SkinStudio 6 Beta arrives
A new era in skinning is about to begin...
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 by Frogboy | Discussion: Skinning
Introduction
Stardock is pleased to announce the availability of the BETA of SkinStudio version 6. SkinStudio is a program designed to allow users to create their own skins that, when applied by the popular GUI changing program, WindowBlinds, can completely alter the look & feel of Microsoft Windows.
With SkinStudio, users design their own title bars, push buttons, Start bars, scroll bars, and virtually every other part of the Windows interface. Users then take their creations and save them as a WindowBlinds skin which will work on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista.
SkinStudio lets users create completely new looks and feels (Zelda skin property of Nintendo who used SkinStudio / WindowBlinds to create a Legend of Zelda branded desktop)
The Evolution of SkinStudio
SkinStudio 1.0 was released back in 2000 and was designed with WindowBlinds 1.x in mind. Since then, two major new versions of Microsoft Windows have been released (Windows XP and Windows Vista) and the capabilities of Stardock WindowBlinds have also expanded. SkinStudio has been continually updated to keep up with all these changes but its design became difficult to use. For SkinStudio 6, Stardock went back to the drawing board and created a brand new version of SkinStudio.
SkinStudio 5 (left) and the new SkinStudio 6 (right)
A Guided Tour of SkinStudio 6
The primary goal of SkinStudio 6 is to make it easy for artists to get into skinning. The existing SkinStudio (version 5) was an extremely powerful, capable program for users who already know how to make WindowBlinds skins. But for new skinners, it was daunting. SkinStudio 6 changes this.
Moreover, combined with changes in the upcoming WindowBlinds 6, skinners no longer have to worry about skinning every part of the OS. In previous versions, if a user didn't provide graphics for a part of the skin, that part was shown as "Windows classic" which looks downright primitive. Now, SkinStudio 6 will fill in either Aero (on Vista) or Luna (on Windows XP). This allows new skinners to worry about changing just the parts they want and grow from there as they gain expertise.
First Impressions
When you first load SkinStudio 6 you get this dialog:
SkinStudio will change its experience for the user based on experience level
Once that question is answered, the UI gets even simpler:
The only two realistic options -- opening an existing skin or creating a new one. The entire philosophy in the design of SkinStudio 6 has revolved around only showing what is needed rather than bombarding the user with hundreds of options.
Making a new skin
When a skinner chooses to make a new skin, they're presented with an Aero-like UI (in the beta, it's Diamond) to start with. On Windows XP, they start out with Luna (the Windows XP style). Skinners can change as much or as little as they want.
The design of SkinStudio 6 is task oriented. When people look at the Windows user interface, they tend to think of it in pieces -- the Start bar, the Window frames, the buttons, etc. SkinStudio 6 takes this route to break skinning up into manageable chunks. Want to just change the Start button? No problem. Click on Start menu and Taskbar, then click on the horizontal (or vertical) taskbar option:
Editing the taskbar of Windows is a snap. Click on the taskbar option
Then click on the part you would like to change
I have set Photoshop as my editing choice from the preferences menu. Since I have no artistic abilities, I'm going to just turn my start button into a blurred orb:
Quickie change to start button
All I did is do a Photoshop blur to it. But I could have just as easily replaced it with a new image or created an entirely new start button. SkinStudio 6 automatically converts images between PNG and TGA for ease of editing.
Control over the details
The key thing here is that skinners have full power over how much or how little they want to skin. And the various parts of the UI are designed to make it self explanatory over what is being skinned:
Users can easily go through and alter hundreds of details of the look and feel of Windows at their leisure.
Packaging and using
At any time, users can go to the file menu and apply the skin they're working on. No need to go and save and then go into WindowBlinds to load. As long as WindowBlinds is already on the system, the user can simply apply right then and there. If users want to share their skin, they can export it as a WindowBlinds archive file (.WBA) to give to other users.
Getting SkinStudio
SkinStudio 6 will be a free download once it is done. But it is available to users of Object Desktop right now. Visit www.objectdesktop.com to get Object Desktop and access to both SkinStudio 6 and WindowBlinds 6.
WindowBlinds 6 Beta Preview Video
Video demo on Windows Vista
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 by Island Dog | Discussion: WindowBlinds
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.
