SkinStudio 6 Technical Preview is available!

This blows away SKS5!

Awesome improvement over SkinStudio 5 .....

Right on the money! Just what I wanted... the code editor is in the program!
Thank you Neil and Stardock Team~!
This is awesome - now we can really get down on this stuff and save time too!
Cool!


SGT

More soon as I run this program at doing some cool stuff! ya~!

Wow, I don't know much about skinning as of yet but this program does look and work a lot smoother than 5 from what I've seen so far. Can't wait to put out a skin

Alot of nice improvements with the latest Beta.   

When will this be available? I'd like to see a countdown like you did for WB6.

Where can I get now?

The link to the download page is at the bottom of the article... That is all you need to get skinning!
In addition Object Desktop users can access the latest beta versions through SDC

With SK6 being so easy to use, I can see a lot more people getting into skinning. This is an exciting time for skinners old and new   

Could you confirm the above Start Panel animation (eg. Dragon in Molten) remains an inactive feature at this stage? Or am I just not looking hard enough? Tks
.

That remains disabled for now.

I keep having problems with some of the editors. Like, I'll go to painting margins in almost anything and occasionally the program will just freeze or go into this really slow state... and when I click on anything in the painting margins settings, it keeps doing it... I try restarting the program, reopening the skin, and it does the same thing, rendering the program useless and leaving me unable to continue making my visual style... any thoughts?

Here is a screenshot of what I mean:
Link

It looks much easier than previous version. I hope it will help me to make a skin from my imaginations without any SkinStudio 5 problems.

As much as I searched your site, I can't find what the differences are between Skin Studio, and Skin Studio Pro. Will BOTH have the new interface? The two seem to be presented as interchangeable, which I'm sure is not the case. The pictured one looks really good as opposed to what is currently in circulation. Congrats to the team which developed the new interface.   

Perhaps if you presented them "side by side" we could come to a better informed decision as to which we really need or want.

I'm slightly miffed because I think Skin Studio Pro should be part of the package with Object Dock, as well as a subscription to Wincustomize.com, but maybe that's because I've always wanted to make some skins but couldn't figure how to do it in it's present format.

Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this.

Oh...I forgot....when I tried to download it it was refected as "Not a valid Win32 Application"

Anybody else get a message like that?

I just had to install Vista to try this out. Dual booting Vista on a RAID 0 drive was a pain. I still have a bunch of issues with this Vista installation, but I am not going to spend my time fixing those. My main OS is Windows XP 64 bit.

I really like the look and feel and organization of the new Skin Studio. I have a few comments though.

- Can I browse and open a theme folder outside of the public folder? If you are a software developer, you know you don't want make change directly in your production environment. You do stuff in a development area, test it and then apply it. You may also use a source control system for your own code (skin). All these are possible with current system but it is not a clean solution.

- Can I directly work from the WBA file? I know this is very complicated.

- Has it become too simple for the power user? Remember the Gnome Vs KDE arguments.

- Full preview is not full enough. More commonly used elements please.

- My own theme looks ugly on Vista. Not anyone else's fault. It was ok on XP.

- One of my secret expectation for WindowBlinds 6.0 was that it would keep wba files instead of uncompressed folders. Files will be extracted on a needed basis or only for the active skin. Clutter reduction.

Stupid Question: How do I start with the default Vista Aero theme as my basis?

When I try to launch SkinStudio 6, I get this error:

"This preview release of SkinStudio 6 has detected an installation error."



I try to reinstall, but still get this error and cannot use SkinStudio 6.

Anybody get this too?

How do I set desktop background?
Apply button always resets my desktop background to some kind of blue color. I have no wall papaer set, just a black background screen to test out my changes. I tried changing the setting in WB6 not to spply the skin wallpaper, still when I click apply button in SkinStudio 6, it sets the back ground color to blue.

Sorry for the spam. I created a new skin using SkinStudio 6 and this is from the UIS file.

Generator=Stardock SkinStudio Professional ver 5.0.1, Build 1112 - http://www.skinstudio.net
WBVer=500

I see 2 possible inconsistencies here.
- SkinStudio version
- WBVer

PS: I opened the UIS file in notepad and set the background color.

I also receive the same error with greencrazyeye.

Does anyone answer the salient points and questions we're raising?????

Kudo's to the Stardock Dream Team for creating a user friendly prog. I just bought a Alienware laptop with Vista Premium. A new puter and SS6? Sweeet!

First and ONLY toolbar I ever installed.....thanks.

I am also getting a installation error.