WB Skin Quality these days

stop the madness.

Published on June 17, 2007 By meat In Skinning

This post originally started as a comment on a recently created windowblinds skins but felt it was more suited for the forums proper.
Essentially, there was a page and a half of positive comments about a skin that, 2 years ago, people would have voted it removed if that power were available to them. Usually, a skin like the one I was about to comment on is rated very low - one or two stars regardless of the number of glowing comments and in spite of the guy that posts "HOW COULD THIS SKIN ONLY GET 1 STAR?!?!?!?!" Those folks that actually issue the stars ratings, typically, rate them according to how I would rate a skin which tells me that those guys or gals still have their heads screwed on straight and come from the same camp I do...more or less.
There's something to be said about the page and a half of positive comments, of course. I'm not a particularly picky skin chooser. Anything decent gets a try out. If I like it alot, it stays as my main skin for a long time or until a newer, better skin dethrones it. The fact that I seem to be the only one posting a negative critique (not a skin bash) tells me that either:

A: What people on wincustomize want, in regard to Windowblinds skins, is completely unlike what I grew to expect on here
OR
B: That there are an equal number of others on Wincustomize that share my opinion but simply keep it to themselves.
OR
C: That the above 2 explanations are due to a natural recession in the skinning community as a whole.

As I'm writing this, I'm applying more thought to it than I originally intended. As stated at the beginning, this was supposed to be a quick "Your skin is icky." comment but with way more tact. And as I think about it and consider my great dissatisfaction with the skinning community as a whole the more I understand IT. Aqua-soft.org's visual style/windowblinds section is all but dead. The most active post in the windowblinds section is for a skin that was released last year! The site is bustling with activity in the other departments but not as many as there used to be, say , 3 years ago or so. I think that we are in a lull and that one day, something interesting will come out and be really cool and inspire the hell out of people again. Or maybe a new program that everyone uses, will be skinnable and usher in a whole new era of skinning.

I haven't downloaded a Windowblinds theme from here in over a month because they have all become sooo GOOFY and silly and low quality.
I'm hoping that it's just a phase and that we can look forward to hundreds of high quality, well thought out, usable Windowblinds skins in the future...
...again.

Comments (Page 2)

blackout77

on Jun 18, 2007

I get why people try to encourage skinners with positive comments - I really do - but sometimes it just feels wrong to see glowing reviews of a bad skin. I haven't found one good WB the last couple of months that I would use for more than 5 minutes.

There is a huge leap in quality from the basic WB skins to the master skins - and all the good skinners who previously released their skins for free are now making master skins. Let's just hope that people like Essorant, MikeB, Treetog and a few others still find the mercy to release a free skin once i while.

2of3

on Jun 18, 2007

This is the kind of thread that will convince us "newbies" never to post our "goofy" skins! Maybe we need to send them to meat for approval first!

WOM

on Jun 18, 2007

I'am sure the Masters will still produce free skins. Its almost a must to keep your name out there with all the new people comming in. If people don't know who you are and how good your skins are, they won't buy. Its as simple as that. So don't worry. Also, I think its fine for them to make master skins, get paid for their work, its not easy to make a WB, and its time consumming unless your cloning.

We all have our likes and dislikes. So enjoy what you have for free, sift through the WB library and find some that you like.

2of3

on Jun 18, 2007

Can't say that I see an WB skins posted on meat's page. Guess it goes to show: Those that can't do, critisize!

Quentin94

on Jun 18, 2007

Hum... It could be better if everybody around don't attack others... Keep peace and calm
It's just a dialog

2of3

on Jun 18, 2007

You're right of course! Just find the OP's comments a bit abrasive! If I don't like something somebody produced, I just don't download it!

Fairyy~

on Jun 18, 2007

So many things I could debate but I won't get into it.
Meat, I do see your point and your not really ' wrong' per se...
But, just that telling someone their skin is ' icky' serves no purpose at all.
You are correct to a certain degree and thats because so many of the older skinners are gone. But insulting the newer/beginner skinners is not going to improve anything.
I use very few WB skins. Im not into changing very often. I used Apocalypse's Xmas blind for a solid year....not because I was into 'Holly' but because it was ' usable'
All this transparency crap is just annoying to me but thats what the 'in' crowd calls for so 99% of the blinds all look the same to me now. I think thats why most of the old time skinners dont bother. There is little to create when 75% of the skin is invisible.
And while your right about those novelty skins not being usable for long periods of time, they are still wanted by a lot of people that like to change their Themes weekly/daily.

What is it that your looking for ? You want to be WOW'd
WOW only lasts a short time - its like a fix , then your looking for the next WOW.