An Interview with vStyler
Tuesday, August 7, 2007 by Zoomba | Discussion: Virtual Communities
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!!
This Week in Skinning - August 3rd
Skin Roundup for 8-3-07
Friday, August 3, 2007 by Island Dog | Discussion: Community
In case you missed it, I posted this months edition of "This Month in Dreams" where I feature some of the best .dreams submitted throughout the past month.
Now for this weeks picks!
Tentacular for CursorXP This is a very cool cursor for CursorXP with some fantastic animations. Very nice. |
Prototype 02 for CursorXP This is the week of some great cursor submissions, and J. Aroche comes through again with another great set. |
Plastique in ObjectDock Icons I noticed these icons in the "what are you working on" thread, and couldn't wait for their release. Definitely worth the wait. Great work. |
Quasimodo in Wallpapers Can't really describe it, but it's a great wallpaper so check it out. Great job. |
Onix in WindowBlinds SKoriginals brings us an update to an old skin which had been "lost" for several years. SK brings this skin back with an updated look but staying true to the original. |
This is a clean and functional skin for Xion. Be sure to download this one. |
This week was definitely a big improvement over the slow couple of weeks we have had recently. Be sure to check out the skinners galleries here on WinCustomize for more of their great works. See you next week!
Animated Wallpapers: This Month in Dreams - July '07
July '07 edition of featured animated wallpapers
Wednesday, August 1, 2007 by Island Dog | Discussion: Animated Wallpapers
I can't believe summer is just flying by. I almost forgot August was approaching, and that it's time for this months edition of "This Month in Dreams". This monthly feature highlights some of the best .dreams that were submitted to WinCustomize during the past month.
How many of you are currently working on Dreams you plan to release soon? Just as any other works in progress go, feel free to post your works in the "what are you working on thread" on the forums if you would to give members a sneak peek of what you are working on.
Now for this months .dreams video!
The .dreams features in this months video can be downloaded from the links below. To use .dreams you will need Vista Ultimate, DreamScene, and Stardock DeskScapes to be installed. You can find more information at Dream.WinCustomize.Com.
Reflect (Blue) by JuiceDaddy
Earth To Saturn by AzDude
Super Mario Bros 3 by goyney
Caustic Motion by JuiceDaddy
Electric Vista - Yellow by AzDude
Poubel Sunset by brenopoubel
This Week in Skinning - July 27th
Skin Roundup for 7-27-07
Friday, July 27, 2007 by Island Dog | Discussion: Community
I can't believe its almost August. Where is the time going these days? Well anyways, it's Friday, so you know what today is, right? Yes, it's time for the ever popular "This Week in Skinning" where I features some of the most popular skins from our great community.
It looks like this week is a bit slower than others in recent weeks, but I know several skinners to have some really cool stuff in the works. The SkinStudio 6 beta should be arriving soon, and I think we will see some great activity come out of that.
Now for the picks!
Sport Strip for DesktopX This Master Skin from RomanDa should definitely appeal to the sports fans. This gadget shows the live scores from various sports games, updated every few minutes. Check this one out. |
Earth To Saturn in Dreams AzDude has shared another .dream with us, this time it's a space journey from Earth to Saturn. Great work. |
Pale Moonlight for RightClick Last week I featured another one of buzzh58's RightClick skins, and he comes through again this week with another great submission. |
Skinner´s World RSS Reader in Screensavers Want to keep up with the latest news from the skinning community? This screensaver will give you the latest RSS feeds from the various skinning communities. Nice work. |
Metal Vista 3.0 in WindowBlinds This is a very clean skin with a slick metal look to it. Be sure to download this one. |
Rusty for Xion We have been checking this out in the "what are you working on thread", and this very cool Xion skin is here. Great work. |
Great works from all the skinners this week, and be sure to leave a comment on their skins and check out their other works. See you next week!
ObjectDock: Creating a Dock as a Drawer
Video Demo
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 by Island Dog | Discussion: ObjectDock
I recently wrote about the "Top 3 ways to use ObjectDock", which I showed some of my favorite setups for ObjectDock including a docket dock, drawers, and a minimal configuration.
