Vista Skinning starts to reach its prime

[Bant Veteran]

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

...

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'm not sure you read my post... I didn't say there weren't any good themes, I said the ratio of bad themes to good themes was disproportionate and that creative growth didn't seem to be happening. While a few of the themes in your post are clean and reasonable looking, even fewer of them feel fresh. Recycling the same concepts is not a sign of growth or creativity.

[#Michael]

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.

Then could you please enlighten me with what you consider to be useable skins, wb or msstyles. Because I would love to know.

Bant....there has always been that ratio of bad to good skins ever since XP was released. My reasoning has been and still is: 99% of all skins are crap and I won't touch. Of the 1% left, I would use 0.5% for a couple of days at most. The last 0.5% I really like and go into my rotating library and I use for extended periods of time

[raskren]

Windows Aero

Windows Luna

I haven't changed Vista's glass colorization. I tend to get irritated with different colorizations and revert back to default.

[Bubbabyte]

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).

obviously you didn't hear what myself or bant had said. You posted 10 themes that YOU like. After a quick check of wincustomize, for windowblinds themes there was 512 pages of themes, at about 9 per page. The ratio of good themes to bad themes is just horrible. I hate to repeat myself again because i dont want to seem like i'm attacking stardock, because i love windowblinds, however given that ratio a ratio of say 30 usable themes out of thousands over the years, why would someone want to purchase a product at the "chance" that they may have 2 usable skins produced this year? Even with all the moves forward the stardock team has made, it seems that they can skin their own application better than they can make a skin for it...lol Alot of wincustomize skinners, including those affiliated with stardock seem to still be stuck in the 90's with their bulky, over the top display of things WB is capable of, but that nobody will EVER use.

Just a quick example... WB6 comes packaged with a theme called Molten, which displays amazing possibilities, and even shows graphic talent. But who, on a daily basic wants to see a huge ass dragon dancing around when you open the start menu? or the same animated fire on every other image in the theme. We get it, you can animate things in WB6, but find a way to use these options and still maintain usability.

[PermaSt0ne]

i havn't seen any skins take advantage of the animated start menu except the original fire demo one :(

[Island Dog]

I'm looking through my list of skins and I don't see many that are bulky, or look like they are from the 90's. I also wouldn't say people would never use certain features because I can assure you they do. Let's remember not everyone likes the plain visual styles that are out there, and many people enjoy the skins that are being put out from WB skinners.

As far as the Molten skin goes, that was done to show the things that are possible such as the start menu animations.

I see people complaining that there are skins that they don't like, and my best suggestion would be to go download SkinStudio and lets see the skins and styles you think are great. I would love to see them. :)

http://www.stardock.com/products/skinstudio/downloads.asp

[Bubbabyte]

I'm looking through my list of skins and I don't see many that are bulky, or look like they are from the 90's.

you didn't look very hard..

http://www.wincustomize.com/zoom.aspx?skin...340&libid=1

just released. Looks as thought they just learned how to do bevels.

It seems like nobody at stardock will acknowledge the problem, at least not publicly. I mean on a daily basis we hear from you, frogboy and other stardock affiliates defending the product to no end and never admitting to what's at fault. I mean you just told me that you dont' see many bulky themes, and that's just a downright lie..lol Skins like the one i posted above, take no advantage of ANYTHING WB has to offer, and only add to the bad reputation. Stardock continuously works on making the products easier to use, and looking at skinstudio 6, they did a phenomenal job at making it user friendly. But without some real talent behind you, you have nothing but themes like the one above.

It might sound harsh, because i know everyone has to start somewhere and for all i know it may be that dude's first theme, but regardless, wincustomize is full of people who post bulky crap, and then praise other people for their bulky crap, and the cycle continues until you're flooded with bulky unusable skins for a product you have to pay for.

[Island Dog]

I mean you just told me that you don't' see many bulky themes, and that's just a downright lie..lo

I said "my list" of skins meaning the skins on my PC, so please don't accuse me of "lying". I don't deny there are bulky themes out there, but people are free to make the skins they want. Should we tell people to stop making themes because some people don't like them?

