Yes, it's Friday and that means it's time once again for This Week in Skinning where we highlight some of the top skins submitted in the past week.  The galleries are getting active again, and what a great selection of skins to choose from in the last few days.

Now for the picks!

MB-Classics (4Colors) for CursorXP By ModBlackmoon A simple, 4 color pack of cursors with a really nice "stained glass" look to them.  Great work.

Poubel Rays v1.0 in Dreams By brenopoubel This is a very nice .dream of "rays" beaming down over the land.  This is one you need to definitely download.

The lines 2 in Dreams By chaorendabusi This is a very cool .dream with fantastic animation with changing colors.  Very nice work.

System Control in Sidebar Gadgets By Incomps_Creations This Vista Sidebar Gadget gives you the ability to shutdown, logoff, standby, right from your Sidebar.  The gadget also has several other commands and has a variety of themes to choose from.

CitriumXP for WindowBlinds By Night Train I really like the brightness, and color used in this skin.  There are several matching skins made by various community members, so be sure to check those out as well.

Great job and hats off to all the skinners this week who shared some great works with us.  See you next week!

I admit it. I'm an iconphile. Back in the Windows 3.0 days, I used to go and change all my Windows icons by hand. I thought this was pretty impressive. Admittedly, it didn't help me pick up women for some reason.

Since then, icons have come a very long way. A VERY long way. With Windows Vista, the end-user icon experience out of the box is beautiful. But from an icon creator's point of view, the lack of backward compatibility and effort to support has gone up tremendously. As a result, we've seen a lot fewer custom icons made for Windows Vista than one might have expected.

Microsoft made three decisions with Windows Vista that will forever affect the way we look at icon making on Windows.

Microsoft Decision #1: 256x256 icons
First, Microsoft created a new icon size -- 256x256. For users, that's great. Having icons that are 256 pixels by 256 pixels means you will have beautiful icons that are incredibly detailed. But from an artist's point of view, it means that each and every icon is basically a work of art.

Years ago, I used to make icons. At 32x32 for the "big" icons and 16x16 for the "small", even someone with only moderate art skills could make pretty decent looking icons. Today, not only does such high resolution icons mean that only talented artists can make them, it takes talented artists with a lot of time to dedicate to them.

A full set of icons for Windows Vista is around 120 icons. You can get away with as "few" as 40 icons for most casual users but someone who wants a complete desktop makeover needs well over 100 icons. that's a serious amount of time and effort.

In the Pirate Suite, over 120 icons were made all supporting 256x256 pixel icons.  The effort involved in going from 128x128 was more than double because now you have to create some serious artwork.  How do you think this will affect hobbyist icon packages going forward?

Microsoft Decision #2: No Desktop Scaling
The second decision Microsoft made that has affected icon creation is the decision to have programs displayed with either a down-scaled 256x256 icon or an un-scaled 48x48 icon. This decision is baffling for many reasons.

Check out this screenshot. See how the Windows Vista icons are noticeably bigger than the third-party icons? That's because the third-party icons don't supply a 256x256 icon. But here's the kicker -- the "large" icons are only displayed at 96x96 and will use the 48x48 icon size even if a 128x128 icon is available.

For instance, see the Galactic Civilizations II icon? You can see how it's smaller than the new Vista icons. This inconsistency is visually maddening to me. But what is even worse is that the GalCiv II icon has a 128x128 alpha blended icon in it. They could have used the 128x128 icon! In Windows XP, Microsoft encouraged ISVs to use the "new" 128x128 icon size. Many did. And in Windows Vista, they've been orphaned. They're not used.

Would it have really been difficult for Microsoft to downscale 128x128 icons like they do 256x256 ones? As a result, every single program will need an updated icon and every icon made will need an updated version or face being displayed as a stunted looking icon.

It gets even more obnoxious: Even though the icons on your screen are displayed at 96x96 pixels when you choose "large icons" on Windows Vista, it will not use the 96x96 icon that is in there. See here for what I mean.

To sum this up: Windows Vista will display either a down-sized 256x256 icon if you have large icons or it will simply display a 48x48 icon (or 32x32) inside of a box. It will do this even if the icon in question has an exact match for the display size.

Microsoft Decision #3: "Live Folders"
One of the coolest visual parts of Windows Vista in my opinion are the Live Folder Previews. When I look at a selection of folders, I can see some of the files that are inside. It looks really cool.

But on the other hand, it also makes changing folder icons impossible without third-party software if you want to keep the live previews and still change the folder.

