Alpha Blending~!

Comprehensive List?

Tuesday, November 1, 2005 by LowGenius | Discussion: WindowBlinds

Greets, all!

I've been an off-and-on user of WB for many years, and have actually budgeted a license in the next six months.

I am a huge, huge, HUGE fan of skins that have an alpha blending button - you know, the button that makes the skin go semi-transparent? As a programmer, graphic designer, and web designer, I find this functionality to be a huge, huge productivity boost...in my line of work, you can never have too much monitor real estate, and even on this fat 21", I find my workspace getting cluttered, and find myself having to switch back and forth and back and forth and back and...well, you get the idea.

I realize that it would be a pretty huge deal to tweak the database so that it shows which skins have an alpha blending button (well, okay, it wouldn't be that tough, just add a field...what would be tough is retro-fitting the existing records, because someone would have to examine each and every skin).

What I'm wondering is this:

Is there, someplace, a somewhat comprehensive list of skins which have AB buttons? I really don't have time, once I license WB, to go into skin studio and add one to each and every skin I have...is there an easy way to do this? Why do the talented and enthusiastic skinners of the WB community *not* include the AB, On-Top, and Taskbar Minimize buttons on all of their skins? Not whining, just wondering...it's such a great little tool - easily, IMO, the biggest WB selling point - and it boggles my mind that it's not a standard part of every skin.

*shrug* just looking for some comment on that from skinners...and of course, if someone has a good list of skins that have an AB button, that would be cool, too. I've run a filtered search for UIS1 support, but even then the vast majority of the skins returned *don't* have an AB button and regrettably, I just don't have the free time right now (or the license for SkinStudio at the mo, although I will in due time) to either build my own new skin ground-up, or add AB buttons to the nearly 4000 WB skins (and that's just on this site!).

Thoughts appreciated, flames ignored...

Best,
John Henry
LowGenius Web Design
www.lowgenius.com
14 Reply 1 Referrals
scorpio-logic
Reply #1 Tuesday, November 1, 2005 2:52 PM
Sometimes those extra buttons make a clutter of the skin. Those extra buttons on ALL skins would take away from the uniqueness of those skins that have extras. Who knows why everyone doesn't include those extras. If you get the Object Desktop, SkinStudio comes with it. You can make those extra buttons yourself, feel good about you knewly acquired ability.

Bolthus
Reply #2 Thursday, November 3, 2005 4:39 AM
Neo Classic, for one, has the semi-transparent button on window titlebars. It's not all that great a skin (being the only one I've ever made), but hopefully it will help.

NightTrainthedark
Reply #3 Thursday, November 3, 2005 5:29 AM
You can download the trial version of Skinstudio. Open the skin you want to use and a skin that has the desired button at the same time. You can easily copy one feature from a skin and import it into the skin you want to use. Of course you will be stuck with the look of that button until you edit the image with your paint program. There are other settings that will most likely need adjustments but I think you will get it with some experimenting.

artweasloh
Reply #4 Thursday, November 3, 2005 5:35 AM
Well, it is nice to put those great buttons on skins but, well, it really depends much on the author... Yeah i know i am not making sense... . I think WORSE and ENCODED have that button although not that obvious as the standard buttons... they are located in the bottomframe actually either left or right

BlueDev
Reply #5 Thursday, November 3, 2005 2:27 PM
One of the great things about Windowblinds is you can go into the Advanced page and set your own user overrides. I am a big fan of skins that roll up with right click, but not all do. So I went in there and set an override so all skins respond to roll up with right clicking, whether the author intended it to or not.

Likewise, you could do the same, set an override in WBconfig so that every skin goes transparent with a right click or a double click or a shift-click, etc. Then you don't have to worry about each skin, as every one will now respond that way. It is great.

NightTrainthedark
Reply #6 Thursday, November 3, 2005 2:38 PM
Likewise, you could do the same, set an override in WBconfig so that every skin goes transparent with a right click or a double click or a shift-click, etc. Then you don't have to worry about each skin, as every one will now respond that way. It is great.


I don't have that option. Are you sure that you do BlueDev?

BlueDev
Reply #7 Thursday, November 3, 2005 2:53 PM
Yup, I know it is somewhere (using the latest 4.6 build, not 5 beta). I am not on my machine at the moment, so I can't tell you exactly where it is, but I have set it so every skin rolls up with a right click. It is in the User Overrides section, and I would think you can set Transparency as an override as well. Just guessing it is there, though I know the roll up is.

scorpio-logic
Reply #8 Thursday, November 3, 2005 3:19 PM
"useroverrides"-"advanced settings" button bottom right, under the "Inclusion List"

BlueDev
Reply #9 Thursday, November 3, 2005 3:24 PM
"useroverrides"-"advanced settings" button bottom right, under the "Inclusion List"


Thanks! I knew it was there, but I just couldn't check at the moment.

NightTrainthedark
Reply #10 Thursday, November 3, 2005 6:00 PM
useroverrides"-"advanced settings" button bottom right, under the "Inclusion List"


Running 4.90d( here and I don't have that option. Must be a 4.6 thing but I don't remember that option as available. I am probably wrong though.

BlueDev
Reply #11 Thursday, November 3, 2005 8:57 PM
Just checked, and making things transparent isn't one of the options. Other things are, but not that one. Oh well.

j dott
Reply #12 Thursday, November 3, 2005 9:04 PM
If there isn't an option to do it globally (that has never worked right on my machine), you can just open Skinstudio and change one of the mouse actions to make window transparent. I like to have right-click be roll-up, and double-click transparent. I really see no reason to have to add a button.

BlueDev
Reply #13 Thursday, November 3, 2005 10:18 PM
Yeah, I think the original author just didn't want to have to do it to each skin.

scorpio-logic
Reply #14 Friday, November 4, 2005 4:16 AM
Running 4.90d( here and I don't have that option. Must be a 4.6 thing but I don't remember that option as available. I am probably wrong though.


Nope, I'm running 4.90d(...

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