Home

One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part IV

Putting It Together : Start Menu

By PoSmedley on February 3, 2012 11:29:25 AM from

We're going to take a break from One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part III for just a moment and get into the assembling of the windowblind in SKS. There are a few reasons for this that you may have picked up on if you have been following along.

We've been making sections of the blind without putting them into SkinStudio as we go along. A majority of skinners will go back and forth between their graphics program (Photoshop, Paint, etc.) and SKS as they go along. That method hasn't worked for me in the past and I wanted to go through the actual design of several areas without the added confusion of SKS.

There comes a point, once you get past the Start Menu and Window Frames and start getting into the Edit Controls, buttons, etc., that you need to see what they are going to look like and if they will work they way they should. I tried to just keep making the graphics without going into SKS but it's just too much detail and in this particular case, with a lot of the areas we'll be getting into, 'size does matter'.

One of the main reasons that I may have not mentioned for doing the Start Menu and Task Bar areas first is also to assist visually in determining how the overall windowblind will look (per Tim's suggestion). This will actually help a great deal when you get into the buttons, header bars, and other details and you're trying to determine the best colors and other design details.

The way in which I am approaching this is something I came up with some help from 2of3(aka Tim). As I said, not all skinners do it this way and the opinions I offer are just that (my opinions) and by no means written in stone (or sand, Lucite, chalk, crayola, etc.) It if it helps anyone, let me know.

We'll be going back and forth between this thread and Part III. There will also, more than likely, be another thread where we can go over testing the skin and putting on the finishing touches. In this thread we'll be going over the assembling of the Start Menu.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS as to why something is done this way and not that or anything pertaining to the Start Menu ask them here. We will try to explain as we go along and may miss some things that you consider important or problematic.

If you're looking for Part I, II, III you can find them here:

One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part I

Design : Start Menu and Taskbar

One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part II

Design: Title Bars & Window Frames

One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part II

Design: Edit Controls

PLEASE :

I am open to suggestions but may not use any of them. Please, don't be offended if I don't use yours.

Keep the image posting to the skin(s)

If you want to make a skin to go with this, PM me for the files. My PSD's tend to be a mess, but I save everything and will be happy to share. I am uploading the actual files to the Graphics Gallery here on Wincustomize.

We'll be skinning for Windows7, maybe Vista. If someone wants to do XP, PM me and I will get you what you need.

Any files you request will come as I complete them. I won't be jumping ahead. Please be patient.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The PSD files for the previous threads are in the Graphics Gallery.

Roan WB Title Bars and Window Frames

Roan WB Taskbar Buttons

ROAN WB Start Panel UPDATED

ROAN WB Start Panel Search Mode

+717 Karma | 349 Replies

Quoting PoSmedley,

reply 50

Why won't it show there ?

because if you look closely at the startpanel image as a whole, you'll see a lighting difference on the upper left and lower right hand corners. I needed to set the tiling in an area where the pattern can repeat itself (tile) without a color difference.

It looks like you had some kind of lighting effect on the base layers of the image.

No biggie.....It just made it a teeny bit more difficult to find a good place to set the margins.

Quoting 2of3,

reply 51

It looks like you had some kind of lighting effect on the base layers of the image.

Okay. Yeah, I did.

Sign Up or Login and this ad disappears!
There are many great features available to you once you register. Sign Up for a free account and browse the forums without ads.

Ready for the left hand side.

Again in the extra settings tab:

Background effect to semi trans. Zero out the first 2 height and width settings and set width to 251 (same as the image). The height setting does NOTHING, so ignore it.......the height of your panel is defined by how much content you have on your SP.

Painting margins:

Quoting 2of3,

reply 54

Quoting 2of3,

reply 55

Painting margins:

Both done.

QUESTION: Normally, when I have attempted this in the past, I bring the paint margins in just over the edge and stretch or tile everything else. Are we bringing the paint margins in on this more than normal (whatever normal is) because of the texture?

Quoting PoSmedley,

reply 56

QUESTION: Normally, when I have attempted this in the past, I bring the paint margins in just over the edge and stretch or tile everything else. Are we bringing the paint margins in on this more than normal (whatever normal is) because of the texture?

