It has been quite an exciting week already with the release of WindowBlinds 6, but even that won't stop this months featured .dreams.  Last week, Microsoft released the final version of DreamScene for Vista Ultimate, and referred users over to Dream.WinCustomize.Com to get additional .dreams (animated wallpapers).  The .dreams you find here at WinCustomize use the free enhancement called DeskScapes, which has features such as dynamic content, triggers, author credit, and more.

So now it's time for This Month in Dreams where I feature some of the most popular .dreams submitted to WinCustomize throughout the past month.

Video: Animated Wallpapers - Sept. '07 Edition 

Below are the links to all the .dreams that were featured this month.

• lava_planet by muckyman
• foggy desktop by muckyman
• corpuscule2 by moringaou
• Poubel Hill by brenopoubel
• hot_coals by muckyman
• Poubel Tafiti v1.1 by brenopoubel

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We wrap up our WinCustomize Wiki Week with a page that everyone who wants to help out should check: The Work In Progress page. 

When you create an article, you can flag it as an incomplete page that needs more attention and assistance (a work-in-progress).  These articles will be listed on the WiP page for everyone to see.  This makes it much easier to quickly find out what needs some tender, loving care.  You know any page on that list has people waiting eagerly for.  Now you can't say "Well, I would have contributed, but I didn't know what was needed!" 

And for our final featured contributor: DoctorNick.  DoctorNick's contributions are probably the most visible as he contributed a lot to prettying up the page layouts, and is the man responsible for skinning the Wiki to match WinCustomize.  He put in many late nights doing battle with CSS incompatibilities between web browsers, and other annoying aspects of the Wiki skinning system.

And that does it for our first attempt at a themed content week.  I hope you enjoyed it, as there will be more to come in the future!

It's the last Friday of the month, and October is nearly here.  I have been very pleased that the skinning activity has dramatically picked up in the past month, and some phenomenal works have been hitting the galleries.  As you might have already seen, I placed a question out to skinners asking if they planned on creating any Halloween skins, and I see several of you have already started submitted some Halloween inspired works.

I will be creating a Halloween skin guide in the next couple of weeks, so be sure to stop by that thread and post your works, and let us know if you are working on some new Halloween skins.

Now for this weeks picks!

Surf's up 2 for Bootskins By Hog56 This bootskin caught my eye because it's a great skin for a kids computer, and adults as well.  Great job.

 

Skull 'n' Candles for DesktopX By buzzh58 This is a very cool Halloween widget.  Click the candles to ignite the flames, and click other parts for various sound effects.

 

Poubel Tafiti v1.0 in Dreams By brenopoubel Brenpoubel has been releasing some fantastic .dreams lately, and this rendered .dream is another to add to the list.  Very nice work.

 

The Mayan Civilization in IconPackager By knightpan This icon package won first place in the most creative in the 2006 GUI Champs.  This is truly a unique and creative icon pack and is definitely deserving of it's title.

October Tabbed & Side Docks for ObjectDock By WebGizmos WebGizmos has created a great set of matching dock backgrounds for Night Trains "October" WB skin.

 

Arileen Full Suite in Suites By Quentin94 Full suites for Theme Manager is something we unfortunately don't see much of, but it's a great way to distribute your suite.  This suite includes the WB skin, logon, bootskin, CursorXP theme, Icon pack, and much more.

 

Vienna 2 - Spectrum in WindowBlinds By vStyler In a follow-up to the ever popular Vienna WB skin, vStyler has released "Vienna 2" which adds a bit more color this time.  Definitely check this one out.

 

Great job to everyone, and I look forward to seeing more great submissions next week.  Don't forget about our "What are you working on" thread where you can show other members of the community a preview of any projects you are working on.  See you next week!

 

Day 4, and the Wiki week draws close to its end.  So far this week we've focused heavily on tutorials on the WC Wiki, and that's because that sort of user content is the site's greatest strength.  Tutorials transform a piece of software from some intimidating and obtuse application to a tool that someone can use to create great content.  The best tutorials tend to come from users who know the applications best and use them on a near daily basis.  That's why SK Originals and sViz were featured this week.

Today, I want to make sure everyone knows there's a grand index of tutorials on the Wiki.  This page automatically updates when new tutorials are written, so whenever you're looking for a new how-to, be sure to hit up the Tutorials Index.

And today's featured Wiki contributor is CerebroJD.  Along-side of Bebi, JD was one of the early contributors to the Wiki project and helped give it shape.  He provided a lot of help on deciding early layouts and what information to show on the front page.

So todays thanks to CerebroJD!

Yesterday I talked about the WindowBlinds tutorials by SK Originals and held them up as a great example of how to write help content for the Wiki.  But that tutorial is for the visual artist.  What if you're a code monkey trying to make a desktop gadget?  Sure there's art involved, but there's a lot of coding too, and that takes a completely different sort of tutorial.  Pictures illustrating steps help, but they're not the whole story.  You need code examples, and writing code that's understandable and being able to explain it in plain English is a rare talent.

So today we're shining the limelight of attention on sViz and her DesktopX tutorials.  Specifically DesktopX: Scripting Time Displays (Beginner)

sViz is one of our most active contributors to the Wiki and a wealth of knowledge when it comes to DesktopX.  Her tutorials are well documented and clearly explained.  With the Time Displays tutorial, it takes you through the process of adding a time display to a DesktopX widget/gadget from start to finish.  And this is only one out of many tutorials she's contributed to the site.

