Challenges of skinning in a Windows 7 world

[Frogboy Administrators]

Hi guys, thought you'd find this video demo interesting:

http://frogboy.joeuser.com/article/371542/...Blinds_skinning

[argonite]

To be very honest, this has only brought WindowBlinds to the same functionality as most Windows 7 Visual Styles.

And I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing, it's just that the program itself is going to lose functionality as more people discover patching. Aero looks great, and I don't want to see the 'myspace' effect wherein more flexibility leads to junk. Variations on Aero can be just as nice.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Not really. Aero "skins" require the user to go through considerably more work than what UIS0 can do. With a UIS0 skin, I can modify its texture and color on the fly and mix and match different start menus, taskbar menus, scrollbars, etc.

[Xilo]

I think you have a misconception in what people want from skinning. You make it sound like not being able to add tons of extra buttons and functionality to the Windows UI and etc is a downside and things like that are what power users generally want.

Look at Linux, Mac, and previous versions of Windows. The reason people have skinned these OS's is to change how things look. Not try to add new functionality. Just look at how popular custom vs styles are on Windows XP.

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

that was rather interesting to watch. I can see how small things like the window drag area would be annoying if it didn't have text for users.

But it is good that these problems are worked out and WindowsBlinds will still be able to skin Windows 7.

[Unrealistic]

These videos prove that you are even more out of touch than I originally thought you were. I was tempted to purchase Windowblinds 7 after reading your posts here in the recent months, but after taking the trial version out for a spin, it's clear that the product still has ages to catch up XP Theming.

1. We DO NOT want Aero derivatives. The reason Windowblinds sales have continued to diminish is because there is simply no way of properly customizing the Operating System like XP. Why should we pay money when Visual Styles are basically achieving the same thing you are doing now with UIS 0 themes and for free?

2. We DO NOT want to pay $4.99 for themes that are Aero derivatives from "Master Skinners".

3. Your product still has basically ZERO support for multiple monitors and it amazes me that you talk about "Power Users" being your target audience, and yet still do this day, you offer nothing of value for people with more than one screen. There are two applications that support extended taskbars, neither of which work well at all with Stardock products. Do you ever plan on working with these developers or coming out with your own product? This is my personal biggest gripe. I need extended taskbars, and without proper support, you can be assured that I will not purchase your product.

I bought Windowblinds for XP because it offered a dramatic difference in look and appeal than anything the VS world had to offer. This is no longer the case, and is simply your own company's fault for changing direction for the past 3 years. You're right, we don't want stupid buttons that "rollup" windows and hide them. As power users, we want PROPER CUSTOMIZATION that doesn't break applications, and support for computers with more than one video output.

Probably the single biggest change that I see coming to skinning is its return to the realm of power users. That means, if it’s a cosmetic only change then it better be 100% compatible and have no downsides.

You are right, we will only return when this happens. Hybrid UIS 0 will not solve this problem however.

Power users might sacrifice something if it increases their productivity or looks significantly better but in the age of Aero, I have yet to see a skin that looks so good that I’d be willing to give up one iota of compatibility and I suspect I’m not alone.

I believe this to be 100%, which is why people tend to prefer a Visual Style currently. It does what UIS 0 does, but for free with 100% compatibility.

That’s why UIS 0 is so important and moving forward why UIS 0 Hybrid is so important.

UIS 2 skins, the ones that let skinners go wild, will continue to evolve to be better and better but there will always be apps that do different things that can’t be predicted.

The upcoming public release of SkinStudio 7 will be crucial because it’ll include easy ways of making UIS 0 skins. I wouldn’t mind there being a SkinStudio 7 Starter Edition that just does UIS 0 to simplify things for new skinners.

Here's what I think you should maybe do. Instead of having private beta's that only Object Desktop subscribers can try and give feedback, how about having a PUBLIC beta/RC? Imagine that Brad, giving your software to the community for FREE, and asking them EXACTLY what they want from your software. Imagine people sending the feedback you say you need in your videos. Sure, there will be negative feedback from some of the community, but not only will you see your downloads increase exponentially, the community might actually think you actually care.