Yes...the texture and the tricky lighting. Remember this section has to expand up for users that have a lot of content on their SP. If the margins fall in the area on the top left (where the lighter "spot" is), you will get a funky looking lighter section in the middle of your SP as the pattern repeats itself when it expands upwards.

Sorry to interrupt. Is the latest version of SS 7.3

Normally I would also adjust the text margins on this section at this point, but we will probably have to redo that anyway when we add the stitching layer.

I have it temporarily set to:

top 6

bottom 2

left 12

right 2

Quoting DaveBax,

reply 58

Sorry to interrupt. Is the latest version of SS 7.3

I believe so, yes

Quoting DaveBax,

reply 58

Sorry to interrupt. Is the latest version of SS 7.3

Yes. (I updated my version)

And don't be sorry. Unless you're Zubaz. Then, you really wouldn't be sorry, you'd be pathetic.

Glad to have you on board, Dave.

**I'm on Messenger (PoSmedley63) and FB Messenger as well. (Noah Hansell)

OK.

Bottom section (I don't know why it's listed next on sks.....to me it would be more logical to do the all prog section next)

Extras tab....you know the drill.......background effect to semi trans, zero out the first H and W settings and set the next 2 to the dimensions of the image (W 412 and H 68) Note: the width isn't very important because the width of the top part section defines the total width of your panel.....but the Height here is important.

Quoting PoSmedley,

reply 61

**I'm on Messenger (PoSmedley63) and FB Messenger as well. (Noah Hansell)

This is going to be SOOO useful! Thanks!

Painting margins for bottom section:

See here where I set the margins on the darkest part of the image. It's also where the searchbox will be so it's a good place to hide the tile.

Quoting 2of3,

reply 62

Bottom section (I don't know why it's listed next on sks.....to me it would be more logical to do the all prog section next)

Extras tab....you know the drill.......background effect to semi trans, zero out the first H and W settings and set the next 2 to the dimensions of the image (W 412 and H 68) Note: the width isn't very important because the width of the top part section defines the total width of your panel.....but the Height here is important.

Quoting 2of3,

reply 65

See here where I set the margins on the darkest part of the image. It's also where the searchbox will be so it's a good place to hide the tile.

Done. Yeah. I see what you're doing now with the tiling.

Quoting Zubaz,

reply 63

This is going to be SOOO useful! Thanks!

Captain Hadley: What the Christ is this happy horseshit?
Zubaz: Hey, he took the Lord's name in vain! I'm tellin' the warden and everyone on messenger!
Captain Hadley: You'll be tellin' the warden about my baton up your ass!

Moving on.

Right hand side.

In the extra settings tab, the only thing you need to do is to set the background effect to semi trans. The height and width settings do nothing. The width is defined by the combination of the top part and left hand side settings (think: the left hand side width "pushes" the right hand side over)

Quoting 2of3,

reply 67

n the extra settings tab, the only thing you need to do is to set the background effect to semi trans. The height and width settings do nothing. The width is defined by the combination of the top part and left hand side settings (think: the left hand side width "pushes" the right hand side over)

okay.

Painting margins for the right side:

This was by far the hardest section to get right. This panel expands to the right on expanded mode as well as up depending on how many items are listed. I tested these settings with 1 item all the way up to 10 items (takes up most of the height of your screen).

I tweaked it for literally hours and came up with these settings.

Tip: You can maximize the popup window for the section in sks...it will give you a larger preview and help you see where exactly your margins fall.

Temporary text margins for this section:

top 12

bottom -40 (yes, use a neg. value for this part.....it's a Vista/Win7 OS quirk)

left 0 (I used 0 here because you don't have a middle divider separating the 2 sides)

right 14

Quoting 2of3,

reply 69

I tweaked it for literally hours and came up with these settings.

Sorry.

Quoting 2of3,

reply 70

Tip: You can maximize the popup window for the section in sks...it will give you a larger preview and help you see where exactly your margins fall.

How?

Quoting 2of3,

reply 73

The max button on the window

derp*

The max button on the window

You can also click on this icon to get a better view:

Ready to do the last section?

Home

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!

View all recent posts

Mark all posts as read • Delete cookies created by the forum • Return to Top

Stardock Forums v1.0.0.0 #108434 walnut1 Server Load Time: 00:00:00.0000140 Page Render Time: