Vista Skinning starts to reach its prime

By Frogboy
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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Grand Master

theyarecomingforyou

Posted
Posted

I think that what WindowBlinds does is great but I just had a look and there is not one skin that I think is up to the quality of the default Vista skin (or even close). It is the lack of decent skins that prevents me from using / buying WindowBlinds. If there were some minimalist skins based upon the default skin then that would appeal to me, much like LunaElement did for XP. It is disappointing that so many people are making skins and yet so few, if any, meet my expectations.

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Grand Master

raskren

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While it might be technically impressive, aesthetically I find it to be loud, garish, and in very poor taste.

If you had a computer interface expert and artist team up you might have a winning combination. After browsing the skins available on Wincustomize it is apparent that computer geeks are NOT human computer interface experts.

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Grand Master

#Michael

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Wow, once again you compare the program itself to what people create to use with the program. With the computers I use (from a home built to 2 dells to a thinkpad) I haven't had any problems with it. It all depends on what you tastes are for skins.

I prefer tasteful skins also and thats why vstyler/kol/etc.. hasve always been my favorites. Skins like sexy vista/vectra/harmony/luna element 5/thallos/and countless others are all in my ortating library.

You all are a bunch of immature brats who forget that stardock created the original uxtheme engine on XP. On vista, you can't do anything with .msstyles except modify a few bitmaps and pngs.

I use SKS6 right now and import some of my favorite msstyles into wb6 and they look great. If you have an ODNT subscription, try the latest version and see how you like it.

This is what my current desktop looks like on vista (The slightly old wb called eminence with some added transparency to my taste):

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x258/Te...ts/decdirty.jpg

I dare anyone to come up with an .msstyle on vista that can do that or make an XP msstyle that can integrate into the os like that and look as nice.

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Grand Master

gigapixels Veteran

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Maybe I'm blind, but I never saw Frogboy get even close to angry. He was simply curious as to the reasoning to not use WindowBlinds.

I used to be one of the ones that said, "No way, I'm not paying for that!" or, "No way, I'm not having some other program take up memory!" but once you look at the facts, WindowBlinds is a great solution and definitely worth the money. I will be purchasing it once I get some extra money to spend.

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Impact

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IMO, WindowBlinds is not worth the money. There are loads of great .msstyles out there that take up no extra memory, instead of wasting 20 something dollars on a program that takes up RAM, has horrible looking themes, and is from a company that I'm not at all impressed with.

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Boifido

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Posted
IMO, WindowBlinds is not worth the money. There are loads of great .msstyles out there that take up no extra memory, instead of wasting 20 something dollars on a program that takes up RAM, has horrible looking themes, and is from a company that I'm not at all impressed with.

Wow, somone is mad a stardock. I quite like object desktop.

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Grand Master

+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹

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:( why do threads to do with WindowBlinds always end up full of people who bash the program.

[back on topic]

I personally have the skin mentioned here, it was sent as a freebie when I purchased something else on the stardock site, and I have to say I'm impressed. The animated start menu is awesome (the lights across the top flash on and off and a snowman drops piece by piece to the right of the menu it looks really cool (no pun intended :p) something which just cannot be done in msstyles

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Impact

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Posted (edited)

^^^ (3 posts up) Glad you took the hint lol. It's not that I've bought something from them and had a bad experience, just everytime I use any of their software, it feels clunky and horrible.

Edited by Citrusleak
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Grand Master

Island Dog

Posted
Posted

I don't understand why people keep bringin up RAM and resource usage. It's not an issue anymore. Take a look at the latest review from Extremetech.com and see what they say about performance:

"We ran several
performance
1.gif
tests, both synthetic, gaming, and real-world encoding and rendering tests, with and without WindowBlinds 6 installed, and the results of each test were so close to identical that we're not even going to bother running charts. To do so would be an exercise in redundancy."

