Usability vs. Creativity
And color fun..
Monday, July 24, 2006 by Frogboy | Discussion: OS Customization
One of the age old questions in computer customization is what looks good?
This is a skin I've been using. Yea, it has gigantic borders and it's not nearly as usable as many other skins. But for me...It's fun. It's neat. It's different.
In the old days, a skin like this would slow my computer way down. But as software such as WindowBlinds gets better and hardware gets faster, there's really no penalty anymore. You really have the freedom to do some weird stuff with your computer.
I also wonder how many WindowBlinds users remember to take advantage of the fact that you can change the color and gamma of a skin so that even if the original author makes a skin too light or too dark or just a strange color that you can change it.
Now if only I could find a matching ObjectDock skin.
Reply #2 Tuesday, July 25, 2006 2:47 AM
The fun-skins usually reflect my current mood as well as the season and/or holidays. I keep a heap of them around and I switch dem often. For me they are a pleasure to look at whenever I boot up my computer and they often lift my spirit.
As soon as I have a lot of computer-work to do, espceially things like Excel-calculations and Databanking, I find myself going back to the sleek, and stylisch/functional skins (never ever to Windows classic though
).But then there is the next holiday or a change in my mood....
Reply #3 Tuesday, July 25, 2006 4:47 AM
Reply #4 Tuesday, July 25, 2006 7:09 AM
| Yea, it has gigantic borders |
Nah.... those borders are small! I think I still hold the record for the fattest Titlebar........ "Cerulean Jewels"..... now THOSE are fat bars!! hahaha.
Bring back fat titlebars...... they rule!
Reply #6 Friday, July 28, 2006 10:09 AM
Though I go through phases as well. I was on a blue kick for awhile, every skin I used or like was mostly of a blue shade. Now I am on a darker skin phase.
I rarely use the color changing because I haven't found with the skins I use that it works well. It creates portions of the skin that are ugly. However I agree there are skins out there that should support the color changing instead of supplying multiple skins.
Reply #7 Friday, July 28, 2006 11:16 AM
I'm with Boxxi,nothing wrong with big. 
Boxxi probably has me beat,but only because I reduced Plasmatron titlebar to 45 pixels.
Brad a good testament to how well OD progs work...I run WB5,3 widgets,CursorXP,Object Dock on a 498mhz laptop no prob.
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Reply #1 Tuesday, July 25, 2006 1:33 AM