Since the Windows 3.0 days, I've liked changing my folder icons. Sometimes I did it for purely cosmetic reasons, other times I did it because I wanted a particular folder to stand out. But on Vista, you lose those live previews.

On Windows Vista, you can change folder icons as follows by right clicking on folder, choose customize and press the change icon button. See here for what I mean.

Now, if you can find a stand-alone icon (because Windows Vista breaks Windows XP .ICL files) you will lose the customization and have an icon that is probably smaller than your other icons.

The Impact
There's no denying that aesthetically, Windows Vista is light-years ahead of Windows XP in the icon department. The icons that come with it are beautiful. And by forcing developers and others to make 256x256 sized icon or have their icons displayed in second class citizen mode will likely result in a much more visually impressive Windows experience for end-users -- eventually.

But during the transition, it means we'll be seeing an awful lot of stunted looking icons on our desktops that, to me, seems completely unnecessary. Ignoring 128x128 icons entirely seems to be a big missed opportunity. The difficulty for users to create and use customized icons on Windows Vista has meant a slow-down in the number of customize Windows icons.

Hardly the end of the world but for those of us who like pretty, consistent icons, it's a bummer at how it was implemented. What's your take? Icons schmicons or do you too like changing your icons around?

Originally posted at Neowin.net

We are at the halfway point of the month, and I'm starting to see the signs that people are getting back to work on their projects.  I would recommend checking out the "what are you working on thread" where you can get a glimpse of some works our members are working on.  There is some really great stuff coming up.

One gallery that was getting many submissions was the .dream gallery, but it's slightly slowed up during summer.  Is anyone working on some .dream projects?  If you do, feel free to add them to the above thread and share what you are working on.

Now for this weeks picks!

Arileen for CursorXP By Quentin94 Quentin makes his way from gallery to gallery, and this week he ends up in the CursorXP section.  This cursor is made to match the upcoming Airleen WB skin.

Plasma Ball v2 in Dreams By JuiceDaddy JuiceDaddy has been turning out the .dreams lately, and this week he brings us an updated Plasma Ball.  Nice work.

Glass in IconPackager By Asect Another great icon pack with over 200 icons, and more available in the misc. icon gallery.  Great work.

Adobe Creative Suite CS3 in ObjectDock icons By wstaylor This is a wonderful set of icons for the CS3 suite.  I look forward to seeing more icons like these.

The Oracle for Xion By BoXXi BoXXi has once again created a clean design for Xion, and this time we have several colors to choose from.  Be sure to check out his gallery for many more works.

Be sure to visit the galleries here on WinCustomize for more great submissions from the past week, and always stop by the skinners personal pages and leave them a comment on their works.  See you next week!

Version 3.5 Info Guide

Introduction

DesktopX is a program that lets users build their own desktops.  It does this by giving users access to desktop objects. These objects can come in all sizes and shapes. They can have scripts attached to them, they can be combined together to form mini applications or turned into an entire desktop.

A new way of looking at the desktop

Let's take a look at a typical desktop. For this example, we'll use Windows Vista but it could just as easily be Windows XP.

Windows Vista's desktop

When DesktopX is first loaded, it provides 4 primary options:

Loading DesktopX brings up its launch menu

This menu lets the user decide whether they want to load an existing creation (widgets, objects, and desktops) or create their own.  For our purposes, we'll go with create.

DesktopX appears in the system tray

From the system tray, users can now create a new object which will appear on the desktop like this:

An object on the desktop

This object can be made into almost anything the user wants.  Let's look at a couple simple examples:

Making an object into a glorified desktop icon:

DesktopX objects can be turned into fancy desktop icons easily. They have the advantage of being sized however the user wants. Just right-click on the object and choose properties:

From there, a dialog comes up in which users can choose what they want the object to appear like. Users can use .PNG image files (or .BMP or even .ICO) to change the image.  By selecting a new image, the user can see this:

The size of the image can be controlled by the summary page.

The object can be resized right from the summary page.

Now I just have it point to whatever program or website I want. In this case, I'll have it open WinCustomize.com.

And Voila I have a really fancy desktop icon.

Making my object into a widget/gadget

Technically speaking, objects are widgets/gadgets.  The difference is one of format.  When you have finished, you can take your creation and save it as an object pack which simply saves the raw data to be imported back into your desktop or you can save it as a widget which turns it into a program (.EXE).  If you have DesktopX PRO, you can also save as a gadget which turns it into a program that can run on any Windows XP, 2000, or Vista machine without requiring DesktopX to be installed. 

