Aqua-Soft Forums

WindowBlinds 5 and SkinStudio 5 new tutorials

In the advent of WindowBlinds 5 and it's refreshed SkinStudio companion I've written a few articles treating about the new features you may want not to miss in your skinning adventure.

sks_perpixel_frames_5.jpg

Working with skinners every day gives one a pretty good idea about what concepts are easy for them to grasp and which are less obvious. I find some of the questions to come much more frequently then others. When it happens I try to write an article on the subject in a more verbose mode so that the next time someone asks the question I can save their time (well actually both of us) and simply show them to the article describing the problem in detail with questions and comments other skinners tend to add to them). One of such problems seems to be the WindowBlinds fonts described in this article

sks_fonts_4_thumb.png

There is also one other new feature in SkinStudio 5 you may enjoy using. It's the new section searching tool button. It's aready saved me hours of work. You can read about it here

sks_locate_section_2.png

#322144

I can't wait to see one like this . I really hope the fine skinners out there will get a grasp on this easily and soon. :)

#322149

Thanx for the info and articles... This is really gr8! :D

#322151

I can't wait to see one like this . I really hope the fine skinners out there will get a grasp on this easily and soon. :)
Other than that ugly font, that looks beautiful.

#322156

Ya the features are great, not only the alpha blending, but it no longer has an exe running in the backround.(for all you people who didnt like that feature with windowblinds....)

Oh and the transparent borders have no difference in performance from any other theme ;)

#322159

Thanks for links but i believe this would be better suited in the WB sub-forum, not Visual Styles ;)

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#322190

I have a few concepts I made when I first heard windowblinds 5 was in beta, but since I don't have Skinstudio 5, the best I can do is scan them in and CG them.

I'll do it if anyone would care about them.

just to let you know, they barely have anything to do with perpixel transparency besides the shadows and AA borders.

Anyways, thanks for the great tutorial.

I do hope this Vista phase will die out FAST.

It's a real shame to see 2 non-glass themes and then 50 glass/vista themes.

#327736

Got bad news for all you guys who cant wait for smooth edges. You cant have buttons on the left :(, not even worth it...

50 vista glass themes? I count 2. O.o

http://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?...ID=5212&LibID=1

http://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?...ID=5347&LibID=1

#328173

Got bad news for all you guys who cant wait for smooth edges. You can have buttons on the left :(, not even worth it...

50 vista glass themes? I count 2. O.o

http://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?...ID=5212&LibID=1

http://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?...ID=5347&LibID=1

Yea thats s*#@s.I hope at the final version they will put that selection.

Without the left button WB goes one step away from mac emulation.:(

#328202

Got bad news for all you guys who cant wait for smooth edges. You cant have buttons on the left :(, not even worth it...

50 vista glass themes? I count 2. O.o

http://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?...ID=5212&LibID=1

http://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?...ID=5347&LibID=1

What do you mean you can't have buttons on the left?

#328236

What do you mean you can't have buttons on the left?

That the close,max,min buttons can't be placed at the left side of windows(like OSX) but only at the right side. :(

#328375

That the close,max,min buttons can't be placed at the left side of windows(like OSX) but only at the right side. :(

But they can... I'm running all the old left-side buttons OS X themes (like all of bzeitler's) with WB 5....

#328447

Nope, using alpha blended frames means you HAVE to use the alpha blended glyphs option, and you CANNOT move them.

#329042

It's not implemented yet but it will be.

#329092

And it has, the new beta allows Left Sided glyphs. The only thing they have to add is the rollup button.

#330631

Yup:

WindowBlinds 5 Beta 3 released

Lots of new things/tweaks with this build.

-Added jpg wallpaper support

-Added left aligned buttons in per pixel skins

-Added text back support for per pixel skins

-Added support for constant alpha blending on taskbar

-Added more information to Troubleshooting panel

-Fixed issue with Norton Protected Recycling bin that we're hopeful also resolves the reports of crashes with Lexmark printer drivers

-Fixes for MS Access, onfolio, corel painter

-Fixed user icon changing

-Fixed RunAs issues

-Fix for wbui.dll registration

-Reenabled RMB on titlebar override options

-Reflection maps can be clipped to avoid shadows

-Apps which make menus transparent should no longer conflict with WB5 per-pixel menus

#330642

Sorry if this is a silly question (maybe I'm just bad at searching and google), but where can we get this skinstudio5? website shows 4.6 http://www.stardock.com/products/skinstudio/downloads.asp do I have to buy it and upgrade to pro? Thanks!

#336232

They havent released it yet. Not even object desktop users have a release version. Im still using the beta version :P

#336246

It's released. Version 5.00.001

Has been since 11/28/05

Edit: Skin Studio is still 4.96(B).002

#336248

4.99 Now released

#336325