TGTsoft did it.....

I must admit that the Builder does look quite impressive. It seems to be quite complete and very well done. I will indeed have to try it out and give it a more in depth opinion later. So far, I only have good to say about the builder.

And I have just finished setting up XP with WB3 and one of Alex's skins.....just so I can get back to a roll-up function again....
Now, there is no more daggy green start button....what more do you need?.....

Well, I managed to snag blue, red, orange, lime, cobalt and black themes for the stylesXP. Whats your fav color Jafo? hehehe

I've been finding a lot of dead links for the themes...and a lot of very amateurish ones...where'd you get the good ones dj?

I'll talk Alexandrie into doing a Grey and trans skin......just for me.....

I tried it out too. Well boys, even though it is really well designed, it is kind of a glorified version of what was in Windows 98 except now we have bitmaps. It's as if it were designed mainly to create different colors of what comes with XP.

Let me know how they're doing a year from now...

Emily...yes, I think that's the case.....just like changing the colours of your desktop.....really limited to the point of being a waste of time...

I found the multiple colored ones at http://www.neowin.net/ Davav70. Just a few there. I think it's too soon for some really good ones to come out yet....

/me hasn't got XP, so takes no side.

/me hasn't got XP, and doesn't care.

Last Winter when Whistler was still in beta I looked at .msstyles mucho. It can change all the controls in XP. But in a very very very limited way. In WB, the skin author decides how big the titlebar is and the borders and the title bar buttons. In .msstyles the "skin" can't do much. The author has no say over the title bar height or borders or button sizes. And they can't decide where the buttons really go.

Don't take my word for it, you can tell this without looking into it much. In XP, the border size and title bar heights are still set by users. Try it for yourself. If you do the same thing with WB, it'll override it and keep it at whatever size the skin author decided.

It's a UIS1+ type solution at best. And we all know how many skin authors use that.....

Well, I must say, it is rather nice for the user to be able to decide the size of things. It would be nice if the UIS format was flexible enough to let users decide the size of the titlabar, scrollbar, borders, etc.

Oh you gotta laugh. You say that so far they are basically only colour changes to the original XP themes..... If you click on that category, top left here, the one for XP Skins, what do you get ?

Oh look 10 themes with different colours but all looking like the original XP skins..... Oh please...
The thing with StyleXP is you can change EVERY single piece of graphic in XP...... Like to see it done with WB.....

You obviously haven't used any of the WB3 skins sickpuppy. If you had, you would see that several of those skins are COMPLETELY original, with no recolored XP parts. Take a look at the beige or blue skins by alexandrie, then show me anything remotely as original as that done so far with Stlyes XP.

Sickpuppy....you are quite wrong.
Currently, the majority of 'XP'-specific WB skins are intended to emulate and improve on the style of the default XP skin, however, I for one am running my own skin in XP...[BlindJAFO-X] which has absolutely no similarity with the default XP what-so-ever, in fact, all the controls are at top-left....something I don't believe this new 'proggy' can achieve.
If you were to skin for WindowBlinds, you would soon see its potential for diverse style and layout. Essentially, the sky is the limit, and definitely far more adaptable than a boring old colour change or bitmap swap....

But, independantly from what it can or can't skin, I just like the way StyleBuilder is made. It's very easy to skin with that thing. You see the shape of the bitmaps, the different states as you mouse-over, click, etc. No, really, it's extremely well thought of.

I don't have XP, so I don't have an opinion either way.

It appears there are a LOT of uncertainty regarding Styles XP and StyleBuilder with regards to what it can and can not do, what it will do in the future and how it does what it says it can do. Phew... anyways. deviantART has conducted an interview with the developers of these two new utilities: We hope it offers some insight to help you better understand what it is and the controversy around it that involves WindowBlinds.

"A Fireside Chat with Style XP Developers" http://www.deviantart.com/news.php?id=6011

*reads interview*

*cough*bullshit*cough*

Well.. that sure was informative. You must feel great now FIrestorm, eh?

yes...thanks for your insight firestorm !!vomit!!

Well, after all of TGT's jabs at WB and especially the skinning community, which in the end is the one that will make or break their product, I don't have much sympathy for those guys.

Especially check the comments!

Nice to see that cough cleared up firestorm.