What's new in DesktopX 3.5 in this area is that users can also export their works as Windows Sidebar gadgets.  The Pro version will turn them into stand-alone sidebar gadgets.

Let's create a simple widget.  First, we start back with our object.  I'm going to us images and script provided by David A. Roman for this example.

Show/Hide desktop icons widget

This widget, when it's done, will show and hide desktop icons when clicked on.  This means I'll need two images for my object: One to represent the hide desktop icons and one to represent show desktop icons.

DesktopX objects support multiple states -- unlike icons. This gives them incredible flexibility.

This object has two states

For each state, I provide an image.

The next step is to write some VB Script (or JavaScript).

Writing the script

This script is obviously more advanced that what a beginner would create but I wanted to show something that was fairly useful and it's only 67 lines even with spaces and comments.  What it does is react to being clicked on. If the icons are showing, it tells Windows to hide desktop icons. If the icons are already hidden, it tells Windows to show them.

Turning it into a Windows Sidebar Gadget!

When I'm done with my object and have made sure it does as I ask, I can export it as a Windows Sidebar Gadget:

Since I have DesktopX Pro, I can export it as a stand-alone sidebar gadget (otherwise, the user needs to have the DesktopX run-times installed).

And there it is. the .gadget file

There's my new gadget

The advantage of DesktopX for making Sidebar gadgets is that DesktopX has a much larger library of APIs to call on and is a visually oriented development platform for gadget makers.  Something as simple as a show/hide desktop icons toggle isn't very easy to make as a Sidebar gadget. But with DesktopX, it's a snap.

Building a desktop

So far, we've really only scratched the surface of what DesktopX can do.  DesktopX can create widgets & gadgets. But these days, there's a gazillion different gadget/widget creation tools (though DesktopX is probably the most powerful one currently available).

DesktopX doesn't stop at being able to make mini-applications. Users can build an entire desktop and then save it as a .desktop file to distribute out.  It's a lot like making a widget except on a much larger scale.

Building a desktop

As we've seen, objects can be given images of any size or shape. Objects can have multiple states to them. And objects can be grouped together. 

In this example, objects have been grouped together and also given scripts to allow for the creation of new objects:

A replacement desktop created with DesktopX

Since objects can be created by other objects with all their key properties assigned by other objects, users can literally construct their own Windows environment with DesktopX -- in a fraction of the time it would take to write ones own shell.

DesktopX can even give objects "hit detection"

When done, a user can simply export their creation as a .desktop file and anyone who has the DesktopX run-times installed can use it. 

This Play-ground theme will be coming with DesktopX 3.5.

About DesktopX

Developer: Stardock (www.stardock.com)
Price: $24.95 for standard client. $14.95 for run-time client.  Both come with Stardock's Object Desktop suite.

Users who want to get DesktopX Pro can get it for $69.95 and that adds the ability to export stand-alone programs and Sidebar gadgets.

Visit http://www.desktopx.net for more information.

I have written several articles about the features of Stardock Central such as using it to chat with us on IRC, and how to use it to install that really cool Object Desktop you just purchased.  I wanted to write some documentation on one of the most important abilities of Stardock Central, and that is using it to archive your purchased software and the goodies that come along with it.

I have been getting a lot of feedback from members about archiving and restoring, so it's time to go over how you can make sure you always have your applications archived and ready for restoration if needed.  If you are not familiar of why you should always keep archives of your applications, here are the two best and most popular reasons:

1. Being able to easily restore from a crash or reformat of Windows
   
2. Always having your applications on hand, even if you let your Object Desktop subscription expire (but why would you do that?)
   
3. Having the ability to go back to a previous version if you desire

I think you get the point, and I always recommend backing up all your data, but Stardock Central makes this chore easy to do for your Stardock applications.  Lets start by opening Stardock Central and selecting the application you want to archive.  I'm going to use the WindowBlinds 6 beta as my example today, but the process is the same for any other program on SDC.

Select the application and right-click.

Archiving an application

In the menu that opens you will see several options, scroll down to the "Archive Application" entry and you will see another expanded menu as seen in the screenshot above.  You are presented with a few options, but for this I just want to archive WindowBlinds and its skins, so I will select "Entire Application (including skins).  Once selected Stardock Central will archive the application to the Backup folder in the Stardock Central directory.

Stardock Central Backup Folder

The Backup folder is located at Program Files>Stardock>SDCentral.  At this point you have your archives and would strongly recommend backing them up to a CD or external hard drive.  This would probably be a good time to point out when archiving you also have the option to "download and archive" and "download and archive all" which could be easier in some situations.

