The MSStyle to WindowBlinds porter manifest.

[Darrian]

Wow, I go to bed and this thread blows up.

Adam, thanks for the ctrl+ hint, I didn't know about that one. Also thanks for the link to that tutorial, but if it doesn't recolor the same way that windowblinds does (e.g. if I have to recolor every element of the skin manually) then it'll end up being too much work. I'll have to mess with it an see for myself, now, won't I? Still, it's worth a shot if I really care that badly.

Athletic Trainer, learn to read, I already posted my specs in one of my posts, they're more than sufficient.

Brad, I'm going to load up the latest version of windowblinds right now, convert whatever skin I'm currently using to WB format with SkinStudio, and see how happy I am with it; perhaps I'll stick with WB for a while. You've been on the defensive for a while, and I understand that as a Stardock employee you're obligated to be, because many people have been attacking WB. I've simply stated that it doesn't suit my needs the way msstyles do, but the last time I tried it I had a quarter the RAM I do now, maybe it'll run better now.

Everyone else (engaged in the flame war), for frell's sake grow up. This is NOT a WB VS MSSTyles thread. If you don't have anything nice to say... well, you know the saying. There are a million such threads here on neowin. By now there's probably a "defininitive" thread somewhere. Go find them.

I still believe that SkinStudio should be able to create other skin formats such as Trillian and Winamp. Especially Trillian, since it was planned and still hasn't happened. If I weren't an OD user I'd even be willing to pay for a program that would do that, if it did it well. I think others would, too. The biggest problem in the Trillian community is that skins are extremely difficult to make unless you're very familiar with XML. A program that would aid in this as advanced as SkinStudio is would be a godsend.

[Crayon]

Rant : The thing i do hate (u might like it and you have full right to do so) the most abt wb themes is that they skin the toolbar buttons and the file menu in explorer and have them raised which really looks cluttered. And why don't WB authors have cleartype on while taking screenshots of themes .

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there is an option in WB that says make the toolbar flat or something, that will take away the raised look you are talkin about, and give it that msstyle feel.(for a lack of better way to describe it)

[Darrian]

I've loaded WindowBlinds, converted Luna Element (looks perfect, but it's not a very complex skin) and ran a few games more or less at random. Windows were skinned properly on UT2004, ePSXe, Guild Wars and Half-Life 2. JK3 (Jedi Academy) STILL has a classic window. I can live with this, for now, so I'll keep it for the time being. FYI I'm running WB 4.49a. No further bugs yet (Brad--if I run into any I'll pm you with a better description on what is happening and what I'm doing at the time).

[Danrarbc]

Actually, I would never port my themes over to windowblinds, stardock is a joke and I would never do anything that might help them screw over people or waste people's hard earned money. This comes from years of bull**** stardock has done thru the years, and it's never gonna happen. First of all the bull**** they speak is just that, bull****. Windowblinds is not faster then the windows theme system (talk bull**** all you want, but guess what, Microsoft created the theme system and NO COMPANY is going to implement the skinning faster then the very company whom has coded the theme system in the OS. The patch stardock keeps refering to is a signature patch, it allows a non microsoft signed theme to be applied. Nothing more.) By the way stardock, it would? be nice to tell everyone that WindowBlinds REMOVES the windows theming system and applies the classic win9x to entire system, then loads the windowblinds bloatware to even begin to apply the theme to the classic win9x windows. Thats cutting edge there, remove the theme system, fire up a bloated memory application, then apply the theme throughout the system, slow your system down just tad, have all theme ****ups show up as win9x looking garbage, and your all set...Wow impressive you ######...

it came out.

Microsoft made it, so it must be faster>

Microsft created explorer, but that doesn't mean bb4win, SharpE, Geoshell, and Litestep aren't faster less memory-intensive shells.

WindowBlinds REMOVES the windows theming system>

There is no Windows theming system. Both uxtheme and Windowblinds work in essentially the same way. Neither are applying classic and then overlaying it.

fire up a bloated memory application>

Here's a look at the memory usage of Antares. The most bloated animation-filled skin I can think of for Windowblinds.

It even uses less RAM than it's skin selector (the wbconfig you see there)

have all theme ****ups show up as win9x looking garbage>

This occurs in both msstyle and Windowblinds, unskinned objects show up as classic.