If you want the power users back, a public beta/RC would honestly be the best thing you could do. Think about it. If it benefits Microsoft, surely it could benefit your own company? Stop giving the beta's to such a small amount of people because you are afraid of people complaining about blue screens. Give us something free for once, and watch how it will benefit Stardock.

PS. Bring back PowerUser.TV and use it as a platform to re-engage with the skinning community. :)

[Xero]

****in eh.. well said.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Xero, Unrealistic - if I'm out of touch then obviously there's a huge opportunity for someone else to pick up the gauntlet and make their own successful product. How's TGT Soft doing these days?

The object of WindowBlinds or any commercial product isn't to cater to the widest possible audience but rather to cater to the widest possible audience willing to pay money.

As a greedy evil capitalist ******, I'm not real interested in giving away WindowBlinds for free. Those people can monkey around with uxtheme.dll patching or what have you.

The biggest problem with WindowBlinds IMO is that right now, it's way too much work to make a decent skin and as a result, most of those skins are ugly or have compatibility problems. That's why the really good skins cost $5 or what have you because they've gone through and made sure they don't have those problems.

Therefore, the goal has to be to make it so that it's not nearly as hard to make good skins that work flawlessly on everyone's machines. The first step in that is UIS0. From there, we can expand out until Windows 7 is the defacto standard (i.e. right now, we still have to support XP and Vista and Windows 7 and each OS has its own particular GUI elements that skinners have to support).

[Sir Topham Hatt]

How's TGT Soft doing these days?

I used to use that!

My problem with Windows Blinds is the actual themes. The majority of them are large bloated and very. . . interesting. I am no way a fan of absolute minimal themes, but I had a good number on XP, non on Vista and have only started using one on W7 (Soft7). In my opinion, -Kol made great themes, very usable, very likeable. Windows Blinds just doesn't give me the usage that Msstyles do. WHEN, and I say when, a lot of the themes start to look great, then I will think about investing.

[Denis W. Veteran]

There's one issue I have with even hybrid UIS0 skins by reading its description and watching those videos.

It appears that UIS0 simply allows for textures to be applied to glass surfaces, while preserving the existing window borders and caption buttons as provided by Aero. Good for basic customization, but if you have a look at some of the custom visual styles in our Customizing Windows 7 subforum, some of them tweak the caption buttons and borders a bit.

This strikes a balance in-between hybrid UIS0 and UIS2. It allows for a limited degree of customizing caption buttons and glass borders, and doesn't result in weird glass 'breaks' for applications using glass in client areas.

[Frogboy Administrators]

RM - indeed and that's where UIS0 is going. You'll be able to do that kind of thing too right within the UI in future updates.

The main gripe I was having with WindowBlinds prior to WindowBlinds 7 is that once I started using Windows Vista and now Windows 7, the OS was "pretty enough" that I was no longer willing to tolerate any flakeyness.

I am sure I'm not the only one who feels this way and that's one of the reasons why I think WindowBlinds 7 has been so successful so far.

People who do want to do crazy things with the OS can still do that and WindowBlinds 7 will even take those old XP skins and make them work on Windows 7.

[Unrealistic]

Xero, Unrealistic - if I'm out of touch then obviously there's a huge opportunity for someone else to pick up the gauntlet and make their own successful product. How's TGT Soft doing these days?

The object of WindowBlinds or any commercial product isn't to cater to the widest possible audience but rather to cater to the widest possible audience willing to pay money.

As a greedy evil capitalist ******, I'm not real interested in giving away WindowBlinds for free. Those people can monkey around with uxtheme.dll patching or what have you.