So now you should have everything archived, so lets move on to what you do if you need to restore the archive for whatever reason.  Select the application you want to restore, right-click, and click "Restore Archive".  This function is also available through the File menu. 

You will see a list of your archived items, and you have the option to browse to the location of your archives if they are not in the Backup folder.  Once you have found your archive, select it and hit restore.  Stardock Central will restore the archive to the state it was in when you originally archived it.

 
Restore an archive

You should now have the ability to archive your applications, and recommend doing so as soon as you can.  You never know when you might need to recover your software, and its better to be prepared beforehand. 

Summer tends to be a slower time for skinning since people are, well, you know, outside.  Personally, the sun causes me to catch on fire. Or at least smolder and no one wants to deal with that.

This Summer, there's been some real gems. Which is pretty amazing since those bastards at Stardock have co-opted most of the skinning community this year to work on MyColors projects.  So without further delay, here are some of the cooler looking things I've seen this summer:

VStyler has really taken off this summer and became a Master skinner.  His Viena for WindowBlinds works on both Windows XP and Windows Vista and is one of our favorites this Summer. [Vienna]

Skinners from China dominated this year's GUI Championships. So it's not surprising that one of the coolest and most popular skins of the Summer came from China. [Metal Vista 3]

Onix from SKoriginals was one of the most original skins we've seen this Summer and it's also very usable as well. [Onix]

Fresh Attitude comes all the way from Russia via othersnow.  It makes great use of the glass features in WindowBlinds 5.  In WindowBlinds 6, users will be able to apply blur options to such skins which will make them even cooler! [Fresh Attitude]

Plasmatron AI isn't a new skin but the Summer update takes I.R. Braniac's highly original skin and makes it incredibly usable as well. It's a true work of art. [Plasmatron A.I.]

It has not been a very good summer for icons.  Making icons these days is a lot more work than it used to be. Now, icons are expected to be at least 128x128 (Vista expects 256x256 icons! That's about the full screen resolution of a decent LCD cell phone! For one icon!). But mkorashy's Edifice helped brighten up an otherwise slow summer in this area. A great icon package brought to you all the way from Egypt! [Edifice]

Webby's Over the Hills and Far Away comes to us all the way from Italy.  This incredibly cool wallpaper makes working inside almost bearable. [Over the hills and far away]

Boss's Pacifico can make one imagine that they're in a tropical paradise.  It's just a stunning wallpaper. [Pacifico]

Ixium Minor comes to us from AngelicJean in Australia. This is one of the most hauntingly beautiful wallpapers I've seen in years.  [Ixium Minor]

Summer is only half-way over and we've only covered skins, icons, and wallpapers. Stay tuned, more to come!

Well the long awaited and much anticipated WindowBlinds 6 beta has recently arrived.  With the arrival there have been many requests for additional screenshots and videos of the much talked about "Molten" animation.  I created a video of some of the key features of WindowBlinds 6 that I think people will be very interested in.  This video does not show all the new features, but it will give you a general idea of what WindowBlinds 6 is all about.

The video demo shows the following:

• Demonstration of the Molten skin start menu animation
• Ability to adjust transparency of start menu, window borders, etc.
• Using XP .msstyles on Vista and adding transparency
• Changing skins on the Vista Sidebar

This video was done on Vista, but I will make another soon showing off the skins in XP as well.  Please note that WindowBlinds 6 is currently in beta, so things you see may or may not change upon final release.  This is just a preview I wanted to give showing some of the really cool features.

Right now the beta is available to subscribers of Object Desktop.
 

To kick off our recently revived "Featured Skinner" series, we've sat down with well-known member of the skinning community, vStyler, to ask him a few quick questions about his thoughts on skinning, how he got started, and a little bit about his skinning studio, MaxStyles, which has recruited community members such as I.R. Brainiac, messiah1, J. Aroche and others.

I'd like to thank vStyler for taking the time to answer these questions in such depth and for providing a great preview shot of his next skin, Sexy WB, for us to use in this article.

If you have a skinner you'd like to see featured in this, now quarterly, series drop me a line at mikec [AT] stardock [DOT] com with the subject "Featured Skinner Suggestion"

Without any further adieu, on to the interview!

How did you get your start in Windows UI customization?