My whole point is, I would never port a damn thing over to windowblinds, I would never help your company and I am gladly waiting for longhorn to dwindle your company down and smile as you lose $$$.

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Hate to break it to you but Stardock stands to gain a lot with the release of Longhorn. All of those new features mean new possibilities for skinning.

Edited December 29, 2004 by Danrarbc641

[XanDaMan]

a couple of points i'm tired of mentioning, and won't bother explaining.

1. it's pathetic that Stardock needs to lure MSStyle users in to use their product. that's like Apple's 'Switch' campaign. "there's nothing you can't do on a Mac, that you can do on a PC" and "how can we make the competition look inferior in order for people to use our product?", by saying "i get it! let's steal our competition's userbase and include all their offered features!". (N) plus, you're fighting an invisible enemy. there is no commercial competition for Stardock, you're the only ones charging for something that is offered for free (yea, you and TGTSoft. hooray).

2. MSStyle>WB importing should require a license. if the author of an MSStyle skin doesn't want it to be used on WB, his artistic decision should be respected.

3. i'm happy with MSStyles: it skins everything i need it to (after all, who needs a skinned command prompt?!), and never fails to do its job (Outpost windows, some prompt windows on Java sites, some dialog boxes, etc. ALL failed to skin with various WB skins in version 4.3.. and by 'fail', i don't mean they missed some lines here and there, but everything had a freakin Win3.x look).. i don't need colorizing, i don't need to import MSStyles, and i definitelly don't need to pay for a more advanced version of uxtheme.

and please, don't tell me you still think WB takes up less resources than a patched uxtheme.dll system. that's just silly and misleading.

:)

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I'm not even using WB at the moment (but hopefully will be soon) and even I know thatsa croka****

I'll ignore point 1, thats just utter garbage anyway. Point 2 however is...idiotic?

I would never want DRM in a damn theme. And why would you care if they ported it to WB, you wouldn't know if they were keeping it to themselves, which is most likely.

I'll ignore point 3 as well :sleep: .

[msg43]

Ironically, the skin in that screenshot is made by Bant, one of the top msstyes authors.

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well then its not my style!

[#Michael]

Wow, I go to bed and this thread blows up.

Adam, thanks for the ctrl+ hint, I didn't know about that one.  Also thanks for the link to that tutorial, but if it doesn't recolor the same way that windowblinds does (e.g. if I have to recolor every element of the skin manually) then it'll end up being too much work.  I'll have to mess with it an see for myself, now, won't I?  Still, it's worth a shot if I really care that badly.

Athletic Trainer, learn to read, I already posted my specs in one of my posts, they're more than sufficient.

Brad, I'm going to load up the latest version of windowblinds right now, convert whatever skin I'm currently using to WB format with SkinStudio, and see how happy I am with it; perhaps I'll stick with WB for a while.  You've been on the defensive for a while, and I understand that as a Stardock employee you're obligated to be, because many people have been attacking WB.  I've simply stated that it doesn't suit my needs the way msstyles do, but the last time I tried it I had a quarter the RAM I do now, maybe it'll run better now.

Everyone else (engaged in the flame war), for frell's sake grow up.  This is NOT a WB VS MSSTyles thread.  If you don't have anything nice to say... well, you know the saying.  There are a million such threads here on neowin.  By now there's probably a "defininitive" thread somewhere.  Go find them.

I still believe that SkinStudio should be able to create other skin formats such as Trillian and Winamp.  Especially Trillian, since it was planned and still hasn't happened.  If I weren't an OD user I'd even be willing to pay for a program that would do that, if it did it well.  I think others would, too.  The biggest problem in the Trillian community is that skins are extremely difficult to make unless you're very familiar with XML.  A program that would aid in this as advanced as SkinStudio is would be a godsend.

585188815[/snapback]

I guess I did miss you computer specs. Oh well, threads like always turn into a flame war. It's the same damn story, who has the better product, msstyle or WB? The truth is it doesn't matter, it's personal perferance, all we are trying to do is promote an alternative to msstyles for those us that want more.

And if I insulted KoL or is themes, then I am truly sorry, for you are a skinner. I was using his skin as a comparison, nothing more. It actually impotered into skinstudio quite nicely.