As I said, SkinStudio is free so I encourage anyone who complains about the themes to take a go at it themselves. ;)

[SiCKX]

I don't know why this whole negativity here towards Stardock.

This isn't like they force you to pay $1000 for Windowblinds 6.It's a product,if you don't like it...leave it alone,make your own.

You can't have free stuff all the time.It's not Stardock's fault that people make skins that are uglier than hell either.If they block those people,others will jump and say Stardock are nazis...you just can't please everyone.It's bussiness.

Personally I'm sick of most skins,I see quality made by vStyler,JJ Ying and very few others.

EDIT: I don't work for Stardock or am a friend of Island Dog,Frogboy or AthleticTrainer.Just that some of the replies,not necesssarily in this thread,are beyond ridiculous.

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

If only microsoft would stop blocking third party themes in windows xp / vista, how often do microsoft release a theme for windows?

[#Michael]

you didn't look very hard..

http://www.wincustomize.com/zoom.aspx?skin...340&libid=1

just released. Looks as thought they just learned how to do bevels.

It seems like nobody at stardock will acknowledge the problem, at least not publicly. I mean on a daily basis we hear from you, frogboy and other stardock affiliates defending the product to no end and never admitting to what's at fault. I mean you just told me that you dont' see many bulky themes, and that's just a downright lie..lol Skins like the one i posted above, take no advantage of ANYTHING WB has to offer, and only add to the bad reputation. Stardock continuously works on making the products easier to use, and looking at skinstudio 6, they did a phenomenal job at making it user friendly. But without some real talent behind you, you have nothing but themes like the one above.

It might sound harsh, because i know everyone has to start somewhere and for all i know it may be that dude's first theme, but regardless, wincustomize is full of people who post bulky crap, and then praise other people for their bulky crap, and the cycle continues until you're flooded with bulky unusable skins for a product you have to pay for.

That one is meant to be a holiday theme....use for a few days to a week or two and gone. Are you really expecting people to use that one all year round???? That's like asking me to keep my Crhistmas tree up all year.....it's just gaudy and tacky to do that.

Face it....people have different tastes. I can name you 100 msstyles that are great and 1000 that are complete crap that look like a 3 year old put together in 10 minutes. I can name 100 WB skins that are great and 10000 that are complete crap that I would never use. It's all about your taste.

[Bubbabyte]

That one is meant to be a holiday theme....use for a few days to a week or two and gone. Are you really expecting people to use that one all year round???? That's like asking me to keep my Crhistmas tree up all year.....it's just gaudy and tacky to do that.

Face it....people have different tastes. I can name you 100 msstyles that are great and 1000 that are complete crap that look like a 3 year old put together in 10 minutes. I can name 100 WB skins that are great and 10000 that are complete crap that I would never use. It's all about your taste.

I know it's a christmas theme, it was just one example, and imo whether you use it for a day or use it for a year, it's still gaudy and tacky to do so.

I understand people have different tastes, but even at the ratio you posted above that imo is completely unacceptable. Given that info, you can expect a few themes that suite your taste per year, and for a product you're paying for i find that incredibly low.

I don't know why this whole negativity here towards Stardock.

This isn't like they force you to pay $1000 for Windowblinds 6.It's a product,if you don't like it...leave it alone,make your own.

You can't have free stuff all the time.It's not Stardock's fault that people make skins that are uglier than hell either.If they block those people,others will jump and say Stardock are nazis...you just can't please everyone.It's bussiness.

i was never bashing stardock, i love windowblinds, just pointing out a flaw in that they need to hire some in house skinners to make something that appeals to people that don't like big bulky themes. I can't think of one theme that comes with WB6 that is not bulky. So if 98% of skinners out there are making bulky crap, and stardock is packaging bulky crap with the program, their only target buyers are that of people that enjoy bulky themes.

I said "my list" of skins meaning the skins on my PC, so please don't accuse me of "lying". I don't deny there are bulky themes out there, but people are free to make the skins they want. Should we tell people to stop making themes because some people don't like them?

