Follow the insane life of someone that gave up the good life to sling hash at local restaurants.
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 3)
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on Jun 19, 2007
The free skinstudio is quite capable of making a prefectly functional , good looking skin.

As far as WYSIWYG, it would be nice for real time perfectly accurate previews but imo, it is best to apply after every single change anyway thus eliminating the need for WYSIWYG and letting you see the exact result within the skin. If SKS is taking too long to apply, use Wbconfig to apply each time, It significantly cuts apply times.
on Jun 19, 2007
As far as WYSIWYG, it would be nice for real time perfectly accurate previews but imo, it is best to apply after every single change anyway thus eliminating the need for WYSIWYG and letting you see the exact result within the skin.


*sigh*
on Jun 19, 2007
Whats the sigh for patrick?
on Jun 19, 2007
It is always best to apply after each change, how else can you see exactly what the skin is doing? Previews are ok but they can never represent a skin in action.
on Jun 19, 2007
What I meant is that I wish the preview was always accurate. For me it's a pain applying a skin every time a change something. I takes a while (at least on my system) and sometimes I have to go into the skin folder and manually delete or edit some code, because sometimes after apply a skin alot of times, SKS make new .uis files (for backup reason?) and the code is pointing to an older uis file, so the most recent changes are showing up. Sometimes I even have to restart my computer.
I try to use the 'test skin' feature as often as I can, but that does have limitations and I end up having to apply the skin anyways.
Am I the only one that has these types of problems?
I'm REALLY looking forward to SKS 6.
on Jun 19, 2007
It is always best to apply after each change, how else can you see exactly what the skin is doing? Previews are ok but they can never represent a skin in action.


Couldn't hurt if the previews were complete & WYSIWYG, though, could it? It would save me a lot of dev time - it might be a week before I run into some of the less-frequently-called GUI elements, sometimes longer. Some of the elements you can't even get to on your dev rig after applying the skin - mine logs on to a domain so even when logged on to the local machine I never see the logoff/shutdown dialogs; I have to load the skin on a workgroup machine to see them. It's that kind of stuff that I'd appreciate SKS6 addressing, in addition to the above.
on Jun 19, 2007
No it certainly wont hurt i agree with everything u said.. but even if it gets to be more accurate I personally will probably apply everytime anyway.. and Patrick do you apply from WBconfig? It cut my apply times by about 7000% when i stopped using SKS to apply.   
on Jun 19, 2007
This is only meant as a helpful suggestion (hint).

There is a way to do it just a little faster than WBconfig.
Go to the Windowblinds folder and make a "shortcut" of WBload. Place it in your quicklauch, if you use quicklaunch, then after you save the skin in SkinStudio just click the icon. Instant re-fresh.
It'll only save you a second or two. That's about it.

I'm eagerly awaiting the new SkinStudio. From the little I've seen, it'll be great for Vista skinning also.
on Jun 19, 2007
Good call   
on Jun 19, 2007
even if it gets to be more accurate I personally will probably apply everytime anyway.. and Patrick do you apply from WBconfig? It cut my apply times by about 7000% when i stopped using SKS to apply.


I personally have always applied the skin everytime I make a change. And, I do apply via WBConfig > Apply my changes. I want to know what the skin is actually doing. In fact, while I am building a blind, I use it exclusively, so that I have a really good idea how the skin works.
on Jun 19, 2007
And now with that snazzy tip from Z71.. it's even faster   

that's gonna save me about 300 hours this year   
on Jun 19, 2007

SkinStudio 6, which is in development, has real-time previews that use the WindowBlinds engine for those previews.

on Jun 20, 2007
Well, I'm you guy's advice. And thanks for the tip Z. You guys are so helpful.
Brad, thats REALLY nice to know! I can't wait.
on Jun 20, 2007
SkinStudio 6, which is in development, has real-time previews that use the WindowBlinds engine for those previews.


Outstanding. Looking forward to it, Brad.
on Jul 15, 2007
I'm really sad that the best skinners are no more releasing new stuff at Wincustomize. The new skins released here are very poor in concept. Just my opinion.
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