A long time ago, in an operating system far far away, a (noticeably younger) young man decided to click the Classic Color Schemes dropdown button... this thrust him into a parallel universe… that he has yet to return from. Yes, I, like so many other artists had my first ‘skinning" experience back in about 95 \ 98 when I discovered I could actually change the basic colors of my OS. For the next few days (while I was supposed to be making sales calls) I perfected the perfect classic color scheme... for my own use of course. This led to downloading "themes"… A wallpaper, some desktop icons, color scheme, cursors and sounds... I was in customizing heaven… or so I thought. While searching for themes I stumbled across a nifty program called NextStart, and although I never actually skinned it, I had lots of fun customizing with it. I then went onto the very early versions of Windowblinds and Style XP and started uploading screenshots to DeviantArt. I first tried my hand at "real" skinning after installing Style XP and thinking "this doesn’t look so hard". My first official theme (I’ll admit) was an unauthorized modded version of one of Kol’s earlier visual styles (Lumineux VS). Looking back at it now I realize what a terrible job I did of making it look like 100% original work. I have since admitted my horrible crime to Kol and have received forgiveness. Of course, eventually as most of you know I now skin Windowblinds exclusively, why I switched to WB is revealed later on.

Is skinning a professional endeavor or more of a hobby?

This one is easy, once I decided that skinning windows was something I could be good at, I firmly put into place a plan to be as good as I could possibly be in the hopes that one day I could actually make a living doing it. I would have to say this last 6 years or was more like a self-taught home based college course than a hobby in the hopes that someday it would pay off. That’s not saying I don’t enjoy it, it has also been a hobby of mine, when a nice skin is finally completed I do enjoy the feedback from users and I have always been comforted and motivated knowing that my work is being used and appreciated by fellow customizers.

A preview of vStyler's upcoming skin, "Sexy"

Explain how MaxStyles came about?

I think right around 2001 I had gotten the idea, (after making a Jacksonville Jaguars NFL theme for my neighbors PC), to try and make NFL themes and sell them to the NFL. I made a Denver Bronco’s theme as an example and then decided I was going to need a website. It was at this time I approached Tom Reichert (LightStar) of LightStar1.com with my idea. Well, needless to say, not having the 3 million dollar licensing fee required by the NFL my little plan sort of fell through. However, not long after meeting Tom we both started selling Premium Visual Style’s on his site. A short time after he suggested my opening my own site that he would help me setup and maintain... and Maxstyles.com was born.

What is your goal with MaxStyles?

For about three years I released visual styles, both free and premium on MaxStyles. At the end of last summer I decided to participate in the GUI Championships on Wincustomize.com. My Visual Style ports aside, this was my first real in depth foray into SkinStudio. I was fortunate enough to place 3rd overall with my first full WB skin "Vectra". That was enough to motivate me not only to convert full time to Windowblinds, but also to switch my site over completely to Windowblinds based themes and say goodbye to visual styles forever. A few months back I approached what I thought were some of the most talented skinners on the Windowblinds side of things and asked them if they wanted to join me on Maxstyles and be part of a team. The idea was to produce free and premium skins of unsurpassed quality by maximizing each team member’s potential and expertise in a team atmosphere. The "new" Maxstyles.com is now in place. We intend to continue producing high quality themes for the general public as long as possible. It is my intention at a future date to also involve Maxstyles in the arena of branded skins for corporate clients. The MaxStyles team currently consists of me, I.R Brainiac, Aroche, Messiah1, Basj and Gef.

Do you think Windows Vista will help or hurt skinning?

Well...that’s a tough one. I must say that after my initial investigation of the OS and early attempts at skinning it I am thoroughly un-impressed with Vista from a skinning standpoint. I am frustrated with it as I see many areas where (1) skinning options have been taken away and (2) Some areas of Vista now add even more areas that inherit the properties and attributes of other areas of the OS leading to even more "damned if you do , damned if you don’t" scenarios. On the flip side… because there is technically less to skin and because of some of its limitations it’s actually easier to skin. Bottom line, Vista is probably easier but perhaps not better… in my opinion.

What’s your favorite skin ever made?

Wow... that’s tough! If I absolutely have to choose… my favorite all time Windowblind is Sektor by danilloOc. I would have to say that its overall look, its animations and flawless execution were some of the reasons that attracted me to finally start doing WB skins and how I personally go about designing and implementing my skins. If you’re going to do something... then do it right. In a shameless plug I will give a close second to my good friend I.R Brainiac’s Knot Vista skin. ?

Lastly, I am currently working on a new Master Skin, after several people using the same word to describe the screenshots I was sending them... I decided to call it Sexy WB . Here’s the latest preview of it, should be completed sometime in the near future.

In closing I would like to say I am eternally thankful to those who have supported and helped me along the way and that I hope the adventure is just beginning. I hope to be around for a long time.

Thanks, and keep on skinning!!