The biggest problem with WindowBlinds IMO is that right now, it's way too much work to make a decent skin and as a result, most of those skins are ugly or have compatibility problems. That's why the really good skins cost $5 or what have you because they've gone through and made sure they don't have those problems.

Therefore, the goal has to be to make it so that it's not nearly as hard to make good skins that work flawlessly on everyone's machines. The first step in that is UIS0. From there, we can expand out until Windows 7 is the defacto standard (i.e. right now, we still have to support XP and Vista and Windows 7 and each OS has its own particular GUI elements that skinners have to support).

Did you stop reading half way through my comments brad? I think first question you should ask is, do you want Windowblinds to follow the same path as TGTSoft? Also, I didn't say give it away for free...I said make a beta test FREE to entice people who have never used your product, to not only use it, but test it for you and give you feedback.

Regardless of what Operating System is the majority, UIS0 is NOT the solution to these problems. It doesn't allow flexible customization and is simply a derivative of Aero. This isn't a theme, it is simply a re-skin. By your own words, UIS0 themes are easier to make then full fledged themes, so then why do you continue to make them $4.99? I am not talking about actual skins on your site, I am talking about DERIVATIVES that are all over WC.com.

It's fine though...you're out of touch and as usual, so full of yourself that no one outside of your realm of people could ever be right. Thank god, you at least allow a trial version of Windowblinds, so I can continue to be happy that I didn't waste my money.

Also, thanks for not answering half of my questions...quite typical of you.

[Frogboy Administrators]

What would be typical of me would be to ban your account for being an ass.

[Xilo]

Personal attacks and insults really shouldn't be used, but Unrealistic does have a point. Frogboy almost never responds to actual criticism.

[Xero]

What would be typical of me would be to ban your account for being an ass.

C'mon man, can we act our ages? None of us are children. Just because what is being said isn't something you want to hear doesn't make him an ass. While some of it could have gone unsaid, he didn't outright call you any names. I think his idea of a public beta would be fantastic. You still need to make your money so charge for the full version. The beta will help get people interested. Then let it expire and force them to upgrade. You could also offer a free/trial version that allows using themes, but disables any of the bonus features like changing colors/textures and whatever else you can do. The only problem I see with that is most people would be happy with just that and never upgrade.

Try and look at it from Apple's view with the iPod. iTunes was designed to drive sales. Themes are designed to drive sales. Let people try them out and you'll see increased sales and increased theme support. Locking down 'premium' themes and the software itself alienates most of the consumers. Think about the days of xp theming, 90% of the themes were made for free by users who liked the software. Not paid themes. Let people make themes for free, let them try themes for free and offer incentive for full upgrades and premium themes. What I personally would do is disable portions of themes and limit them to the full version only, things like animations, separate (official) color schemes in addition to disabling the recoloring/texture features. This way people can use themes for free but if they want the full theme unlocked they can fork out the extra. The problem is the premium themes aren't very good. I understand it takes time to create a quality theme, but taking the time results in significantly better return. Its been a generic themes over and over again. It's time a unique, original, new theme would make a substantial difference. It's hard to justify buying a program when theres nothing of value to use with it. Would you buy a car if you couldn't put gas in it? A free beta or a handicapped free version of windowblinds would encourage more designers to create themes knowing everyone can use it and not a limited crowd. Increasing your install base will mean more people will buy premium themes. Better quality premium themes will result in more theme and software sales. It might cost more than you want overhead to complete quality themes but you can rest assured you'll receive it back. Mediocre themes, result in mediocre returns.

Look at TSF as an example. They give away Hyperdesk with theme purchases. Simply to encourage sales. Enough quality themes and you won't need to rely on the software sales to keep revenue up. I'm guessing you don't make as much as you'd like off premium themes so you need the paid software to keep the company afloat. I don't expect a response to that as its best to keep company finances off public forums. Your welcome to pm/email me as I know how to get revenue up and ensure its longevity.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Xero

[Frogboy Administrators]

C'mon man, can we act our ages? None of us are children. Just because what is being said isn't something you want to hear doesn't make him an ass

Repeatedly calling me out of touch and then adding how "typical" it is for me not to respond to his points are pretty insulting and I don't see any reason to tolerate it on my own site.

