Aqua-Soft Forumsi want to mod a theme for personal use. this style looks really neat, but i have no idea how i could go about modding. stylebuilder never works for me, so i've been using reshacker.
thanks.
[help] Mod Theme?
Yo nigga that sh## look tight but I should say make the title bar use Lucida Grande Size 9 and make the scroll bar lil bit wider. Peace
haha, it's not even my theme. i just found it on the board somewhere--stefanka's i believe.
i'm going to mod something like it, though.
yeah, stylebuilder trials never worked for me before. maybe i'll try again.
i've been using reshacker to do most of it. and i tried resbuilder too, but with either of these, i can't get the clear, glassy look, and apparently my program can't save the transparency after editing, so i get black outlines everywhere.
sorry to double post, but i was wondering if anyone knew how to edit the bmps properly? do i need to convert to png or save as png or something?
Since my reply for this question was lost on Neowin, I'll reply here :canadian:
(lol @ canadian icon - wasn't expecting it to be named that)
To mod a theme you either need to either extract the resources (i.e. Bitmaps or PNG's), or work on them directly. ResBuild (TGTSoft) lets you edit them directly (if you open the .msstyle), using a choice of editors.
You may be trying to edit a PNG as a BMP, which would explain the lack of transparency. Even after tyring many apps, I find that FireworksMX is the best for editing PNG's (even though its a horrible program imho). Photoshop 7 fails to preserve the correct transparency.
Also its worth noting that PNG's support transparency NATIVELY, i.e. don't use other programs to set the tranparency, and turn transparency OFF in StyleBuilder for any PNG, otherwise you get the black borders.
hello b0se! you've been so helpful!
i managed to swap some of the images, but i get a white corners, and i'm not sure why.
when i work on buttons, though, i use arcsoft photostudio, since it's the only good program i have. afaik, i've been working with bitmaps. i suppose they're pngs, then. so maybe if i edit them and save as pngs?
oh well. i haven't really given much thought to designing it, so i don't really know where i'm going with this. i think what i'm planning is to take a graphite theme, then make all the buttons and graphite parts clear and glassy instead.
i'll have to try fireworks mx.
thanks, man!
this is what happens when i edit png with photostudio using resbuilder. i guess i'll need to try fireworks.
Oooh that looks nasty 
(the scrambled one, not your mod 
)
The reason you have the white blocks is because the background of the scrollbar itself doesn't match the scrollbar background...
The easiest way is to make the background of the scrollbar transparent (its a BMP so use 255, 0, 255 - that horrble pink!). Hoever, this may make you lose some of the shadow effect so b careful (I'd use Paint Shop Pro for that, zooming in so each pixel is massive (for better accuracy)).
Or, once you have the scrollbar with pink background, get the normal scrollbar background, and paste the scrollbar itself onto the background, then save as the scrollbar, remove the pink bits (you'll need to use layers for this), and you have a perfect match.
Sorry if that was confusing it's quite hard to explain.
Ok, I'll do it for you, gimmie a bit then check your messages.
Use the attached BMP...
wow, thanks a lot! i'll have to put that in. and i'll need to use that technique for the other parts i'm modding.
unfortunately, i still can't edit the png files correctly. one would think that, since i'm just editing a png in photostudio, then saving as a png, it should be ok, but it gets messed up.
all right. i'll try it out sometime and see how it goes. it won't be much, but i'll be pleased with it.
thanks for all the help!
you need to export the transparent shadow parts as an alpha channel...
how would i do that? is that some special function?
well, i've tried modding the graphite theme buttons, but i can't seem to get that crystal clear look like i got with the scrollbar, and i can't save the transparency properly in any programs.