I know this is not your fault Neil but...

They obviously didn't take the time to update them properly.

I looked into it a bit further, the content margins for at least 3-4 skins, including Diamond and several Aero clones that I made for SD are set horribly wrong. They should all be set to 4 for top and 4 for  bottom for taskbutton, Rebar gripper, Quick launch and Tray Icons to make the taskbuttons appear correctly with small or large icons applied.

Additionally, the 'too thin' taskbar issue will only be seen only if no additional toolbars ie: Quick launch, links etc have been added to taskbar, things look normal if an extra toolbar has been added.

Also the reason the start button looks low on some skins is because whoever made the new 7 start buttons did not make two part buttons with the overlay included over the top of the taskbar, looks like they went the easy route and made one piece buttons which honestly look terrible.

I am amazed that the included skins in SD's flagship product are so terribly defective in Win 7 mode as big a deal as the new OS is.

As an aside , I think redesigning the buttons w\ masks as to keep the win 7 'glow' feature showing was a bad idea, Now for example, Aero Metal that had perfectly good matching metal taskbuttons now has buttons that 1. do not match, and 2. are not metallic looking, sorta defeats the purpose of loading up a Metal skin.

Hopefully someone who knows what their doing will give the included skins another look and a good fix.

BTW, Dani's, Corporate skin and Lasse's Altitude skin work.. as they should, great work on those skins you guys. Very nice.

I hear Ya Zu, and I definitely bought them for what they delivered in that moment, just curious.

No, the Startbutton is cut off also.

vStyler,

Thank you for bringing these issues to our attention!

We are working on having these skins tested thoroughly in Windows 7 as part of the overall ODNT 2010 testing.  All of these issues will be addressed before launch.

Kirk

Thanks for all the input.

The thing to remember is that Win7 is new and WB7 is still in beta and these skins can still be consided in beta at the moment too.

Feedback and bug reports are always appreciated; keep them coming.  It's the best way to make sure that on release we are delivering the best of the best, right?

Hello guys, good day.

After seeing this complains about the skins in "small icons" mode I decided to test things.

There's no need to get angry here thought. John, you're a great skinner but I believe you're mistaken in some of your complains up there, right now WB7 is in bata stage, so all WB7 skins shipping with it should be considered in beta state too. I got all skins mentioned here and test  and tried to tweak them all to investigate what could cause the reported issues.

The settings you suggested here are not right, they would make the taskbar look better when in small icons mode but will affect the taskbar when in default mode (I believe most people use the default look), the Windows 7 taskbar, by default have 40 pixels of height, using the suggested settings will make it too big. The small icons mode is a new feature on Windows 7 and right now what skinners can do is make it looks usable as possible without mess with the default look that most users use.

After loading the skins, I believe they look pretty good based in all controls we have.

Not really, all that you need to do is enable the setting "Use Vista style positioning" on SkinStudio (Start Button > Button > Extra Tab), this will center the button making them look like Windows's Aero. with Corporate, there's not a fix for now cause the start button design I made but I'll try to find a fix as soon as I click the "Post Reply" button.

Thanks for supporting my work, as some of the skins mentioned are mine. Way to go positive feedback.

Again thanks.

I tried and tweaked the skins myself in here to check the things I said here but I heard they where updated and may come out soon.

Here are some screens from the tests: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/416294/misc_37v43jxdl/tested_skins_435sgf15sakj.png

Take care,

danilloOc

Dan they don't look like that on mine at all or on IR's PC. We checked all the skins over about 4 hours.

At least 4 skins have non aligned tray icons and 24 pixel high taskbars at small icon setting,  which is incorrect.

 Sounds like maybe you have a taskbar toolbar like links, quick launch etc applied to your taskbar, the problem only exists on a clean taskbar.

Going to 7 to post some screens.

John: As I said @ #131, I tweaked the skins myself and I also heard they where updated  and may "come out" in a update.

My point was that the problem sollution wasn't what you point, was a sinple setting to set on SkinStudio.

"Enable the setting "Use Vista style positioning" on SkinStudio (Start Button > Button > Extra Tab), this will center the button making them look like Windows's Aero."

John and Dani are both right.

Vista settings WILL result in an oversized superbar and need to be reduced...which results in a skinny small icon taskbar.

If the quicklaunch buttons are not altered from vista,the taskbar will display as normal as long as there is some toolbar on the taskbar.

Take away the toolbar and the skinny taskbar will collapse by about 6 pixels.So either substyle a skinny fix or allow the superbar to grow slightly and compensate all content margins to allow a middle ground for both sizes.(dont forget the systray)

You may have to make new graphics for some elements to get the best result.(my eco skin does both big and little...43 superbar,27 skinny bar)

and now back to XP...heheehhe

Using 4' in margins is incorrect... like u said, it results in a too tall large icon taskbar.. BUT... several skins are incorrectly margined when small icons are used.

this is just one of them. Again this is only an issue on a default taskbar, if a taskbar toolbar is added it bumps the bar to correct size.

The buttons also look bad imo...certainly not metallic anymore.

Basically, it looks like two sets of margins need to be implemented into SKS \ WB that change when different sized taskbars are used. It is naive to think that plenty folks wont be using the slim bar so this def. needs to be addressed,

As far as supporting your work Dan, I always have and always will, As you can see I complimented you at the end of the last post. Absolutely no offense was intended.

Additionally, weve tested Aero and it margins the taskbar and icons correctly using both sized taskbars 30 px small taskbar and 40 px large taskbar. SMall or big, everything is perfect.

Also when doubling either sized taskbar both Aero and WB add 2 extra pixel to the center of taskbar growing each one by 2 pixels.

EG; large taskbar doubled in Aero = 82 pixels. small taskbar doubled in Aero = 62 pixels.

Corporate skin large taskbar doubled in WB = 86 (normal size 42px)

The reason we believe this happns is to provide a vertical 2px spacer between vertically stacked buttons on a double taskbar as the buttons in Aero span the entire height of the bar and would be jammed up, touching each other if the extra pixels were not added.

that means that taskbars designed for buttons that line up in a track or something will not line up correctly as you double the taskbar.

Soooo... umm.. bump.. I guess.. 

I think as well xp users have a set of good apps to use now so the updates are fair that they are directed more towards win7/vista peps who still say about xp have a lot of good stuff to use I think

"."

After some tests I found a fiz for the toolbar adding hwight to the taskbar when in "Use small Icons" mode,

1 - Follow what I said in the post #131 "Not really, all that you need to do is enable the setting "Use Vista style positioning" on SkinStudio (Start Button > Button > Extra Tab), this will center the button making them look like Windows's Aero."

2 - Set the QuickLaunch buttons text margins like this:

Top: 0

Bottom: 0

Left: 0

Right: 0

Important: to see changes when in "Use small Icons" mode you'll need to disable it, going back to regular size and then going to the "Use small Icons" again.

I also passed the icon to the people who is updating the skin.

Regards,

Dani

Windows 7 can be made to custoize well this screenshot

http://expressit.deviantart.com/art/Q4-W7-139893206

shows W7x64 using BOTH ObjectBar and RightClick to achieve a different feel.

It is really only, in terms of those two apps at any rate, minor tweaks that are needed, I would imagine to get rid of what are only small incompatabilities with the operating systems used today.

It would be a real loss if great apps like these where not brought up to par or if there potential replacments did not offer at least what these do.