I didn't address what he said because they were his opinion and I disagree with him.

He says people don't want to pay for having different enhancements to Aero. He's certainly entitled to his opinion. But I disagree.

Moreover, as I wrote here:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=855712

WindowBlinds does plenty of major skinning to the OS.

I was outlining some of my personal gripes with WindowBlinds. YMMV.

I obviously am not trying to troll against WindowBlinds or something. I am simply spelling out what I think are issues it has to address in an age where Windows 7 looks pretty damn good out of the box.

Re: Multiple Monitors

One of his points "multiple monitor support" is simply nonsense. He's referring to WindowBlinds skinning a third-party tool's taskbar extender which is a different issue. He could just easily be talking to the developers of that program.

Every developer here uses multiple monitors with WindowBlinds without a problem.

Re: What "people prefer"

I love Neowin (obviously) and the community but there's never been even remotely a comparison in the user population between WindowBlinds users and people using msstyles even when taking into account the fact that uxtheme patching is free.

But there's no way to "prove" that. I simply disagree.

Fences is a freeware program and today we released Fences Pro. We'll see how well Fences Pro sells. If Fences Pro does incredibly well, then I'd argue that maybe Stardock should loosen up on the shareware version of WindowBlinds.

[Dick Montage]

My own site? I thought it was Neobond's and Redmaks?

[Xero]

Brad its fine to have different opinions, its combing the opinions of many that result is a great product. Not just the opinion of one man or a few. While I think he could have worded a little nicer he had some good points. Simply saying tough **** is something Adobe does which ****es off many people. Try to find out the problem, try and see if theres a tweak you can do to solve it. If not, then alert the other developer what could fix the problem. You say you love the community so lets try and please the community and solve their problems, not just say tough this is the way it is.

He says people don't want to pay for having different enhancements to Aero.

People shouldn't have to pay for something thats just a subtle change over the original. Paying for original work makes sense and is worth it. Think of car manufacturers. If all they did was change the color and maybe add a spoiler every year they wouldn't sell anything. Which is why they try to come up with new features, new designs, new hardware to distinguish it from the last and get people to buy the new one. Who's going to replace their existing model for a new one that has a different color and some new rims?

Remember this is constructive criticism. Let's not get at each-others necks for no reason.

[Frogboy Administrators]

My own site? I thought it was Neobond's and Redmaks?

All 3 of us own it.

People shouldn't have to pay for something thats just a subtle change over the original. Paying for original work makes sense and is worth it. Think of car manufacturers. If all they did was change the color and maybe add a spoiler every year they wouldn't sell anything. Which is why they try to come up with new features, new designs, new hardware to distinguish it from the last and get people to buy the new one. Who's going to replace their existing model for a new one that has a different color and some new rims?

Remember this is constructive criticism. Let's not get at each-others necks for no reason.

I think it's safe to say that I get my share of criticism. I'll debate any topic.

I just don't like it getting personal.

If Bill and Bob disagree on some product, it doesn't mean Bob is stupid or out of touch or what not.

Similarly, I won't say what people "should" or "shouldn't" have to pay for. Only individuals can decide what they would or wouldn't pay for.

People paid for Style XP for years and it did nothing that you couldn't get for free. But others found it convenient and who am I to say whether their choice was wrong or not?

[fhpuqrgrpgvirzhpujbj]

There was a time when there was a use for Windowblinds. That time has passed in my opinion. What annoys me is stardock's applications that are simply a copy of what Windows already offers with a few things added that siphons a good amount of the good skinners away. I have never seen a CursorFX Cursor that hasn't worked fine right off the bat when I extracted the graphics and converted to cur. The only real advantage to windowblinds skins (aside from allowing all kinds of horrible animated stuff) is that the window frames are slightly more flexible.

