Aero Glass Mockup

A long time ago, when longhorn was new and exciting, aero had a very different look to what it has become today. It was a look used for all sorts of widgets and media skins, and is still popular for such things today.

At the time, with the limitations of msstyles and windowblinds, no vs was ever made to reflect the look, but there was a very attractive nexplorer skin done in the style. Nexplorer's often buggy performance, and the slow update of the program generally stopped it from being usable as a file manager on a day to day basis. Now, this style should be fully possible in windowblinds 5.

I don't have skinstudio's latest, and despite my best efforts in the current skin studio, I am unable to preserve transparency in the tga's I use. In addition, I'm not sure about the titlebar height limits for WB skins, and just have little experience generally of using stardock's software.

I've produced a (very) quick mock-up of a skin, and I wondered if more experienced users would tell me:

i) if dimensionally the skin is feasible

ii) how difficult it would be to produce

iii) if anybody would be willing to sacrifice any of their time to produce the skin, or at least produce the transparent parts of the skin and send it to me so I could work on the rest.

For the titlebar and explorerbar background, the rounded part of the grey background would have to be part of the titlebar, and I'm not sure of it's possible to have titlebars that are transparent in some areas and opaque in others. Anyway...

#337954

Doesnt look like it would be very hard to do.

#337956

Is that an offer of help? If so, I have the windowframe and toolbar background as png's and a bitmap respectively. I'm under the impression that png's can be imported into skinstudio 5 and converted to tga's.

For some reason, photoshop seems to resist all efforts to maintain an alpha channel in targa's for me. If you have an e-mail address, I'd be happy to mail them to you. I'd also like some input on the start menu and taskbar, for which I have mock-ups, if that's okay.

Like I said, I'd be grateful for any help whatsoever, so just even producing the surrounds for me and sending me the unfinished wba with just the transparent parts complete would be a huge help.

#337957

If youre using Photoshop 7.0 or below TGA files are not saved with alpha channels natively. It explains it here in this page

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/craigweb2k/Spray_Tut

And with that there is a link to an updated TGA file, hope that helps anyone.

Z

#337960

Thanks, but I'm using CS2, at work anyway, and the problem is that, whilst the transparency is saved in photoshop itself, it doesn't seem to translate if i overwrite the image in, say, KoL's vista skin, or any other. I think the problem is far more related to my version of skinstudio. I'm not an objectdesktop subscriber, and I have no desire to become one, although I did buy the latest WB.

I just wanted some assistance in translating the png's I have into a wba, where I could either work with someone, or finish the non-transparent parts myself. I have done all of the graphics work practically, even the buttons and glows, but am unable to create the skin.

As I said, any help is appreciated.

#337967

I'm guessing it would be too hard to do. good luck w/ that skin - hope someone makes it - I'm clueless w/ how to make skins

#337968

First of all I like the idea, but that is a very old version of the Aero glass. It's since been updated in the Vista 5xxx builds. Look around AeroXp.net for Glass Transparency, you'll see what Aero looks like now.

#337971

I'm not suggesting this skin because I'm under the impression that this is what vista looks like now. As it sayes in the first post, I'm a fan of this now 'outdated' aero look, and I know that many other poeple are too. Many widgets and websites are built around this design, and many people, myself included, believe that longhorn 4074, the pre-alpha build upon which this look is modelled, is more attractive than the newer vista builds.

I recognise that this is a matter of personal preference, and I'm not asking for someone to design the entire skin. I'm only asking for help as regards the titlebars and glass surrounds to the windows, and further for the caption buttons. I've already made it clear that I have produced graphics for these elements, but can't go further with my version of skinstudio.

I'm just idly hoping that someone takes pity on me, and helps get this into production. I'd be willing to do all of the work that doesn;t involve per-pixel alpha transparency myself.

This would make an attractive skin, because unlike other skin featuring a glass surround, in this one the toolbar background and glass surround would interact, rather than looking like one was simply overlaid on top of the other. Anyway, all comments are appreciated, as is any help.

#337976

I have put the transparent graphics in a zip, and it's not particularly large. This is only the windowframes at the moment, although the rest of the graphics are available upon request. If anyone can help, please pm me or respond in this thread.

#338014

First of all great idea, I personally think the same way the new vista looks sucks. Send the files and I 'll have at them and see what comes out of it....

#338056

Happy to send what I have so far. Pm me with your e-mail address and I'll mail the zip to you.

#338079