Woo hoo!  Another Friday and another weekend Impulse Sale!  We have a great mix of both games and software on sale this week, including a few that I especially recommend.

• Dawn of War – Dark Crusade $3.99 (normally $19.99)
• Titan Quest $3.99 (normally $14.99)
• Multiplicity Professional $13.99 (normally $49.95)
• Defender of the Crown $3.99 (normally $19.99)
• TweakVista $3.99 (normally $19.99)
• Genie Backup Manager Home 8 $37.48 (normally $49.98)
• Genie Backup Manager Pro $52.45 (normally $69.95)

Get more info and be sure to download Impulse by visiting www.impulsedriven.com.

The first edition of This Month in Dreams for 2009!  I’m very excited to get this one done, the only thing that didn’t get in was the new intro I wanted, but that will have to wait.  Maybe I should get one of our .dream creators to make one for me.

Now for this months video!

To use .dreams (animated wallpaper) you need to have Windows Vista or XP, and Stardock's DeskScapes installed.

The .dreams featured in this months video can be found at the links below.

Quick video demo of Fences in action.

Download at https://www.stardock.com/products/fences

If you have a Windows PC you should download this program. Seriously.

Before…

After…

Stardock’s new killer app: Fences. Download it, it’s free!

https://www.stardock.com/products/fences

Stardock is excited to announce its most innovative desktop utility application since the popular WindowBlinds today – Stardock Fences for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. The free application from Stardock clears desktop clutter and provides consistency and organization for groups of files on the desktop. Fences allows users to literally “draw” labeled shaded areas on the desktop which become movable & resizable “containers” for desktop icons. These groups arrange and hide the files on the computer's desktop solving the "constant mess" problem that has plagued the desktop since its inception.

To help solve another weak point of the desktop - the mere appearance of clutter, Fences offers a novel quick-hide feature. Users can double click the desktop and all of the icons will fade out. When users double click again the icons will return. Users can pick and choose which desktop icons hide when the feature is activated.

Visit the Fences website to see more screenshots and videos of Fences in action, and for your free download.

• https://www.stardock.com/products/fences/index.asp

After a lot of speculation over the last couple of months, we finally have confirmation on the Windows 7 SKU’s.  At first look, it looks like Windows 7 Professional will be the way to go.

Windows 7 Starter
Market: Emerging markets, with new PCs only
Key features: Enhanced taskbar, Jump Lists, Windows Media Player, Backup and Restore, Action Center, Device Stage, Play To, Fax and Scan, basic games
What's missing: Aero Glass, many Aero desktop enhancements, Windows Touch, Media Center, Live thumbnail previews, Home Group creation

Windows 7 Home Premium
Market: Mainstream retail market
Key features: Aero Glass, Aero Background, Windows Touch, Home Group creation, Media Center, DVD playback and authoring, premium games
What's missing: Domain join, Remote Desktop host, advanced backup, EFS, Mobility Center, Offline Folders

Windows 7 Professional (superset of Home)
Market: Mainstream retail market
Key features: Domain join, Remote Desktop host, location aware printing, EFS, Mobility Center, Presentation Mode, Offline Folders, Media Center
What's missing: BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, Direct Access, Branche Cache, MUI language packs, boot from VHD

Windows 7 Enterprise
Market: Volume-license business customers only
Key features: BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, Direct Access, Branche Cache, MUI language packs, boot from VHD
What's missing: Retail licensing

Windows 7 Ultimate
Market: Retail market, limited availability
Key features: BitLocker, BitLocker To Go, AppLocker, Direct Access, Branche Cache, MUI language packs, boot from VHD
What's missing: Volume licensing

Link: Neowin.net

If you were a Windows XP user you are probably familiar with the drab theme that was included.  Vista improved with the Aero look, but still didn’t offer much variety, and after a few weeks of usage, even Aero gets dull to look at.  The good news is you don’t have to settle for just one looks for Vista, as there are many Vista themes available to download and use. 

To use these Vista themes, you will first need to get WindowBlinds.  This is the absolute best way to change the Vista visual style to one of thousands that are available for download on sites such as WinCustomize.com.  WindowBlinds doesn’t hack or modify system files, so it’s completely safe to use.

Once installed, you have an easy to use interface to browse and apply the skins you download.  Other features are included such as changing the themes colors, adjusting blur and transparency, changing sidebar skins, and much more.

As mentioned before, there are literally thousands of Vista themes available for download.  Below are just a few examples of some of my favorite skins that look great on Windows Vista.

7 Plus	Plastic Fantastic

Aero Midnight	LED3: Dot Matrix

Today is about to extend the rough design to other parts.  Window borders and start panel play big role in a theme, so after the rough design of window borders is done, I choose to add the start panel in Atlas for this stage.

To keep functionality and simplicity, no textures are used here, but to make the plain panel more interesting, I added some highlight and a stripe in the top part of the panel.  And as I always do in the past, I use 2 different colors for the background of left/right hand side.  And for the log off/turn off area, a very dark blue is there to keep visually balance with the stripe in the top part of the panel.

Consistency should be considered at any time, and the whole panel has the same look & feel with the window, and for now, the basic tune is shown, the overall appearance has gradually been shown.

Great to get feedbacks from you guys, so if you have any problem to ask about the process, please be free to leave a comment and I will try to answer as possible as I can or we can discuss together

To see the post with all parts, please go the following post:

https://forums.wincustomize.com/338473

I’m running the BETA of Windows 7 and it’s been running so well that I’ve decided to make it my quasi-production machine.