All 3 of us own it.

This bothers me. Besides it being a conflict-of-interest, it causes problems. For example, you threatening to ban someone who didn't share your opinion about Windowblinds as you did in this thread.

[x3lumin8x]

Looks like froggy boy can't take criticism. And stop abusing your privilege of Admin by threatening to ban people.

[Island Dog]

For years we have solicited feedback from users here about WB and skins. Obviously not everything can be integrated, but many things have. The feedback we have gotten from various areas is that people wanted an easy way to modify Aero skins without patching files, that is one of the points of UIS0 skins. If you are happy opening a resource editor, spending time looking up resources, and then changing them....good for you. But that is not what most people want to be doing with their time.

[Frogboy Administrators]

Looks like froggy boy can't take criticism. And stop abusing your privilege of Admin by threatening to ban people.

And another person loses posting privileges for a day.

There was a time when there was a use for Windowblinds. That time has passed in my opinion. What annoys me is stardock's applications that are simply a copy of what Windows already offers with a few things added that siphons a good amount of the good skinners away. I have never seen a CursorFX Cursor that hasn't worked fine right off the bat when I extracted the graphics and converted to cur. The only real advantage to windowblinds skins (aside from allowing all kinds of horrible animated stuff) is that the window frames are slightly more flexible.

There's a few things in here I'd quibble with.

First, before there was WindowBlinds, there was no GUI skinning in Windows. So I'm not sure who is copying who here.

Second, by their nature, desktop enhancements are designed to enhance existing functionality.

Windows cursors can't be animated and alpha blended. CursorFX cursors can.

There's a lot more to WindowBlinds than simply changing the title bar and borders. There's a lot more GUI elements that can be skinned (and are) (plus you can move the buttons as well).

Re ownership:

This bothers me. Besides it being a conflict-of-interest, it causes problems. For example, you threatening to ban someone who didn't share your opinion about Windowblinds as you did in this thread.

I've been able to ban users for something like 7 or so years. I don't ban people because they don't like a product. But if a user starts insulting me personally (which is explicitly against our TOS) then I don't really feel any reason that I should have to put up with that.

If you re-read the thread, I think you'll find that I"m *trying* to respect other people and their opinions. But if they won't return that then there are other options available to deal with them.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Frogboy
typo

[argonite]

I still think the public beta is a good idea.

So you say you're nto getting enough feedback on the issues that matter, well a free beta would help that immensely.

Personally, I'm sick and tired of going to patch my uxtheme, having it unpatch itself the next time Microsoft touches that component, and then being dumped back into Classic on startup because the theme wasn't signed. But I still do it because the results of Windows 7 visual styles have been spectacular and up to par with what I'm seeing in your videos, and they're free.

If you could create your own DWM replacement that captures calls to it, instead of forcing Aero to do things, you could really restore what people have known WindowBlinds for: very unique skins, for a very unique purpose.

[Xero]

I think it's safe to say that I get my share of criticism. I'll debate any topic.

I just don't like it getting personal.

If Bill and Bob disagree on some product, it doesn't mean Bob is stupid or out of touch or what not.

Similarly, I won't say what people "should" or "shouldn't" have to pay for. Only individuals can decide what they would or wouldn't pay for.

People paid for Style XP for years and it did nothing that you couldn't get for free. But others found it convenient and who am I to say whether their choice was wrong or not?

As a owner though, I'm sure you can see the trend over the last 5-6 years. The number of quality skins vs. mediocre. The number of windowblind purchases and the number of premium skin purchases. Hell even the number of free downloads. While you have every right to disagree, I think we can all agree theming popularity is drastically different than it was years ago. Similar how the music industry melted down due to all the crap being released. Those who release good quality music, beat the trend and sell exceptionally well. Those who go with the flow fall flat. I think what everyone is getting at is there needs to be change. The status quo isn't helping.