Actually, I would never port my themes over to windowblinds, stardock is a joke and I would never do anything that might help them screw over people or waste people's hard earned money. This comes from years of bull**** stardock has done thru the years, and it's never gonna happen. First of all the bull**** they speak is just that, bull****. Windowblinds is not faster then the windows theme system (talk bull**** all you want, but guess what, Microsoft created the theme system and NO COMPANY is going to implement the skinning faster then the very company whom has coded the theme system in the OS. The patch stardock keeps refering to is a signature patch, it allows a non microsoft signed theme to be applied. Nothing more.) By the way stardock, it would be nice to tell everyone that WindowBlinds REMOVES the windows theming system and applies the classic win9x to entire system, then loads the windowblinds bloatware to even begin to apply the theme to the classic win9x windows. Thats cutting edge there, remove the theme system, fire up a bloated memory application, then apply the theme throughout the system, slow your system down just tad, have all theme ****ups show up as win9x looking garbage, and your all set...Wow impressive you ######...

Disclaimer: I hate stardock because they whine and bitch and moan and throw F.U.D around like no other company. I mean these people got all mad and bitched and started bull**** ona company whom never said anything bad towards them, hell they didnt even know or care who you were. Stardock was mad and crying because they got more press coverage when they decided to move Konfabulator over to windows because they got pushed out by Apple. They even put hateful and F.U.D on thier website because they were mad that the press was reporting Konfabulator for windows and got way more coverage then their serveral year old product did when it came out.

There was also the amazing time when StyleXP came out and they got all mad and ****ed because people were buying it instead of windowblinds. They got mad because here they had a product that was a big bloated piece of crap (at the time, windowblinds was horrible piece of junk that at any given moment would screw your system up to the point of reloading (trust me on this one, I know maybe 50 people whom had to reload during this time period. Not once also, when windowsblinds would crap out, boy did it crap out!!) And the reason they got mad? because StyleXP did it using the MS theming engine. Load the patch toallow the non microsoft theme to be applied, and your done. They went everywhere they could talking $hit, Skinz.org, deskmod, deviantart, everywhere, spouting bull and cry like little babies. The bottom line is stardock ony cares about the mighty $$$. Pay your money and then move back to the end of the line so they can **** on you and laugh about it. Lose your registration Key? Well, your almost done for, because they will just tell you to purchase again, get screwed over by the purchasing when the rules on upgrades where good and sane? well, your outta luck. They can change the rules at anytime, no matter what was said when you purchased, you will have to purchase again.

My whole point is, I would never port a damn thing over to windowblinds, I would never help your company and I am gladly waiting for longhorn to dwindle your company down and smile as you lose $$$.

Screw you Stardock and hope you all die a miserable deaths...

You need to step away from the computer and get out of the house a little more. It seems you are spending a bit too much time looking at your computer screen. And this has to be the stupid forum quote of the day and for it's only 9:40 am. :whistle:

Edited December 29, 2004 by AthleticTrainer1981

[MateoGWJ]

And your reasoning for that is why?

This thread is getting entirely out of hand.  It was supposed to be about the benefits of porting over msstyles to WB and then taking your skins to the next step.  I'm guessing that's not what people want.

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Well, you are putting something out there that most people just won't get. From the windowblinds side, this is a huge boon: you can get all the WB styles, plus all the styleXp generated styles. I don't know how you would use them all, maybe some sort of auto switcher, but that's not the point: that's alot of styles.

From the patched uxtheme crew, they see the whole thing as a way of coopting their work to sell WB. Right now, what they want to do is free, and there are alot of freeware or shareware alternatives to the rest of object desktop.

So its hard to see a win here.

Personally, I think Object Desktop is amazing, I just hate the idea of PAYING for skins after I buy the software. That seems a little "bait and switch" to me. I understand that people might want to get paid for their work, but saying "look at what you can do with our software" and then saying "Oh by the way..." not really cool.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Darin: I would definitely be interested in learning more about your WB experiences. At this point, any non-ideal behavior is a bug that we need to fix. I just need to know what it is and how to reproduce it.

Regarding the whole concept:

The more msstyles that exist, the more money companies like TGT Soft, Star Skin and Tune-Up (to name 3) make by selling software that mkaes it possible for people to run msstyles.

WindowBlinds could easily (less than 5 minutes) be able to "natively" run msstyles just like those programs. But we don't.

