Nein das dauert noch etwas.
Ich könnte ein substyle einrichten, wenn ich wüsste wie das geht  - bis jetzt weiss ich noch nicht wie das geht.
Ein angenehmes WE wünsche ich Dir auch.
 

Rolo, i have sent the wb back to you with new changes, and as i explained in my email, if you have a wbskin with the same name in windowblinds, please delete that before applying the wba file i sent you.

 

now for the list of problems i found with your skin.

1. the allprogs background was not the same width as the programs list (it has to be the same width), so i recut all the frames again so

they would be all the correct sizes ect. cutting images correctly for the startmenu is VERY important.

2.your painting margins were totally wrong for most of the parts, why you chose to make just about everything negative 7000 on the left

side is beyond me, lol, please study the new painting margins i have applied to your skin.

3. in the extra settings, you put the height and width of all parts in the wrong place, you had them in the xp section, since your skinning

for windows 7 they have to go in the windows7/vista area for width and height.

4. you had not set the png settings, i set them all to semi transparent.

5. the item mouse over had the box checked for vertical images, i unchecked it.

6. i have added a search bottom and search top mode in your skin, so when you do search, the startmenu dosent jut out of alignment.

7. I also adjusted the allprogramsbackground text settings so it works correctly.

8. for user pane text, i noticed you had the margins set in such a manner so the text couldnt be seen, an easier way

to get around this is to make a new text and set it to the size of '1' that way its virtually invisible, especially if its colour

is the same as the background it happens to be sitting on. (for example if its sitting on a copper pipe, make the colour of the font copper, ect)

 

BUT your main issue, and i said this from the start is the png gap between the pipe and the blue solid colour of the startmenu.

the reason why you are having issues with your 'worst enemy' issue is because windowblinds cant recreate that image over the png gap and

thats why its acting the way it is. 

my advice would be to redesign the startmenu on the left hand side so it does not have that png gap. i know its a pain in the but, but sometimes, as most of us have learnt the hard way is that sometimes you just have to skin around issues to make it work properly.

in other words.......changing your design to suit skinstudio. as some issues cant be fixed unless the design is changed.

another tip i would advise, is name the skin parts correctly. it may be cute to name the sp_item "the one that bites grrrr" as you did lol

BUT it makes it very hard for someone else to help you with the blind when they are looking for a specific file name and cant find it.

on a lighter note, i found your startmenu button animation very nice!

First i want to thank you for looking over my mess ^^

I apllied your skin to see the results.
And like always i try to replicate what you have done.
The only BAD thing is that i dont get a chance to do so step by step.
You said you had to recut the parts for Startmenu.
I tryd to make a copy of the files Top places all programs program list bottom and sear top search bottom.
But skinstudio just shows me the middelfinger when i press save. It just wont make a copy. ( Make copy of file ) I tried restarting my whole computer but it ddnt change anything.i cant make a copy of any file from the skin you send me.its like it has a special protection.
For me its a miracle that you have almost every margin set to 0.
I tryd to follow your moves with an old backup of Liberte and when i do the same thing with the margins (exact same values) my skin looks like crushed glas.
It doesnt even look close to fitting.Changed the width and height to my picture size again of course
May i ask with what program you made the cuts for the startmenu ? Honestly i cant think of anything diffrent whats causing this. i changed the width and height for windows 7 aswell same result.
I simply cant replicate the changes that you have done.

I will try to get as far as you did if i cant i will never understand this margin hell...

