Finally it’s Friday!  So many skins this week, including a couple of Master skin releases in the WindowBlinds category.  A quick reminder that the 2008 GUI Champs Starts in just over a month.  You can get more details here, and there is plenty of time to get skins started.  Now for this weeks picks!

	Outer Limits for CursorFX by J. Aroche Another matching skin for the Outer Limits WB skin.  This is just an awesome cursor, download it and see for yourself.
	Leatherbound DX for DesktopX Themes by PuterDudeJim PuterDudeJim is cranking out these DX themes.  I like the way he uses textures and styles to make unique themes.
	ecological meters widget for DX Widgets by philar83 Another great addition to the set of accessories for the ecoLogical WB skin.
	Sea of Burning Dreams in Dreams by Chris Bary This is a really beautiful .dream with a subtle animation.  Looks great on the desktop.
	Wraith Tabbed Dock for ObjectDock by WebGizmos This is one of several sets of dock backgrounds for the Wraith WindowBlinds skin.  Great work!
	Srg138 in Wallpapers by Srg01 This wallpaper really caught my eye.  It has a simple design that goes with many skins.
	Wraith for WindowBlinds by SKoriginals The latest Master skin from SKoriginals is another winner.  A great, black WB skin that is usable for everyday use.

Great job to everyone featured, and thanks to everyone who submitted skins to WinCustomize this week.  See you next week!

The SkinStudio 6 tutorial has many sections, most with plenty of screenshots to help show the process of creating your own  WindowBlinds skin.  We tried our best to create a thorough Table of Contents which will make it easy for you to find the specific section you might want to reference.  Obviously, I would recommend reading through the whole tutorial first, especially if you are setting out to create your first skin.

I posted the links below, for reference, but you can find the full TOC here.

1.  An Introduction to SkinStudio

What are Skins?
What is WindowBlinds?
What is SkinStudio?
The Elements of a Graphical User Interface

2.  A Brief Overview of SkinStudio

Choosing What Kind of Skin to Make
The SkinStudio Categories

3.  Skinning the Start Bar

The Elements of the Start Bar
The Elements of Start Menu
Making a New Start Button
Importing the Image into SkinStudio

4.  Creating Images for the Start Bar

Horizontal Taskbar
System Tray
Taskbar Group Menu
Vertical Taskbar

5.  Making a new Start Menu

Creating a Start Menu
Start Menu Logoff Images
Start Menu Popup Windows

6.  Saving Your Creation

Saving Your Work

7.  Changing the TitleBars and Borders

The Elements of the Title Bar and Windows Borders
Understanding per-pixel frames vs. UIS1 vs. UIS2
Making a New Title Bar

8.  Making Title Bar Buttons

Creating and Importing Buttons
UIS1 and UIS2 TitleBars/Buttons
Minimized and ToolWindows Window
Creating Borders

9.  Skinning Windows Buttons and Other Controls

Buttons and Controls
Combobox Controls
HeaderBar Controls
Menus and Menu Bars
ProgressBar Controls
Scrollbars
Spin Controls
Statusbar Controls
Tab Controls
Toolbar Controls
Trackbar Controls
Treeview +/- Controls

10.  Windows XP Specific Elements

Windows XP Shell
Logoff and Shutdown Screens
Toolbar Icons in Explorer and Internet Explorer 6
Control Panel Shell Styles
Shell Style Icons and Pictures
XP File Animations

11.  Vista Specific Elements

Vista Specific Elements
Explorer/IE Shell Parts
Internet Explorer 7
Task Dialog Controls
Vista Explorer Parts
Additional Vista Parts

12.  Fonts and Coloring

Changing Skin Fonts
Changing Skin Colors

13.  Tips and Tricks

Creating and Managing Sub-Styles
Backgrounds
Re-Coloring Skins
Theme Part Details
Start Menu Animation Builder
Animation Compression
Misc. Tips & Tricks

14.  Conclusion and Resources

Conclusion
Stardock Resources

After a long time in the making, the SkinStudio 6 tutorial is released.  This comes at a great time, especially with the GUI  Champs ‘08 right around the corner.  This tutorial guides users through the entire process of making a WindowBlinds skin starting with descriptions of the elements of a Graphical User Interface.  It then guides you through the process of how to use SkinStudio, and how to assemble the various parts of a skin to ultimately make a complete skin. 

This tutorial is aimed more at beginning users who are new to SkinStudio, or possibly thinking about creating their own skin.  SkinStudio 6 is a huge improvement over past editions, and the creation of skins is much more easier for beginners than it was in the past.  I haven’t made a full WindowBlinds skins in a while, and I was pleasantly surprised while creating this tutorial of how much better the experience was.  That’s not to say that creating a high-quality skin is easy, it still takes a lot of time planning, creating graphics, etc., but at least SkinStudio makes piecing them together much easier.

The tutorial was recently updated to reflect recent changes in SkinStudio, and to done in a format which is much easier to follow and learn from with plenty of screenshots to go along.  There is also an extensive Table of Contents, which is also linked at the bottom of every page for quick navigation between chapters.  Over the next couple of days I will post some snippets of the tutorial, just to show some highlights.  If you have been thinking about creating your own WindowBlinds skin, now is the time to start!

For more information about SkinStudio please visit www.skinstudio.net.  There is a free version of SkinStudio available, but this tutorial was created with the Pro version that is available for just $19.95, or a special Bundle that includes WindowBlinds for just $29.95.

Link: SkinStudio 6 Tutorial

A Simple study in blue,

I have been away for quite some time , with many irons in the fire this summer. But I am back to bore you with some more of my "home decorating" ideas!