The quality of skins available is purely a personal choice. I personally don't find a basic .msstyle with flat images very appealing, but that is just my opinion. There are many awesome skins out there that I can assure you have no shortage of people downloading and using them, but once again, it all comes down to personal choice.

One of the points in this topic was how Vista skinning with WindowBlinds is producing some really cool skins, and by using the Winter Wonderland skin as an example, I can't wait to see what will be coming in the next year.

How long before we can import vista msstyles into windowblinds ?

Right now you can import XP .msstyles into WindowBlinds using SkinStudio 5 (free version). As far as Vista .msstyles goes I'm not sure if that will be an option anytime soon.

:)

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Steve Gosselin

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:( why do threads to do with WindowBlinds always end up full of people who bash the program.

+1, There are too many troll.

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Bant Veteran

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Looks pretty good Frogboy, well, the possibilities look good anyway. Never was one for winter themes. Probably gonna be pickin up Vista soon and I may have to give Skinstudio and WB another go...

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martin10018

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I use SKS6 right now and import some of my favorite msstyles into wb6 and they look great. If you have an ODNT subscription, try the latest version and see how you like it.

That is a nice feature but IMHO only useful on Vista since Vista can't use the original msstyle files. On XP only useful if you want to change and expand the msstyle.

This is what my current desktop looks like on vista (The slightly old wb called eminence with some added transparency to my taste):

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x258/Te...ts/decdirty.jpg

Eminence is one of the few very good WB skins but needs to be revamped for WB 6 on XP and Vista. And despite the special effects it could have been done as an msstyle.

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Grand Master

Bubbabyte

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If Bant is planning on skinning for WB, it may just turn out to be a great year for skinning. However, even though some people claim that there have been "many" great themes out there already are sadly mistaken.. vista skinning has been utter crap thus far. This is not stardocks fault, they have created a great application, however just uploading a skin to wincustomize and getting 1000 downloads from other people who have no taste does not make vista skinning great.

I am still to this day boggled as to how people can say that even 30% of the WB skins on wincustomize are good, or even usable.

The skinning community has pretty much died, because of lack of appreciation, lack of talent, and lack of need. Again, this is not a dig at stardock at all, i do support there product, but something needs to change as far as skinning goes before it can really become something that everyone needs and uses. Hire Bant.... Hire Kol... hire someone who can show people the possibilities of WB6 and still look great, rather then packaging WB6 with themes that look as though the skinners used MS paint.

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Grand Master

Ji@nBing

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Posted
I use SKS6 right now and import some of my favorite msstyles into wb6 and they look great. If you have an ODNT subscription, try the latest version and see how you like it.

I can't seem to find an option to import msstyles into SKS6?

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ZombieFly

Posted
Posted (edited)

whenever we have a windowblinds topic, it goes round and round in the same circles over and over.

so, we can agree that windowblinds 6 DOES NOT eat memory like older versions might have done, once.

we can agree that the potential for new, functional WB skins in Vista is now much higher thanks to the new skin studio...

so... stardock: Take the time to get some "pro" skinners on board, ditch the 90% of the aesthetically terrible, terrible, terrible legacy windowblinds skins (you know, the ones with pseudo metal edges and growths from the window borders to make them look "space age"). Lets see some high quality work along the lines of luna element, Recall 6.6 (xp msstyles) but taking advantage of the new Vista features. People are stuck with the stigma of the early versions of WB and need to be convinced to move forward. You've shown us the new features on the above example but you've again chosen a silly "toy" skin with christmas lights and snow all over it, I'm sure my mother will think it's great, but i think it's awful! :)

I'm going to try windowblinds 6 in Vista. I bet i'll struggle to find any themes to better Aero. Then i'll uninstall it, next year trying again and following the same pattern. Stardock need to start again on the marketing to attract more custom than 13-17yr old nerds who still think they are Neo from the Matrix.

Edited by ZombieFly
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Andre

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Someone should make a good Windows Classic w/ WDM for Vista. Default one is just awful with all the bevelled buttons and textboxes (Explorer for example).