If you're interested in learning DesktopX, hit up sViz's outstanding tutorials on the WC Wiki!

One of the coolest features in ObjectDock is the ability to create Flyout Menus.  Many of you have already seen this already with the new ReadyView™ weather flyouts that were introduced in ObjectDock.  You can add these menus to either a tabbed dock or a "zoomer" dock.

Get ObjectDock now for just $4.99

They are a great way to have quick access to commonly used folders, applications, and pretty much anything else you can put into ObjectDock.  One of my favorite uses is to have a flyout menu of web links that I use very often, such as WinCustomize.com, or a flyout menu to quickly browse a folder of images.

To get started with a flyout menu, just right-click an empty space in your dock and select "add entry".  From there you will be presented with a list of docklets, shortcuts, and other entries that you can add to ObjectDock, but for now you need to select "New Custom Flyout Menu".

 

You should now have your new flyout menu on the dock, and the configuration window open.  Here you can custom configure the flyout menu with a list of commonly used folders, or create a custom flyout menu with a variety of options such as folders, shortcuts, docklets, etc.  It's very customizable and you add your own custom icons as well.

 

Once you have your menu configured, clicking the icon will expand the flyout menu with the items you have selected.  As you see below, I setup my flyout menu to open my wallpapers folder, which then expands to the sub-folders so I can browse through my wallpaper collection, and then click the image I want to open in my image viewer. 

Learn more about ObjectDock here!

 

This year so far we've added 11 new galleries to WinCustomize in an attempt to make sure we're keeping up with what's going on in the wider world of Windows Customization.  Here's the full list for 2007 to date:

• Avatars
• Dream
• Emoticons
• LogonStudio Vista
• Maxthon
• ObjectBar 2
• Google Gadgets
• Vista Sidebar Gadgets
• Sidebar Styler
• SoundPackager
• Xion

Now, some of these galleries have done well, others have not.  Probably the two most successful on that list are Dream and Xion.  Dreams skyrocketed in popularity with the release of Windows Vista, and in general have done very well even as the Vista hype started to die down.  I really think Dreams are going to be one of our cornerstone galleries in the years to come as people get more into putting video and dynamic content on their desktop.

The other example of a successful gallery addition was Xion.  It may be one of our fastest growing skin libraries on the site right now.  Community reaction to the addition was fantastic, and in fact the app was added at the request of many skinners. 

Obviously, the success of a gallery depends on how much the community REALLY wants it or is interested in it.  So far this year, we've not had the best track record at anticipating demand.  So now I'm calling out to the community.  What's out there that you're skinning for that you feel would be a great addition to WinCustomize?  Are we missing out on some skinning or computer graphics related area that just can't be ignored any longer?  I want to hear from you!

Post your thoughts here with any relevant links so I can take a look.

Day two of WC Wiki Week brings us to one part of the new site that's really the key aspect of the Wiki: User-provided documentation in the form of tutorials and how-tos.  A user manual is one thing, it tells you what buttons do what, and where to find various bits of info, but it doesn't really tell you how to fully use the software.  This is especially true with creative tools such as Skin Studio and Photoshop when creating a WindowBlinds skin.  So today's featured page is appropriately a tutorial on creating a Start Panel for a WindowBlinds Skin.

Check out the article here.

It's part 1 of a two part series on skinning the Start Menu in Windows using Skin Studio and Adobe Photoshop.  It's packed with screenshots to illustrate the process, and if you go through both part 1 and part 2, you'll end up with a completely skinned Start Menu.  It's one of the better user-created tutorials currently on the wiki.

So it's fitting that today's featured contributor would be SK Originals, the author of the Start Menu tutorial.  SK Originals has contributed a lot to the wiki in addition to his tutorials, providing edits and content on a number of product pages and other tutorials.  He was one of our earliest additions to the wiki project and has been a great help in bringing in content focused on teaching others how to skin.  This is exactly the sort of activity we were hoping for when launching the wiki.

Thank you to SK Originals for your ongoing contributions!

The Wiki project started many months ago after review of community feedback on Brad's "How Stardock Failed the Community" article from the start of the year.  The single biggest complaint was a lack of good resources for documentation and helpful information on the plethora of skinning products Stardock has built over the years.  Our decision was to provide a site and framework for the community to contribute their knowledge of the tools and software available.  The idea was that while a developer knows how the application works from a functional perspective, it's the artists and everyday users who have the deep knowledge of how to really use the tools in a practical sense, and are likely much better than we are at explaining things.

When we began the project, one of the very first pages created to be used as a template for what to include and how to format software pages was the Wiki page for WindowBlinds

It's one of the best places to look for consolidated WindowBlinds information as it has links to relevant external sites, helpful tutorials.  It also has a brief history of the application and major changes introduced at several versions.  If you're curious about WindowBlinds or are looking for help in skinning, this page is a good place to start from.

Also from the beginning of the project, several members of the community stepped in and really made the project their own.  Without the effort of these folks, the project never would have gotten off the ground, and they made sure that this was a community effort from the start.  Probably the most active contributor at the start of the project was BebiBulma. She was critical in corralling other contributors and wrote and helped with formatting for a lot of the initial pages on the Wiki.

Remember, all you need to do to contribute to the Wiki is create an account and start editing/creating pages.  It's open to everyone.