I noticed this morning that a few people had questions on how exactly to configure ObjectDock into drawers, so I made a quick video showing how to do this. It's quite simple, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Developer Interview Series: Cliff Cawley of Xion
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 by Zoomba | Discussion: OS Customization
Here at WinCustomize we talk a lot about skinning in general, be it how to best skin some UI element, what the best skinnable web browser is, or to chat about the fantastic work done by many of the artists in our community. One thing that we don't talk a lot about are the names and faces behind the tools and applications we use.
To that end, we're kicking off a new feature today, the Developer Interview Series. The idea is to sit down with the main developers behind some of the most popular skinning/skinnable applications out there and pick their brain in a general sense, getting an idea of why/how they do it, some of their background and where they think they'll be taking things in the future. It's not really an attempt to answer technical questions, because support forums are better for that, but more to get an idea of who the people are behind the scenes. We give a lot of attention to the artists who create the skins, but we should also take the time to shine the spotlight on the people who make skinning possible in the first place.
Our first interview in the series is with Cliff Cawley, lead developer behind the Xion Media Player, a skinnable media player that makes it as easy as possible to create a skin by letting you directly import Adobe Photoshop files (PSD) into the application. Instead of creating the image elements separately and then combining them in another application, you just need to layout your elements in layers and arrange them as you'd like. So instead of skinning the application, it's more like doing the first design mock-up.
Last week, I sent Cliff a set of questions about Xion, himself, and skinning in general. Read on for his answers.
If you have a specific developer you'd like us to interview, or if you are a developer of skinning/skinnable applications yourself and would like to be a part of the interview series, email me at mikec AT stardock DOT com with the mail subject "Developer Interview Series".
[WinCustomize] First off, I’d like to say thanks for taking the time to do this. Would you like to briefly introduce yourself before we begin?
[Cliff Cawley] Thanks Mike, this is the first interview I've done and I feel very honored to be interviewed by WinCustomize.com.
My name is Cliff Cawley and I'm the Developer of Xion Audio Player. I'm 26 years old and live in Queensland, Australia. I've been writing software for about 12 years now. I develop Xion in my spare time and work at a Computer games company to earn a living.
I also run r2 Studios (http://www.r2.com.au/) in my spare time where I provide quality software for a great price (free!). It hosts two of my other popular applications, Tonic and Startup Delayer.
[WC] Why a skinnable media player? WinAmp and Windows Media Player already do the skinning thing, and it's been done for quite a while now. What made you decide to do a new media player?
[CC] Music is a big part of my life. I listen to it whenever I can and it helps me power through my day. I used to use WinAmp , and even made some skins for it back when skinning was first discovered. Over time I found that it didn't always suit my needs and I noticed that it got more and more bloated. I was especially put off when they added a Web Browser. I wanted to make a player where the user could decide if they wanted a Web Browser or even a skinned interface in the first place.
[WC] You took a very interesting approach to skinning, using Photoshop layers to separate out the elements, basically making it as easy as possible to create a skin. Many skinners in the community have had heavy praise for this approach. How did you come up with the idea?
[CC] I was initially going to do some sort of slicing of images and perhaps even a script file, however after trying for the 20th time to get one of my artist friends to understand what he had to do to create a skin, I gave up on that approach and asked him what he uses and what would be easiest for him. He looked at me and said, "Photoshop". He didn't want to learn another tool, he just wanted to use Photoshop. He's always been a good point of reference for Interface Design as he comes from a Mac background and enjoys their clean and easy to understand UI. I came away from that trying to figure out how I could provide a similar experience for skins and for the UI in Xion. I didn't want artists to have to jump through hoops or find programmers to make their skins come alive.
I was aware at the time that Sonique used PSD files, however they used a scripting system to power the skins. After some more thoughts, I came up with the idea of using keywords in the layer names to represent the function of the layer. That way you didn't need a separate file to tell the skin how to function. Keywords were a simple, yet powerful way to describe the skin.
[WC] I'm guessing you're a fan of UI customization. How tweaked out is your desktop right now? ( Can we get a Screenshot?)
[CC] Haha, a couple of years ago I was all into customizing my UI. Ieven made several WindowBlinds skins. I then tried some of the shell replacements. However, due to my slow PC, I found that it slowed me down too much. I ended up reverting to the Windows Classic look. These days I have the simple Royale XP skin. When I get some more time to relax, I'd love to customize the whole UI again.