And yes, there's one, but it's horrible.

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Grand Master

#Michael

Posted
Posted
If Bant is planning on skinning for WB, it may just turn out to be a great year for skinning. However, even though some people claim that there have been "many" great themes out there already are sadly mistaken.. vista skinning has been utter crap thus far. This is not stardocks fault, they have created a great application, however just uploading a skin to wincustomize and getting 1000 downloads from other people who have no taste does not make vista skinning great.

I am still to this day boggled as to how people can say that even 30% of the WB skins on wincustomize are good, or even usable.

The skinning community has pretty much died, because of lack of appreciation, lack of talent, and lack of need. Again, this is not a dig at stardock at all, i do support there product, but something needs to change as far as skinning goes before it can really become something that everyone needs and uses. Hire Bant.... Hire Kol... hire someone who can show people the possibilities of WB6 and still look great, rather then packaging WB6 with themes that look as though the skinners used MS paint.

I whole heartly agree with you there. My take on that is this: of all the skins, 99% are not useable, of the last 1%, .5% I use for a few days upto a week. The last .5% are the best and they stay in my library. Those are the ones that stand out.

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Bant Veteran

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Thanks for the kind words Bubba.

Not to put Neowin above any other forum or anything, but I think there was something about this place back in the early days of theming xp that encouraged growth and creativity. I am quite detached from the scene now and have absolutely no idea what kind of community is left (let alone what kind of community Stardock has built at wincustomize), but I think it might be wise for Stardock to try to encourage it's community to grow creatively by looking at and changing the structure of their community. I am not suggesting that the community is at a standstill or that there aren't any good themes that come out of there, but it seems that things are disproportionate; wincustomize should be a breeding ground for new talent, and it really isn't.

I really don't think it is a matter of taste though; if someone comes along and slaps a loaf of old stale bread down on the table (and you are starving to death), you will eat that bread. Stardock needs to provide the ingredients for their young chefs (which they are doing), but they are not encouraging them to experiment with the ingredients and make new recipes.

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Grand Master

#Michael

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Posted
Thanks for the kind words Bubba.

Not to put Neowin above any other forum or anything, but I think there was something about this place back in the early days of theming xp that encouraged growth and creativity. I am quite detached from the scene now and have absolutely no idea what kind of community is left (let alone what kind of community Stardock has built at wincustomize), but I think it might be wise for Stardock to try to encourage it's community to grow creatively by looking at and changing the structure of their community. I am not suggesting that the community is at a standstill or that there aren't any good themes that come out of there, but it seems that things are disproportionate; wincustomize should be a breeding ground for new talent, and it really isn't.

I really don't think it is a matter of taste though; if someone comes along and slaps a loaf of old stale bread down on the table (and you are starving to death), you will eat that bread. Stardock needs to provide the ingredients for their young chefs (which they are doing), but they are not encouraging them to experiment with the ingredients and make new recipes.

I can't disagree with you more. Let's look at just a few of the great skins of this past year:

Sexy Vista: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...255&libid=1

Harmony: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...297&libid=1

Solarion: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...297&libid=1

HLong: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...289&libid=1

RoyaleVista 2: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...286&libid=1

Adamant: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...285&libid=1

Mica: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...266&libid=1

Novum OS: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...788&libid=1

NoiX: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...957&libid=1

Vienna for Vista: http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...156&libid=1

Those are just some of my favorites. There are plenty of great skins coming these days. We just need to get people to stop making vista clones (just check out DA and you will see what I mean).

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Grand Master

raskren

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Those are just some of my favorites. There are plenty of great skins coming these days. We just need to get people to stop making vista clones (just check out DA and you will see what I mean).

I couldn't use any of those for more than a few minutes.

The problem as I see it is there's nobody out there with a good combination of graphic arts and user interface design skills. Apparently, they all have jobs.

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