As I said, SkinStudio is free so I encourage anyone who complains about the themes to take a go at it themselves.

I don't expect you to tell people to stop making themes. Read above.

Also, as far as skinning themes myself, been there done that, and i know it's not easy to make a skin, and i don't claim to be some sort of professional at it, but what does that really have to do with stardock's problem?

[Denis W. Veteran]

however given that ratio a ratio of say 30 usable themes out of thousands over the years, why would someone want to purchase a product at the "chance" that they may have 2 usable skins produced this year?

Sad but true. On Vista and XP the only skins I can stand using on a regular basis are Adamant and Solarion for WB6 ready skins, plus Acrylic and Novum OS for WB5 compatible skins (however they look slightly broken under Vista due to missing elements that are supported with WB6 skins, such as Aero wizard buttons and shellstyles).

Truth of the matter is for the past couple of years the Windows skinning community is split into two camps: those with Stardock, and just about everyone else. The only reason it seems there are more quality msstyles on Neowin comes down to our community being able to feature quality VSes in our completed VS section as opposed to listing everything we come across on Deviantart, customize.org, Themexp (ugh), etc. Yes it is true that, proportion-wise, the amount of cheaply hacked msstyles (i.e. simple recolours, poorly pixellated textures on system elements, poor Vista/OSX copycats) are equivalent to the amount of poor WB skins (bevels, chunky textures, LOTS OF SATURATED GRADIENTS, and the trend of "let's just ###### every new feature Stardock introduces into the latest update of Windowblinds as if our skins were technology demos"). But Stardock regularly features such skins on Wincustomize, and worse, said skins are also offered for pay. (That will be my last time arguing about the 'everything should or should not be free' philosophy. I understand that some artists need to make a living off the sales of their skins - if so, go for it. Unfortunately many of such skins offered through Stardock's Master Skins program don't conform to my tastes or are usable enough on a daily basis, thus I won't buy it. But I do not jump into threads saying "wtf is this, I will never pay you $9.95 to make my PC look like this," and I never will.)

Furthermore the tastes of both communities on here and Wincustomize will never mix. Clearly WC members strive for artistic freedom. The rest of the skinning community - at least those who rack up more than 5K downloads for their work - aim for stylish yet usable skins, some of them minimalistic, some of them borderline glossy. Take a look at some of the skins in WB's gallery that seem as if Wincustomize members took a printed copy of Windows XP/Vista's HIG guidelines and lit them in a bonfire. Even if the skin is awfully gaudy and really over the top, it gets praised for being "creative," "excellent first try," "WOOWWW!!!," et cetera, et cetera. I mean yes, artists that put effort should be praised, but nothing, I mean NOTHING, is 100% perfect. Give criticism for what can be improved, even if it seems perfect. Like for instance, back when Luna Element was massively popular here on Neowin, I myself found the skin to be great, but even then there was still room for improvement. Or even take Bubbabyte as an example: two years ago he had his work-in-progress Christmas theme, Exmas, based off Luna Element 4/5. Again, it was great, but take a look at that thread. Most of the comments, including those made by myself, constructively criticized it (or some just whined for changes :p). There's a fine line between acknowledging others for their hard work and offering suggestions for improvement, and plain saying "WOW" to make others feel warm and sappy when in fact your real intention is to yell "what the hell did you do to my screen?"

