the challenge in designing something though....make it different, but make it work without any additional effort for the user would be my ideal. In that regard, you can mess with the bits that don't matter (what the scroll bars look like, title bar text, the gerneal "look" of everything, and you can add to the basics with additional features, and you can even tweak the core tools as long as it's done carefully....

At work, I have an almost empty desktop with my own Alien Dial DesktopX objects set as shortcuts to the various tools and folders I need quick access too (helped by having dual monitors to double the number of shorcuts available). This makes the desktop look completely different to the norm (with no taskbar etc, and those standard icons I choose to keep changed using IconX and different icons)...and the WB skins can be wild and fancy looking, but "leave me buttons alone" or else I'll quickly fall out with a skin...it's just me...customize things to hell, but one time clicking on the wrong button and it winds me up enough to fall out with a skin...I don't have the patience these days to have to learn a layout that someone else liked as I like the standard layout because I know it.

I realise this isn't an absolute, and different people will tolerate (even welcome) different degrees or aspects of change - but I'd like everyone to at least include a sub skin with the standard button layout - just for me

...after all, skinning is all about individual preference, and I want my buttons where I left them.

Boxxi - D'oh, sorry...I should have checked. I was thinking of this one:

http://skins.stardock.com/essorant/guio2004/snap_pixel8_wb.jpg

Which is by essorant, not yourself. Your skins are great too...but not the ones I was thinking of in this case...
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You skin for yourself. do what you like. I might finish my "crazy" skin in time for the gui olympics, but I doubt as I don't have the time or the patience or windows anymore.

Ah....but I put them where I want them....not where Microsoft pre-ordained...

Using shell replacements is appealing for the same reason....getting truly 'personal' with your own preferences....and getting away from Explorer is by far the most individualistic approach.

It's interesting that I still use my own WA skin by default....not as an ego-trip but because it's exactly what I prefer.....unobtrusively transparent....doesn't obstruct other windows, etc.

Colour choice is to be low glare....low contrast...so I'm not squinting into the 'sun' all day long...

Currently I'm still using Tiggz' GT2 WB...with modded window details.....a bit more grey....but when I get back to using LiteSTEP I'll probably go back to one of my own skins as their lack of modern XP complexities isn't noticed then...

[Message Edited]

particularly if it receives numerous complaints about issues of actual functionality....

Odd though that I'd used it for a couple of weeks like that before submitting it and it worked fine for me as I know which icon is which app and I don't need to see it's name...

It's your point about skinners doing things for themselves...I made it, I liked it, some other people didn't...it doesn't mean it doesn't work, it just means it doesn't work for them.

Since the GUIO is about pushing the limits, I'd expected this to be welcome, even if the judges didn't like it as someone somewhere might. The pre-moderation on things criteria like that surprised me. It basically comes down to taste, and I hadn't expected skins on the GUIO to be rejected on those grounds until it happened.

I admit though that I think that skin is improved for having been rejected and re-worked, but I miss not having the white on white still in it now...I should make a sub skin with it still like that at some point

Sput....personally I would not moderate a skin for white on white....but when these GUIO skins are checked they/we look for 'faults' and that is considered one.  Not as 'bad' as magic pink splotches and bmps that don't align, etc....but still a 'fault'.

Perhaps such situations could have been set in the comments as a particular 'required' feature of the design....[an intended fault, as it were]...

jafo - I agree that the best way to customize is to use things you've created yourself...when working on skins, I find I can be more productive because I'm using that skin rather than when using other peoples work...but I like switching quite often too - just because I can.

Sometimes I feel like a Copperdeck day, other times like Thunder Storm, sometimes my own Alien Dial, and sometimes Doublet...it depends on my mood, the weather, the prevailing light in the room/office, if I want to show off my desktop a bit more etc.

...swapping a lot is just taking customizing even further by making it change to suit the moment....I used to do this just with desktop wallpaper back on Windows 3.1 when I first found a tool to change wallpaper everytime you started up...then on the Mac I had a little script running to change my desktop wallpaper every 10 minutes from a folder full of 1000's of choices...then with Kaledescope I set that to swap to a random option often....

When I discovered WB many years ago, I just continued the process back onto the PC...I don't think I've ever used a layout/skin/desktop longer than a few months at a time max, and usually less than a week, and quite often less than a day...

My choice...hence why I "need" a consistent button layout. Also, my job is supporting others on their computer, and I don't get a say in their screen layout so I have to be completely accustomed to using the Windows standard layout quickly

(though, I do tend to use keyboard shortcuts a lot to avoid having to deal with a lot of the customising that people do manage to do!)

Perhaps such situations could have been set in the comments as a particular 'required' feature of the design....[an intended fault, as it were]...

True...I hadn't specifically made reference to the white on white in the comments when I submitted it - though I did include a description of the philosophy of trying to remove every last "spare" pixel to be as minimal as possible...never mind. Water under the bridge and all that