So there is obviously some reason why we would take a path that takes 2 years than the path that takes 5 minutes. And the reason for that path is to make it EASY for the skinners themselves to try out WindowBlinds.

Most of the top skin authors and top skins have *authorized* ports to WindowBlinds. It enables their work to get out to the widest possible audience.

The financial aspects of converting in this way as so tangential that I am just astounded that anyone would see it that way. Especially given that we're T-minus 3 years from the first payware msstyles enablers out here.

It is also worth mentioning that the free versions of WindowBlinds and SkinStudio support all this. So you don't have to "pay" for anything.

I don't think anyone should ever *have* to pay for a skin. That's one of the reasons we spend so much money on WinCustomize.com - so that users and skin authors have a reliable place to submit and use free skins.

[markus10018]

Now back on topic:

Luna Element has bugs after conversion (SS Free 4.4)

CodenameOpus has bugs after conversion (SS Free 4.4)

Both were converted with 'high quality' settings.

And now why I gave up on WB (registered user since version 1.x):

Screenshot of the original WB skin 'Triax' (latest version)

Note the dropdown button?

These are probably the glitches someone else above meant. They appear so often. And Stardock support does not listen. Instead they concentrate on new features.

[huskerpat]

after reading the first post in this thread, I got curious about WB and importing visual styles. I converted the vs and applied it. it looks great. the only issue I have is probably due to my own stupidity. I have a yz' toolbar theme for the explorer bar. I was able to apply this with themexp. I'm having trouble importing it with WB. I can use yz' toolbar, but it'd be nicer if I didn't have to.

[Pas]

here's triax on my machine with no mods. i'm not trying to argue. i'm only pointing out that the skin and wb are not at fault. that's not saying there is something wrong with your end. i just doubt very seriously if it's wb. :)

[Danrarbc]

http://home.comcast.net/~dapas/1c.jpg

here's triax on my machine with no mods. i'm not trying to argue. i'm only pointing out that the skin and wb are not at fault. that's not saying there is something wrong with your end. i just doubt very seriously if it's wb. :)

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I wonder if the German is affecting it :blink:

[leedogg]

Hey if it works this way then why not the other way? An open sourced Theming app should be made that can either port or utilize WB themes and utilize all the same features.

[#Michael]

Now back on topic:

Luna Element has bugs after conversion (SS Free 4.4)

CodenameOpus has bugs after conversion (SS Free 4.4)

Both were converted with 'high quality' settings.

And now why I gave up on WB (registered user since version 1.x):

http://mapi.gmxhome.de/Triax-Bug.jpg

Screenshot of the original WB skin 'Triax' (latest version)

Note the dropdown button?

These are probably the glitches someone else above meant. They appear so often. And Stardock support does not listen. Instead they concentrate on new features.

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I personally believe that is the german language that is messing up the skin, as I downloaded triax and applied it and it works fine.

XP Pro w/ SP 2, WB 4.4:

Now then as for codename opus, yes there are glitches when you port it over as it is an unfinished skin. b0se even said he was making a WB version of it at some point. But I took the time and ported it myself and tweaked it and here is what it looks like:

Edited December 29, 2004 by AthleticTrainer1981

[CaKeY]

Brad. Why on Earth would you want your company to be associated with hackers?

The reason WinCustomize currently does not have a .msstyles section is because of that issue: Can we condone the distribution of what is borderline pirated files?  It's the same reason why we don't include Boot screens that are patched files of the NT kernal (we only support .bootskin and had to write a freeware program just so that we could have boot screens here).  You can't just patch someone else's copyrighted stuff and pass it around.

http://www.wincustomize.com/Forums.aspx?Fo...AID=59442&p=1#0

[#Michael]

Brad.  Why on Earth would you want your company to be associated with hackers?

The reason WinCustomize currently does not have a .msstyles section is because of that issue: Can we condone the distribution of what is borderline pirated files?  It's the same reason why we don't include Boot screens that are patched files of the NT kernal (we only support .bootskin and had to write a freeware program just so that we could have boot screens here).  You can't just patch someone else's copyrighted stuff and pass it around.

http://www.wincustomize.com/Forums.aspx?Fo...AID=59442&p=1#0

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That's exactly why skinstudio was created. So nothing had to be hacked.