 

User pane text ? - cant even locate that - i dont know where to find it or where thats hidden. If i did changes to that i was lucky that i found it LOL






yeah sorry for the file names... *shamefullface

Edit: I just overviewed my old wba_backup
And i think i found my mistake... im unsure if it has to do with my margin problem but... here is what i expect that happend.
While cutting the startmenu into pieces i used the basic method -( cut-new dokument- paste )  file-save as- png.Interlace none
While doing that photoshop cuts of some pixels and sizes it to perfect fit ( to keep it short the left frame ( white pipe addon is wider than allprogramms and bottom)
therefore there is a gap of 5-9 pixels.On each piece.while doing that everything is out of bounce from start.
to the top part just fixed it according to the same size as the bottom part and it fits perfectly to the bottom part without inserting any value under margins.
I cant fix everything right now since i have to keep working on some puppets in zbrush.
But tonight i will let you know if this solved everything or if i did not. I never expected that the mistake would been made in the cutting process...but i guess failure is always an option ^^
Anyway i realy liked your changes but for allprograms and mouse over i liked my style better - no offense i just like the white background maybee because im used to it.
I honestly appreciate your help your a great teacher i would give you a big hug if i could
(PS: the gap your talking about ---under search all programs , i will try to trick that out.I hope it will work i will use a slightly visable color and make it transparent so it is barely visable to the eye.Since i dont want to change the look of the startmenu anymore at all.I realy hope it will work if not i will leave it that way until i found a nice solution.

Ok i just cutted everything again.
now importet it all to skinstudio
I feel so dumb, my problem was in the cut...
Now i have everything lined up  finall and now the margins start to make sense

PS: I also managed to make the searchmode functional

Now i have to figure out why the icons on taskbar ^ Photoshop for example have diffrent color when i right click on them than before.(The pop up info)
Also i would like to ask if it is possible to get a smoother gradient if i make it as second layer- that would save me the trouble with the margins for the pipe pieces.
this way i have will have overstreched pipes the endings on both sides ( blocks ) or when imargin them i will have a not so good looking gradient effect.

i use serif photoplus for cutting, simply because its very acurate, and a calulator (hehehe) to do the maths.

glad you finally realized that its the cutting of the pieces that CAN screw up the whole startmenu.

user pane text is found here: editstartmenu/top part/ text tab.

for that white search field, go to editstartmenu/search top mode / text tab. adjust the right text backwards 10 at a time, apply ,and see the result

until you are happy.

margins on the pipe pieces have nothing to do with a second layer, its the design of the skin and only painting margins or redesign will fix that,

even though i thought the pipe pieces looked fine.

 

how the hell did you get that search mode functional?? very interested to know this.....

I read it twice and I'm still confused. I'll leave the WB's to you guys. That thing scares me silly. lol

BTW... I'm liking the way its turning out Roloccolor. You do good work, for a noob. (noob means beginner, just in case you didn't know that). Rock on Dude!

yeah i know im still in the rookie phase of skinning but with each problem i learn  You should try it also its fun.
If i didnt had the cutting mistake i would have saved some days it really screwed everything up.
I fixed the white searchfield popup with placeslist text margins.
@ Vampothica - fixed it with setting the margins on left for the allprograms button so that it covered the gap beetween the pipe and the blue solid...of course after i re-cut everything...it couldnt work with the cuts i had made.
Sorry long nerdy text:
added about 5 pixels to the left side of program list + allprogramms + top

to get the exact same size for left.

xample if the top is 453x130 the bottom part which is 476x130 size will be cut off.
Top part width ( for me it is setting the whole size of the startmenu )

to get everything the same size ( right and left ) i had to substract the program list (243x228) from the top ...example top (476x130 width equal to Bottom)
476 minus 243 = 233
233 is the width for my places list so that it matches perfectly.
Now that i had every size correctly set all i had to do was set the margins.
Added the Seachtop searchbottom and setted the margins for allprograms like so:

Roloccolor - if you don't like the way the pipes are stretching, you could do one of 2 things: You could make the pipes as a glyph, OR you could make the pipes as a single-frame startmenu animation.  If you make the pipes as a single frame startmenu animation, the image would be applied on top of the menu, and wouldn't stretch.