Windows 7 is a massive usability upgrade from any previous version of Windows.  Much of the changes are just minor in terms of effort but just make the whole system feel a lot better designed.

For example, if I want look at my connected devices I see this:

Notice I don’t see a bunch of crap. I just see the stuff actually connected to the machine. It’s a very nice change from what has been in Windows before.

One of the purposes of this series of articles is to let you know what programs I have problems with, and which ones work right.

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll give you generalized reports on the progress of our software (Stardock’s) running on Windows 7 as well as highlighting cool little touches in Windows 7.

Now, for the purposes of making life hard on Stardock, I’m not just running a beta of Windows 7, I’m running a beta of Windows 7 64-bit.  By the time Windows 7 is released, all applicable Stardock software must run on this machine.

This post will be about the whole process of the building up the skin I called Atlas, the purpose is to show you the interesting and frustrating sides of windows theme design.  You can trace the progress and see many aspects of skin design being talked here as I will update frequently.

1. Concept

It's really hard to say where the inspiration comes from, sometimes it's 6 o'clock am on bed, sometimes it's when you see a certain texture and many other times, it's just an impulse.  For this example, my next skin Atlas, it is started from 3 keywords: Elegant, Functional and Bright.

Initially, I make a new PSD file and added a random background.  After that, drew the window borders and titlebar buttons, I always love to play around the borders and titlebar buttons before going deeper, so in the concept stage, no detailed elements will be added here.  The goal is to make myself want to touch the titlebar using my fingers, if failed, the concept will be dropped.  But here, I've done a simple window with only borders and titlebar buttons, a kinda good beginning for the project:

2. Start Panel

Today is about to extend the rough design to other parts.  Window borders and start panel play big role in a theme, so after the rough design of window borders is done, I choose to add the start panel in Atlas for this stage.

To keep functionality and simplicity, no textures are used here, but to make the plain panel more interesting, I added some highlight and a stripe in the top part of the panel.  And as I always do in the past, I use 2 different colors for the background of left/right hand side.  And for the log off/turn off area, a very dark blue is there to keep visually balance with the stripe in the top part of the panel.

Consistency should be considered at any time, and the whole panel has the same look & feel with the window, and for now, the basic tune is shown, the overall appearance has gradually been shown.

3. Taskbar

I've done the initial design of the window borders and start panel, what's next?  Sure it's taskbar.  Taskbar usually only takes less than 30 pixel height in the screen, but it has many parts to take care, and the taskbar buttons will have 6 different states (Normal, Hover, Pressed, Selected, Selected Hover an Flashing, see below for example).  We must carefully deal with these states, make them easy to reconginize and, of course, beautiful.

Taskbar Button in Slider XP by I.R. Brainiac

We have many ways to make each state looks different for others, colors, fonts, shapes and even animations.  Personally, as a user, I think the most important contrast should be applied between the normal and the selected state.  Talking about user, how can a skinner don't try more skins?  Use more, feel more and learn more, things always become different when seen in different views.  Go back to the taskbar, another one we should not forget is the flashing state.  In SkinStudio, it is saved as a single image, and doesn't have individual font settings.

The combination with light gray and dark blue has been applied as main tune in Atlas, so the taskbar I'm doing are still use this combination.  No detailed design for now so the start button is still temporary, and other parts like quick start buttons and tray arrows will be added later.

4. Mockup

So far the Atlas has already got her window borders, start panel and taskbar, very rough and only stay as a draft, but it's time to put it in action to see whether it's good.

To test it, I put them together like the real desktop, and added some text & icons to get the simulated desktop environment.  Also I made a set of push buttons, still not final one, just to confirm and overall color scheme, and initially decide which styles will be used for global hover state, pressed state, etc.

And one more important thing is to try different kinds of backgrounds for the skin.  Dark ones, light ones, simple ones and complicated ones, then adjust the skins, especially the edges, to make sure it look clear and standing out from all kinds of desktop wallpapers.  So, this is an critical stage to make the skin usable.  Shadows, edge colors and stroke width should be carefully re-touched and usually this needs pretty much patience cause we may have to try dozens of times.

Maybe let you down, but for mockup, I only stopped here, I usually wont start coding before every details are done.  Take Atlas as example, tomorrow I'll directly go into SkinStudio because I think the best way to make a better skins is designing while testing, and it also helps a lot to save time because if every single elements are designed it self, I don't need to slice them and re-arrange all the states to become one image.  But of course, the weakness is obvious, we can't get the full look before the skin is finally coded and to keep consistency for all the elements, we must put the final look in our mind and build up a certain visual guidelines only in brain.

5. Getting Start with SkinStudio

Just as I said before, the next stage is using SkinStudio to import the current graphics to our new skin.

Before that, we certainly need to create a new skin file.  But in most cases, I don't start a skin from scratch or the default skin, instead, I usually start by editing an existing skin.  Why?  Default skin has no latest features and if I choose a certain new skin as template, the time spent on setting up properties for new feature will be less.  Also, if I build the skin from my own old ones, I will have better control over the preset font/color settings since I'm familiar with them.

Looks like everything is ready for us, but it's only a very start for the skinning, especially the coding works.  There are more than one hundred bitmaps left to edit(even more for vista, lots more), so we can take a little break before really getting deeper in SkinStudio.

(To be continued...)