Be happy with the older skins you have, learn to tweak them and try to find a kind word to those just learning to skin...because.......for most skinners it is a thankless job that doesn't usually get so much as a thank you even if the skin is in fact ' good'
Usually you see more of 'this is good BUT' could I get this in a smaller size and a different color and maybe could you redo those buttons cos I just don't like oval ones"

"Sure....I have no life anyway"

Jafo

on Jun 18, 2007

There is little to create when 75% of the skin is invisible.

Geez....I'd seriously have to debate that....at least with Winamp 2x skins.

Last time I counted it had taken me 3 months of editing/revising, each night every night to code by hand around 8000 individual transparency co-ordinates. [OK, so Maxim came along and created a solution that now takes about 5 minutes].

Either way, transparency takes as much effort to get 'right' as any actually visible part of a skin....as the skin itself requires BOTH [if it's not to be a dull-as-dishwater bland square]...

Like any form of graphic art....what you leave out of a picture is equally as important as what you include...

Fairyy~

on Jun 18, 2007

Geez....I'd seriously have to debate that....at least with Winamp 2x skins.

AND.....you could have warned me that your winamp had so much transparency cos I couldnt find it after I downloaded it.

Seriously..I was not expecting that from you..I thought I had mucked up the download.

Back to windowblinds...
Im not talking about the fact that its harder to make the blinds with transparency..Im talking about after awhile they all resemble each other. The older blinds had more artistic quality to them. I do like a mixture of semi-transparency but I like to be able to find my the text on my drop down menu's readable. Some of us do not have 20 year old eyes anymore...

Daiwa

on Jun 18, 2007

This subject came up 2-3 months ago. Not much has changed in the meantime. Skinning for WB5+, though challenging and fun, is incredibly time-consuming. Skinning most GUI elements becomes fairly straightforward once you spend a little time examining & making changes to a skin in SKS, but there is no consistent logic that is applicable throughout skin design - no rhyme or reason why some images are tiled vertically, some horizontally, for instance - making a lot of skinning rote memorization, anything but intuitive.

But it's the GUI elements seldom seen, areas inadequately explained, elements for which the Preview is either not WYSIWYG or non-existent (and, regrettably, those are too numerous) that really bog you down. The interdependent nature of many of the images also slows you down - make a minor change to a button and 12 other images need to be modified to match up. Then there's the whole issue of Toolbar Buttons and Animations - SKS6 really needs to include tools for creating those and adequate instructions on how to use them. I have a half-dozen skins that I consider excellent and "done" in all other respects, but I haven't yet learned to do TB buttons or anims so I'm reluctant to upload them since they still seem "incomplete". I know there are 3rd-party apps for anims but it only seems logical to bundle that capability into SKS.

Making SKS previews true WYSIWYG and available for all GUI elements would be the number one thing I'd ask for in SKS6. Next would be more lay-language instructions & descriptions in the Help Pane - what's in SKS now was clearly written by coders for coders. In any event, if SKS6 addresses those shortcomings well, you're likely to see a significant improvement in the technical quality of uploaded skins.

sagitta573

on Jun 19, 2007

Maybe if skinstudio was free, now that they are charging for dreams, isnt this possible? I think with more people who cannot afford it, get it for free, we may see a explosion of nice ones! I know tons of users who just cannot afford to buy skinstudio, but make killer visual styles

Free?? do you really think think an amazing program such as SkinStudio should be completely free??...And just so you know, there is a free version for those who "cannot afford it"

Well does that version offer the ability to make a great skin, such as the paid one? I highly doubt that as the is free and paid versions. The free version probably only allows you to make on good enough to learn, or want to buy the app so you can actually make a real skin

I dont mind that they charge, as I dont have the knowledge to make them myself, but just wanted to drop in my 2 cents

Bebi Bulma

on Jun 19, 2007

You can make a real skin in the free version...I wish there was a list that compares the features of the free to the bought version, but I can't seem to find one.

Bichur

on Jun 19, 2007

I wish there was a list that compares the features of the free to the bought version, but I can't seem to find one.

Skin Studio Download Link with Comparison Chart

didn't JJ Ying use the free version?

patrick24

on Jun 19, 2007

Anyway, I try really hard to leave constructive crits in my comments. Like "You should anti-alias those edges - there's a good tutorial for that here at http://xyz" instead of just beating them up for no reason.

If people don't like having their work called 'icky' thats fine with me, but you can call my work whatever you like...as long as you leave some constructive criticism. Go ahead and shake me up every once in a while. I could use it!

I do agree that most of the skins released now a days aren't very well done. In fact I look back at some of my older works, and think "Man that's bad... What was I thinking!" As for other's, I usually keep my opinions to my self. But, I think this community needs more people like you, who will go out of their way, and risk be hated, to give people constructive criticism.
Keep it up!

Frogboy

on Jun 19, 2007

SkinStudio is free.

There is a Pro version but that is the version that skins Windows Media Player and such which has nothing to do with WindowBlinds.

It costs nothing to make WindowBlinds skins.

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