@ k10w3 - I will defenetly try that, i just finished all the taskbar explorer frames.And im pretty pleased so far ^^
I just hope poeple wont mind that iam not going to skin everything...since i realy love some parts of the diamond skin.
I worrie a bit that iam not allowed to upload the skin like this ( since the other parts i didnt lay hand on will remain stardock diamond).
So i wonder do i have to write a email to stardock to get a permission ?


As soon as im finished tweaking some margins, i will start a substyle where i will replace the black skin parts with a bright silver color.
Coloring this skin is nearly impossible so i have to add at least one bright style.
This should take me a little bit more time and while doing that i will try to use layers for the pieces on startmenu.

Substyle Silver:

Made some changes to taskbar for the normal style and substyle_ i will keep the first with the blue clock addon inside the wba package so people can switch it on if they like.
I also contacted Stardock today and asked them if i get a permission now iam waiting and thinking about what i could change for a 2nd subsyte.

Its really turning out good. Keep up the good work.

you should skin everything rolo, people dont like downloading a skin with bits of diamond skin still in it.

people will download a skin because its different from either diamond or luna,thats why we make windowblinds....

you dont need to ask stardock for permission, but also on another note, if they dont think you have skinned enough

it wont even pass moderation.

my advice would be to skin everything your skin needs to be skinned.

Yeah thats what stardock said - ( wincustomize moderation will decied if its skinned enough ) But i wanted to show manners and ask them anyway.
I know that its not nice to take full credit on the skin if its not 100% skinned by yourself. But if i would have started skinning on the windows aero skin its would be the same and i would of course give credit to the skinner of the skin my skin is based on.

Sadly it would be useless for me to skin xp parts because i cant see what iam doing i tried setting up an virtual windows platform for that but it wont accept windowblinds to be launched on it. Therefore the skin will contain parts of the original skin base author.Which in my case is stardock design.

But i skin for windows 7 only so i dont know what i have to skin to be honest, i skinned per pixel frames i skinned drag bars i skinned startmenu completely i skinned progress bars, shell icons-( i dont even know where to take a look at them they dont appear in windows 7 but its skinned)-also control panel is something diffrent for me i think thats supposed to be the systempropertys window ? i never came across that tab in windows 7.)
Startbutton - Searchbars - Infopane and many more

- It would be highly appreciated if you could take a look at it again and tell me what is still open to be skinned.
Only if you find the time of course.

Im currently working on a second substyle.My ALL PARTS folder for this skin including photoshop documents and pngs reads about 250MB+ by now just to keep a backup of everything if someone is pointing out a finger and says hey that not your work.

About the skin Luna i never used it but i did a quick google search for it, is it the Windows XP basic skin ?

Its not my attempt to push this skin out fast as possible - im willing to do changes on it each day / and i really work on it every day.
Like for example shell icons have a normal size of 1120x840 made in ZBrush portet to PS scaled and so on.All i want is to make a nice compftable skin thats functional for the community. Im also using it since a week testing for problems.Switched to substyle 2 days ago to test it.
Here is an example that hopefully shows that i realy try, and dont do pixel work only in tiny sizes for this skin.
Shell-music icon unshrinked and witout background example rendered only once since it will be shrinked to 128x128 head mesh is not 100% correct but for a quicky it should do well in the size i need it :

and the final size :

But one part i know of that isnt skinned yet... ( Taskbar- running Task mouseover preview or rightclick popup ) of a running program under windows 7
I just dont know where to find that.

i didnt say skin for xp i said only skin all the parts you need for your skin which is obviously windows 7.

if your not sure what parts you need to skin, download k10w3's latest skin, curse of the full moon, that skin is for windows 7 only.

and its a good skin too.