Cliff's current desktop, and a look at building Xion |
[WC] How difficult was it to write the skinning portion of the audio player? What was the single hardest aspect in getting the whole thing to work right?
[CC] The skinning engine was very time consuming. I built the PSD reader by browsing the Photoshop 6.0 File format documentation as well as a lot of hex editing and stepping through while I loaded the PSD file. After I was able to load the individual layers from the PSD file, I verified that the loader had worked, by dumping the data back out to RAW files and reading them back into Photoshop. Thereafter I built the rendering side. It was very rewarding to see a skin load up into the prototype code I had built. I think the first functionality I added was 'Stop' and 'Play'.
[WC] What Xion skin are you running on your PC right now?
[CC] I currently use the Thin Default Skin. I use it when I'm busy coding so that I can see all of the code. I do have a lot of favorites though and occasionally switch to them when I need a change of scenery.
[WC]Have you ever built a skinnable application before Xion? Are you considering building other skinnable apps beyond media players?
[CC] I've built several skinnable applications, including Chat and Media Players. A lot of them were never released. I think you can still find a Media Player I wrote long before Xion. It was called 'SCAMPS'. It never quite made its way off the ground. I wrote it in Visual Basic and it included many utilities to help with making skins. I guess you could say it was Xion's predecessor. I've built many applications, some of which are available on my other website: http://www.r2.com.au/ (They are mostly not skinnable though)
I am considering using the technology I have developed for Xion in other applications in the future, however I currently have nothing in the works as I'm too busy with Xion
A snippet of BoXXi's Xion skin, Scope |
[CC] Very similar to the current build actually, just with less features and more bugs! The first public build was build 56. You can download it from:
http://xion.r2.com.au/download/xion_v1.0b56.exe
I had wanted Xion to be well received and so I only released when I was happy with the quality.
[WC] What's next? Xion is at version 1 at the moment, and sees periodic updates (some quite significant). Do you have anything special planned yet for version 2?
[CC] I haven't really given any thought to a 2.0. I have found that users can get confused with the strange version systems that developers use, hence the reason I now make the build number the dominant number. For now I will be simply increasing the build number for each build. It may always be known as version 1.0, just with a larger build number. I think I will only upgrade to 2.0 if I make a large change that breaks a lot of things!
Some special goodies that I have planned for upcoming versions are:
- Hardware accelerated rendering (At the moment it's all done in Software. I hope to use DirectDraw or some form of DirectX to accomplish this)
- Better Playlist and Library support
- Support for WinAmp/Sonique/WMP visualizations
- Component SDK (Currently in Beta)
- For a more complete list, check out the forums under the Feature Requests threads
[WC] What are some of your favorite skinning/skinnable applications?
[CC] Haha I know this may sound biased, but definitely Xion! A couple of years ago I was into WindowBlinds and WinAmp. The funny thing is, that once you start developing your own such application, you tend to not have much time left for even checking out the new skinnable applications, so I guess I'm a bit behind the times in that respect! (Behind the times, not old timer! )
BoXXi's iPhone Xion Skin |
[CC] Currently it is not available for developer license, however I've always wanted to make it available so that I can perhaps recoup some of the costs and time I've spent on it and others can benefit from the system I've developed.
[WC] It’s been a full year now for Xion, in that time how many downloads have you tracked?
[CC] Wow, has it been that long already? The downloads to this day are sitting at just under 94,000. The climb has been quite slow and steady until recent months where it has increased to almost 10,000 a month. It seems more and more people are discovering Xion
[WC] Right now Xion is completely free, I don’t even see a PayPal donation link on the page and only one or two Google ads on the entire site. In order to support continued development, will there ever be a premium version of Xion? We wouldn’t want to see you out on the streets after all.
[CC] That's correct. I actually originally released Xion as Shareware, however I received a lot of complaints and quite a few users insisted that Xion would never become large if people had to pay for it. It has taken me about 4 years in my spare time to develop it to where it is today and I hope that I can soon release a premium version that will help support me. It would be great to be able to work on Xion and my other applications as my full time job, instead of just in my spare time. I do have a PayPal donation set up on my r2 Studios website which you can find at http://www.r2.com.au/donate
I occasionally receive donations which help to pay for the Web hosting and Domain registration.