Anyways, I do have to acknowledge that Stardock Design was doing something right in the first few weeks following WB6's launch. They put out both Solarion and Adamant that IMO are excellent WB6 Vista skins - well unless you start seeing the parts of Vista WB6 broke apart, since WB6 first sets the theme to Windows Classic, applies their own hooks to their skinning engine, and then turns the desktop compositor back on. As a result the toolbars for Vista apps are back to the classic look, Windows Help also has a classic look, the tooltip balloons and taskbar applet popups look horrible (but that's Microsoft's fault for making Classic look like total ass in Vista), tooltips don't have some fancy background like in Aero, there's an ugly separation between window borders and client glass areas for Media Player and Photo Gallery, etc. If it's not breaking apart Windows's UI, it's also violating Fitt's Law a couple of times, such as the placement of the Close button 4 pixels away from the top right corner pixel when a window is maximized or how a click of a titlebar button is registered on a mouse button release ONLY instead of a combined mouse press -> mouse release on the same button (i.e. I intend to maximize a window by clicking the Maximize button, but I accidentally held down the button too long and moved my pointer a few pixels to the right, so OOPS I just closed the window). Another example: menu items. The default menu item should be bolded but every single WB release ignores this. Also skinned WB menus have a tendency to accidentally close by itself if the mouse pointer strays too far away from the menus themselves. There are also other problems such as font inconsistency that I sometimes patch up myself using Skinstudio, but these other problems are specific to the skinning engine itself, and while they aren't critical problems, they do sometimes drive me away from the WB engine. I mean you guys don't have to be like Apple and be all anal about human interface guidelines but it shouldn't hurt to bide by the standards Microsoft set out, would it?

Sorry if some of my ramblings up here were rehashed from stuff I said before or are just plain repetitive. I seriously want WB6 to do well, as for now msstyle customization for Aero isn't exactly taking off just yet.

Edited December 22, 2007 by rm20010

[Frogboy Administrators]

I think the tech behind WB is great, but the skins are terrible. WB themers need to get out of the year 2001 and start making more elegant and streamlined themes. The msstyles community learned this many years ago; I don't know why WB themers continue to make themes that are so gaudy.

Hopefully next year will see a change in WB design and we'll see some nice, usable skins.

Do you have some Windows Vista .msstyles that you would suggest?

[Frogboy Administrators]

With regards to the quality of skins and themes out there.

Let us remember that regardless of the artistic endeavor on the Internet -- whether it be wallpaper, winamp skins, icons, themes, whatever, you will find that 99% of it is not to your taste (to put it mildly).

The options are to either censor skins you don't like (which is not something I would want to be involved with) or to let users try to filter the good from the bad as best you can.

On WinCustomize, there's a rating system and believe it or not, it's the most controversial feature of the site with lots of people arguing that there should be no skinning ratings at all.

One visiting themexp.org and looking at the msstyles there is going to be hard pressed to say that msstyles lend themselves to a higher quality either. It's really about filtering out the good fromt he bad.

[Bubbabyte]

i have nothing against you frogboy, but you just posted a perfect example of what i said earlier. Anyone affiliated with stardock on this or any other website for that matter, just defends any comments regarding WB to no end instead of actually saying "hey you might be on to something". It's no secret that WB themes have and still remain for the most part way overdone and bulky, even those included in the purchased product, yet you and other stardock people will never admit that, instead tend to just resort to the msstyle vs. WB argument which we've all been through time and time again.

Yes WB is an excellent product.. yes it can accomplish more then msstyle EVER could dream of. However it's not perfect, there are still alot of areas, specifically the ones brought up in this discussion that need to be addressed before it can be considered by alot of people.

All i hear from stardock is almost childish argument.. like "oh yeah well my WB can do this.. etc." or "i dare you to prove this, or that. ".. it's very tiring, why can't any of you accept that you have some problems, and address them.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Wow. I don't even know what to say Bubbabyte.

I asked for examples of msstyles that the user liked to get an idea of what they had in mind.

And then I pointed out that most pieces of artwork on the Internet don't match people's tastes. Do you disagree with this statement?

All i hear from stardock is almost childish argument.. like "oh yeah well my WB can do this.. etc." or "i dare you to prove this, or that. "

Where exactly did I say anything like this at all?

there are still alot of areas, specifically the ones brought up in this discussion that need to be addressed before it can be considered by alot of people.

What I read in this thread is that people don't like the skins made for it. Therefore, I asked what kind of skins they do like so I can see what they mean.

I think there's some projection going on.

[Bubbabyte]

I'm sorry if i offended you frogboy, like i said i did not mean any disrepect, i have nothing agianst you or stardock, i LOVE windowblinds. I'm sorry for the comment about the childish comments, i read your previous post wrong, and i apologize. However it does seem alot of the time, not specifically from you, but that some stardock affiliates choose to ignore what people are saying and just change the subject and praise their product.