Someone over in that thread also said this which kind of explains it great also:

It's the hacking of the uxtheme.dll that violates the EULA. You could say that converting msstyles to WindowBlinds saves people from violating the EULA.

Edited December 30, 2004 by AthleticTrainer1981

[Frogboy Administrators]

That is a very interesting observation about German Windows vs English Windows.

I wonder why that would be different. That definitely warrants more investigation on our part and I think you for pointing this out.

Regarding msstyles in general:

People who make msstyles are NOT hackers. People want to make stuff that makes Windows look better. There's nothing wrong with that.

And as I said in that thread (which I notice wasn't quoted) is that I very much want to find a way to rationalize msstyles being on WinCustomize.com. But it's difficult because .msstyles ARE copyrighted files by Microsoft that modified by third parties using reshack or StyleBuilder typically but that just makes them derivatives of the original work.

What someone does on their own computer is their own business. It's their software. They paid for it. And while patching uxtheme.dll may violate MS's EULA, my *personal* opinion is - "So what?". It's my computer and I'll do whatever I want with it.

But it becomes a whole different ball game when you start DISTRIBUTING this stuff. And it's just one of those areas that I fear we'd one day have thrown back into our faces if we started distributing .msstyles.

[msg43]

I might consider using windowblinds if some of the good msstyles were ported by the authors and the bugs were fixed and also only if there was a version of windowblinds that would let you skin everything a msstyle can skin for free.

[#Michael]

I might consider using windowblinds if some of the good msstyles were ported by the authors and the bugs were fixed and also only if there was a version of windowblinds that would let you skin everything a msstyle can skin for free.

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There is a free version of windowblinds available.

[Ji@nBing]

There is a free version of windowblinds available.

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Yes, but it doesn't skin scrollbars. So it doesn't do everything msstyles does.

[Danrarbc]

Actually I do think that's a good idea. Don't skin one thing more than msstyles does (except non-theme aware apps, leave that capability in)

Have logoff/shutdown dialog skinning disabled, have toolbar button and progress animation disabled, everything like that. But the way it is now it skins fewer controls than msstyle would so it's not really a full look at the software.

And if you add transparent window border capabilities in teh future leave that out of a free version too.

[xVISHUx]

Windowsblinds is worth the money, all of Object Desktop is worth the money. The .msstyles to .wba converter works almost flawlessly for me. If there is any error, it's usually small enough that I, with my very limited SkinStudio knowledge can fix it. I used to be a WindowsBlinds hater just like a lot of you, but now I use both .msstyles and Windowsblinds. Windowsblinds skins everything, it also is quicker despite the contrary belief and the current Windowsblinds skin I'm using using also has the toolbar icons + animation and a bunch of extra features. It even has a roll up feature as well as a little arrow in the lower right hand corner that minimizes the current program to the system tray (very cool). The skin only takes up 1 MB on my computer, whereas Y'z Toolbar itself takes up 2-5 MB. This skin is accomplishing what .msstyles and Y'z Toolbar does in at least half the memory usage. Another neat thing is the fact that with WindowsBlinds, pretty much anything can be animated, just the number of frames has to be specified. This is awesome when little things like the min/max buttons are animated. With the effectiveness of the converter, I have been able to convert my favorite .msstyles and get the best of both worlds by adding animated effects, roll buttons, winamp controls, etc.

[markus10018]

That is a very interesting observation about German Windows vs English Windows.

I wonder why that would be different. That definitely warrants more investigation on our part and I think you for pointing this out.

Hey Brad, don't tell me Stardock is now listening to my bug reports? That has to be a first. I can forward you about 5 mails from the last 2 years at 'support at stardock.com' which have never been answered. The lack of support is something which made me stay away from Stardock products (last try was Natural Desktop).

[Frogboy Administrators]

Hey Brad, don't tell me Stardock is now listening to my bug reports? That has to be a first. I can forward you about 5 mails from the last 2 years at 'support at stardock.com' which have never been answered. The lack of support is something which made me stay away from Stardock products (last try was Natural Desktop).

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That is unfortunate to hear. Did you try the news groups or forum or IRC? I realize you shouldn't have to jump through hoops, just curious on that.

But yea, *I* would like to hear about it. bwardell@stardock.com.