ok just to give you a short update on this attempt im currently working on the 2nd substyle
Thank you Vampothika i will have a look  at the Fullmoonskin from k10w3 and see whats still open for skinning... at this time i would like to thank you again you´ve been a great help already and i didnt meen to offend you in any way in my last post if i did i appologize you know my english isnt that terrific but hey at least im trying...
I will skin everything and change the remaining pieces of windows 7 anyway i will give credit to Stardock Design in my skin...if they like it or not
The 2nd substyle will be a little bit diffrent since i will try a smooth gradient on it and i think it will be a real task for me to finish it ,already ran into trouble setting the sizes for it so everything fits.Buuuuuuut iam already proud to have what i have...Its way more fun to learn stuff on your own and figure it out and i think thats the best way to learn so i will stick to my past learning sequence just like i did in ZBrush.Once im thruw with everything and did 3-4 skins this will be a cakewalk... currently its still like sticky bubblegum.Anyway long talk short update. This is the start of the 2nd substyle hope you like it...

Looks good.

Thanks Uvah
I made a view changes since i didnt like the dirt look so much also i would have been quite limited in my options for taskbar and windowframes so i thought i do a bit more industrial theme as 2nd substyle fitting with the colors just a bit brighter i googled a bit and found some stuff but i didnt steal the things i found i spend one complete night to rebuild what i have seen from scratch.with some little modifications...( just if someone askes i have every step as photoshop dokument JUST in CASE.

Also i found a problem when i mouseover the program list in Startmenu my searchbottombar shows is there a walkaround for this or a second image field that i can use so it dont messes everything up ? i tried using left and right bottom list but they get streched to wide.Maybee its my bottom bar height causing this i really hope there is walkaround for this.
I also made a picture discribing my problem sorry for the huge sizes im a bit in a hurry i need to work again in some hours. So both pictures are quite ugly but its the best i could do in short time.

For some more inspiration you might want to check out a community project called ... um ... Oh jeez. I can't remember the name of it. Somebody help me out here. Something to do with construction.

Ich muss sagen, für dein 1. WB wirklich sehr gut. Bin gespannt was daraus wird aber ich bin da zuversichtlich. 

Thanks guys, Danke Onklifiziert,

Uvah i just came home i have everything i need so far, im also pretty much finished with everything its only tweaking colors and so on right now and do some small tiny sized buttons.

But i must say im really proud of my work so far and i hope that the time i invested into this skin will be noticeable. And i hope you folks will have as much fun with the skin as i had making it.Afterall its intended to be fun.
The lastly mentioned problem is still up and it seems that i cant fix it .Anyway i will leave it the way it is even if the searchbox is screwing everything up.
If i had the chance to just blend the searchbox out completely it would be the first thing i would do since i never use it and because i think it is pretty useless.

Anyway i will finish everything when i find the time, and then i will open the test phase.

well something is obviously not right with the searchbotombar, you didnt have that problem in the version i sent you, so its either in the wrong place or something. check it against the settings in the skin i sent back to you. the answer will be there.

"I would be pretty limited in the creativity of future skins"

Welcome to WB.

Well said.

@vampothika i took your advice and had a look at the old wba removed everything else and installed it opened skinstudio and replaced the bottom search with my gradient bottom search exact same sizes.
Its the same thing there.( I did the normal startmenu and added an extra search bottom picture with a diffrent style so that my gradient with the pictures inside and everything wont just get cut of when opening searchmode.But it seems that search bottom is used also when i hover over the programs history ( the programs that show on programlist with the little arrow infront )
It isnt that much of a problem it just looks not so pretty since my Gradient ( the blue window and the black stripes get cut off as soon as i enter something into the searchbox ) The gradient the shape of the startmenu stays intact.
Therefore i made a clean startmenu topsearch and made a diffrent startmenubottom image to prevent it from looking odd.
If there would be a second option for setting a searchbox exclusiv for the searchbar and one for the programlist i would be happy and had no problem .
But i already ( almost finished with the complete 2nd substyle ) so i will stick to a cut off gradient when using the searchbox if there is no workaround.
PS: I thought maybee its the hight of the bottom that is causing this but i just used 476x20 as bottom and bottom search with an equal result.