For the first day back, I created this very brief , and quite simple theme.

I decided not to include any DesktopX , RightClick, or ObjectDock themes today, as I still have little time to devote to the subject.

Castaway by CasualTraveller , Though still a Vista theme , perked up my desktop nicely, as throughout the summer I had only a plain black theme that didn't change much at all. I was happy to see that there were only a few glitches for the XP OS, one being the misalignment of the username and user pic in the start menu. It is such a small blemish it really doesn't detract from the look on the whole.

The titlebar text is highlighted in such a way as to look like a white neon sign on my desktop, though because of the font size, it tends to be slightly blurry. The green, red, and blue  mouseover highlight on the min,max,close buttons make for a refreshing splash of color  in an otherwise very blue theme.

I chose Aladdins Cave by Ahabkaba to be the backdrop of this theme. Because of the few extras I chose, I could go with something a bit busier than usual, and because I love busy, it worked for me. The blues, greens and subtle hint of brown attracted me , as I liked the color combination in CasualTraveller's screenshot on  the windowblinds download page. The wall is an interesting combination of futuristic design  and arabian nights while feeling more at sea than midair . A definite sense of floating here.

While I have many IconPackages  that would work with this grouping, The Preface by dar0ckx takes on a life of its own in this blind. I added Firefox 2007 by D. Arnaez because I liked it better than the default Firefox icon. I do wish artists would include some of the more popular programs icons in their Iconpackage  iconlibraries, I like to "complete the look" where ever I can.

To finish the look, I used Bluster by Libardo. This CursorFX theme is well made and doesn't mess with the ram use in my computer the way some of the newest vista designed cursor themes do. The color scheme is perfect with this group, and  the styling of the animations really compliments the wall I chose while standing out enough that it's easy to see where the cursor is, when the windows are minimized and only the wall is exposed.

I wrote an article showing you how to create and export DesktopX widgets/objects so they will work on the Windows Vista Sidebar.  I personally like using the Vista Sidebar on my Vista PC’s, but what if you are on XP, or just don’t like to use the Vista sidebar?  Well, DesktopX can help you there too.  Not only does DesktopX Pro export to Vista sidebar gadgets, it can also export to stand-alone gadgets.  Stand-alone Gadgets will work on any Windows XP/Vista PC regardless if DesktopX is installed or not.  This exporting feature is only available in the Pro version of DesktopX. 

There are several tutorials and guides available on how to create your own objects and widgets with DesktopX.

• WinCustomize Wiki – DesktopX
• WinCustomize Wiki – Tutorials
• DesktopX Step-by-Step Tutorials
• DesktopX Documentation

I’m going to start at the point where your widget or object is created, and ready to be exported.  Widgets and objects created with DesktopX need to have a version of DesktopX installed to use.  The gadgets we are going to export do not require that, and should run on any Vista/XP PC.

When you are in DX Builder mode, just right-click your widget and click “Export”.  The following screens will guide you through creating your gadget.

After the export is done you should have you gadget that you can now use yourself, or distribute to the community with sites like WinCustomize.com.  For more information visit the DesktopX website.

I have a vision for Object Desktop. I have always had an idealized vision for it.  What stops it from becoming a reality is that my vision involves a lot of work that is not economically feasible.

Part of the problem is that what I think is super cool isn't necessarily what other people think are super cool. 

Let me outline things in Object Desktop that bug me today:

1. I want to see Theme Manager massively updated. I'm not talking about MyColors. I don't want to see MyColors replace Theme Manager. I want people to be able to take a snapshot of their desktop and I want to see MyColors themes that don't use licensed IP include a .suite file option.
2. I want a consistent user experience between all the programs.
3. I want to see TweakVista get a LOT more features so that I can do a lot more surgery on my computer.
4. I want to see more productive features integrated into Object Desktop that extend the OS.
5. I'd like to see DriveScan re-introduced,
6. I'd like to features that extend the windows shell to be more useful but without having to get rid of explorer,
7. I'd like to see Object Package (from the OS/2 version) brought back so that I could press a button, get a big giant .package file and take it to a new machine and press unpackage where it reinstalls all my stuff.
8. I'd like to see features that speed up my system. Why isn't anyone doing anything that can speed up perceived performance of Windows anymore? If I have 2 gigs of RAM, why can't Object Desktop have some feature that better manages the swap file or something like make sure all shell related stuff stays in memory or whatever?
9. I'd like to see a feature that better handles my Windows start up. It's crap right now. I'm not talking about something that lets me kill off stuff that loads up, I mean something that lets me get to my desktop quicker and has an explicit loader for all the other crap that can load later in a low priority state?
10. For that matter, why doesn't Object Desktop have features that make Windows use the priority settings for processes better?
11. I want to see DesktopX re-imagined completely so that I can build fantastic shells and user experiences using .NET, WPF, etc.
12. I want to see cloud computing features integrated into the Windows shell.  If I have multiple computers, on a high speed connection, why should I give a crap where a folder physically resides? Let it invisibly sync everything together. I don't even want to know it's doing it (other than at a technical level). Just make sure I have my stuff wherever.

So why don't we do this? This is where the vision and reality collide.  A lot of the coolest features rarely get used and sell terribly.  Keyboard LaunchPad, for instance, is insanely useful but it's not very popular.  Same with RightClick.

A lot of cool features are hard to market and get people to understand or not be afraid of. 

And a lot of cool feature are simply very difficult to develop and there just aren't a lot of developers capable of making this kind of stuff well at any price.

But the above are some of the things I'd love to see make their way into Object Desktop.