Also, i really don't claim to have all the answers, i'm only offering my feedback, so i'm sorry if i come off sounding like i know how to fix the problems.

Censorship is just bad and will not work at all imo, however what's going on at wincustomize now will not work in the future either i don't believe. It's been pointed out numerous times on this forum how some skins that are absolutely horrible and people choose to be overly nice and say it's a great theme, when really they should be telling the truth and offering some constructive critisism. Because without that you get stuck in the same cycle of crappy skinners making crappy skins, until they move forward and learn more.

WB has always gotten better as time moved on, but alot of it's skinners are stuck where they were when wb 4 came out. It has so many options and so many possibilities but nobody can seem to use them properly.

Vista msstyles are pretty much horrible at the moment so i really have no examples to give you of a quality vista msstyle, however if you look at past examples of great wb skinners, or gui champ winners, you should see what most people define as a great skin and a horrible skin.

[Frogboy Administrators]

I will be the first to confess that I'm a voyeur. At least on skinning.

I am genuinely interested in finding out what kinds of skins and themes people want to see.

Clearly, tastes are pretty wide spread. If there's a consenus by Neowin people of skins they'd like to see, I'd like to do what I can to make it happen.

[Gamerhomie]

My opinion-

I haven't bought WB because to me, there are no worthwhile skins to get. I just don't know, the skinning community seemed to be booming around the time I found about it (two years ago) and every other MSstyle I found was good enough to keep and use for an extended period of time. Otherwise WB looked good enough to buy just because it also used the same skins that people made with MSstyles as WBs skins. That meant some eye candy. These days. Well. Ever since Vista came out I think the only worthwhile skin (which still has a few problems) to come out (that's ONE skin) is the NEXT Level that was just featured on DeviantART. I'm currently using it because I was sick of the standard Aero design. If nothing will happen, I might have to take a look into how to create these skins myself. :p

[Bubbabyte]

the only great example i can think of for you frogboy is VectorCell by bose.. i know this is included in WB6 i believe but my point is that VectorCell was the first of it's kind.. it really took what WB had to offer and used it effectively, making a very beautiful and usable theme. it had an animated start button, which was one of the first to do so, and it did it in a way that wasn't overdone.. it was a nice little touch without having to add flaming dragons etc.. Same thing with the curved vector images within the theme, that wasn't able to be done in msstyles, it was done in WB and used effectively.

This is the type of thing i'm looking for. I dont need to see EVERYTHING animated, or everything see through, i just want to see use of what windowblinds CAN offer, but in a simple way.

[Pallab]

+1 IMO .msstyles are the way to go, installing something extra is just memory usage for no reason IMO.

On topic. The skin IS nice. But I wouldn't call installing an additional program to get that skin working "seemless integration".

That just proves how little you know about windowblinds.

Running msstyles also takes up some memory as the themes service needs to run.

Wb is actually faster if you use one of the lighter skin. And even with the cutting edge skins with a lot of transparency etc its not slow. On a modern computer the imapct of performance is negligible.

As others have already started windowblinds is an awesome software but the wincustomize and deviant art gallery is full of trash - childish skins with OTT colour combinations and it is really frustrating to browse through 100s of skins to find that one truely good skin.

A better tactic is actually to just keep checking personal profiles of good skinners like JJ Ying, adni18, code2 to see if they have something new to offer.

[Iben]

Wow that is really neat. :woot:

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

I used to use .msstyles, but I always looked back at Windowblinds and thought. yeah, that IS so much better. So I got the Stardock Central package.

I loved it. But now I've switched to Vista, I've no intention on using any kind of theming software. I like the look how it is.

To be honest though, all of the .msstyle themes have a similar look about them. They all have to follow certain boundaries. WB skins can jump these boundaries and be more interesting.

[Island Dog]

VectorCell is a nice skin, but not really my taste personally. I think one of my all time favorite skins has to be Eminence.

http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?ski...758&libid=1