.wba isn't paint, actually - it's a zip file, but since it's called wba, WindowBlinds will install it - if you have it installed first.
GreenReaper
Gah. This new university cache holds on to pages for *far* too long. :-\
>>> *shivers*....... sounds like you guys are getting ready to play "Better Than Life"....... /me looks for the moat of green cheese . . .
Umm . . . that's not complete. About 2/3 of the pages come up as not found or "Coming soon".
You should see the forum replies. In fact, go to http://www.osopinion.com/cgi-bin/w3t4/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=talkbackforum&Number=26968&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5#Post26968 and have a look.
Dinks is a good skin. I think it would be well worth updating.
Peer rating is how good people think your work is. IIRC, they can only be given by people who are "special" in some way - usually because they're recognised skinners themselves. They're not always entirely accurate, but generally if your skin has 8 or more it's a good sign, whereas if it's 3 or less, it's bad (particularly since users don't see low-rated skins). If it's 1 you probably ripped your submission from someone else.
I don't use smartbuttons, yet. I don't use a vertical toolbar myself, either, but I always provide for it in my skins.
Or just get 3.19b and install that, if you are on ODNT. I just remembered 3.15 went out to registered users - if you're one of them, just reinstall from the file you donwloaded.
You must reinstall after upgrading. WindowBlinds works differently on XP and so installas a different DLL, so you can't use the XP one on 2k or vice versa. Either delete the package and redownload, or open the wb315b.cab.cmi file in your Object Desktop directory and change Status to =0 or uninstall, then reinstall.
You need WindowFX. It takes over menus and makes them semi-transparent. You can't get the effect with WindowBlinds alone - menus are always solid with it.
9x - crashes twice as fast as XP, and infinitely more often! Yes, *maybe* if you have say 64Mb of RAM it's a good idea to stick, or if you have expensive incompatible hardware. Other than that, no, I really couldn't recommend it. XP is simply miles ahead of 9x on stability grounds alone. And all the customization apps work a lot better without having to scrabble for GUI resources.
Probably the latest version of WindowBlinds. 3.15 and up appear to have a problem with MaxBorderCut on some skins. I think the coders are aware of the problem. A temporary fix *might* be to add SizeLimit=1 to your wb.ini in the Windows directory (I really have no idea if this will work or not, since I'm not getting this particular problem).
I like cheese . . .
It's cooking. Be patient.
WB 3.19a was incorrectly detecting NT as 9x. Try 3.19b.
Not when it's got bugs in. For MS to make .msstyles a supported format would have meant delaying the release of XP, because there simply were too many problems with it. Remember WB took a lot of time to get to version 3, and even now it has problems with some programs. MS has a lot more programmers, but some things just don't scale well, and compatability is their highest priority.
No, winstyles is a program - basically it's a way of packaging up links to a lot of skins so people can easily download, say, a BeOS style. Look at https://www.stardock.com/products/winstyles/download.html (or get it of OD, if you have an ODNT subscription). You also need to have the programs that the winstyles use, like WindowBlinds or ObjectBar.
If there are ads, it's not free. It's ad-supported. There's a difference, and that is that they are getting some return from their investment. If Trillian takes over, they're faced with having to provide servers for no reason. That's just stupid. They *are* within their rights, no matter how you look at it. I agree it's annoying, though.
They're different. WindowBlinds skins windows, DesktopX skins your desktop. The effect each of them has depends on what skins/themes you load, although I'd say DesktopX can probably use more memory than WB.
/me flips over to side B
Elfkura: irc.stardock.com:6667, #stardock or #wincustomize
Well, just look at the skin then. Open the skin's .xp file (or .UIS file if there is no .xp file) and look for [Taskbar.StartButton] - the Image attribute will have the filename of the start button image.