MysticSteel by REDstyler |
[CC]Keep those awesome skins coming everyone! Its really great to see the way that the Community are able to use the skinning engine in Xion. You've managed to twist it to do things that I hadn't really thought were possible! If you have any bugs/feature requests or general feedback, don't be shy, come and visit us at the Xion Forums: http://xion.r2.com.au/community/ and post away!
Thanks again to Cliff for taking time out of his busy schedule to chat with me. If you're interested in learning more about Xion, or want to snag a copy yourself to start playing with, here are some important links:
And of course, check out more of the great software Cliff has been working on by checking out r2 Studios.
Top 3 Ways to Use ObjectDock
My favorite ObjectDock setups
Monday, July 23, 2007 by Island Dog | Discussion: OS Customization
ObjectDock is pretty flexible, and there are more ways to use ObjectDock than just having it sit at the top or bottom of your screen. One of the big advantages of having ObjectDock is the ability to have multiple docks on your desktop along with the ability to have tabbed docks. With ObjectDock you can also "mix" docks, and by that I mean you can have a tabbed dock and a "zoomer" dock on the same desktop which allows for even more flexible setups.
I use ObjectDock on my desktop in a variety of ways, and I wanted to share 3 of my favorite ways to use ObjectDock.
Learn more about ObjectDock | Get ObjectDock for just $9.99
1) Having a docklet dock
I'm sure everyone knows what a docklet is, but for those who might not know, docklets are mini-applications that reside on your dock. There are a variety of docklets available, including docklets for weather, clocks, web searches and more.
One of my favorite ways to configure ObjectDock is to have one dock solely dedicated to nothing but docklets. I usually place this dock on the right or left side of the screen, and depending on what's going on in the rest of my desktop, I might set it to auto-hide. I will place all my favorite and most useful docklets in this dock, and leave my other docks for application shortcuts only.
2) Docks as drawers
Another cool feature of ObjectDock is the ability to set your tabbed docks as drawers. There are a variety of ways to configure your tabbed docks, but you can place several single tab docks on your desktop and have them extend out when hovered over them. It breaks away from the standard dock layout a bit, but still has the great functionality that we are all used to.
3) Go for minimalism
Sometimes I like to go real minimal with my desktop, and ObjectDock makes this possible and even better than other methods. For my ultimate minimalist desktop, I remove everything from the desktop except for ObjectDock, and if you don't want to see the dock you can set it to auto-hide.
The new start menu docklet gives me access to the Windows start menu, and I can choose to see any programs I have minimized in the taskbar. Pretty much everything I need access to I can do through ObjectDock, and it even has an option to hide the Windows taskbar.
I have listed my favorite ways I use ObjectDock, and I'd like to hear how you use it as well. Have you used any of these configuration I mentioned, or do you have a setup even better?
This Week in Skinning - July 20th
Skin Roundup for 7-20-07
Friday, July 20, 2007 by Island Dog | Discussion: Community
If you would like to see what some of the skinners are up to, or if you would to show off a project you might be working on, then head over to the forums and check out the "what are you working on" thread.
Now for this weeks picks!
Arileen in Bootskins A very clean and simple bootskin with a nice shade of color. Quentin also has a matching logon and wallpaper so be sure to visit his page to grab that as well.
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Lcars Computer net 5.5 in DesktopX Themes HG_Eliminator has updated the Lcars themes by Adam Solley. Lcars DX theme has been one of the most talked about over the years, and this is just something you have to download to experience. |
Caustic Motion in Dreams JuiceDaddy has been busy lately uploading .dreams, and it's great to see another person submitting. This is a really great, although the loop could definitely use some work, it's worth checking out. |
Office Glass for ObjectDock I'm always on the look out for Office icons, and this "glass" style is different and very well designed. Great work. |
Blue Glass for RightClick A really beautiful skin for RightClick to match buzzh58's DX Theme, but this skin would work with many desktops as well. Very nice. |
Catch the wave in Wallpapers Well it looks like a wave, but other than that I can't describe it. But that's common with me, so take my word for it and download this wallpaper. |
Odyssey Suite in WindowBlinds A great Master Skin from vStyler which features a great set of colors, and a clean, usable design. Check this one out. |
A great selection of works this week, and there are plenty more in the galleries, so be sure to browse to find more great submissions. Unfortunately, I can only feature a certain amount each week, so a big thanks to all the artists for their contributions this week. See you next week!