I Know I Can Do This!!!!

i am currently trying to figure out beatnik too...

I believe you have to create the graphics for all of the instances and the background, and then in the skin thingy you get to apply each per setting...or something like that. still trying to get the creative juices going on my end....

Beatnik is not the problem. I know how Beatnik works.

I never skinned anything in my life...Thats my problem

elvee- I was going to try a wallpaper but photo shop took to long to do anything. To little ram. So I quit. >

I think i have something working. But i'm warning ya...Its pretty simple. I'll keep working on it though. not ready for show yet.

lol I'm having the same problem trying to figure it out making skins but no one replyed to my ques. in the message board.

wow elvee, thank you! good luck ... and, if you figure out how to skin something, please let me know!!!! hahaha ... i've tried ... i failed ...

Well elvee are you doing it?

Well back to the drawing board

I haven't skinned much and I know it can be difficult, but keep trying elvee. The best way to learn is just jump in and play around with it trying different ideas.

I have yet to attempt to skin one of the more difficult programs. Rainlender was the most difficult one I've done so far. lol

hey James, no need to put down your skinning skills, actually your Rainlendar skin is one of the most complete around, and the alpha blending is sweet. needless to say there are a lot of apps that are much easier to skin.

there is a little bug though (in Rainlendar, not your fault). when you apply images with the skinning gui, it will write hardcoded paths to Rainlendar.ini file. this makes the skin unusable for people that do not have installed the skin in the same directory as you (all non-english users and probably a lot more).

fixing it is easy. after you finished skinning and everything works nice on your system, open Rainlendar.ini with your text editor and remove the paths.

example:

DaysBitmapName=C:\Program Files\Rainlendar\Globes by Jim\Days.bmp

-------->

DaysBitmapName=Days.bmp


i learned this on this message board as well, when Renato asked about the app and people were complaing that the skins seem to be incompatible. so i opened the file and had a deeper look into it (as a LiteStepper i am a little ashamed i trusted a gui for skinning that much, hehe)

moshi...shame on you...

Best way to 'start' skinning virtually any proggy is to grab an existing skin and mess with it and observe the results....that way you learn what does what to which and why....then you keep on modding it till it's nothing like the original, et voila, you have skinned...

Thanks for the info Moshi. I didn't know about that problem in Rainlendar.

And Jafo, I agree with you. Instructions and tutorials are handy, but the best way is to get in there and get your hands dirty, so to speak.

I'm fooling around with The Gimp right now trying to figure it out.

/me scratches his head thinking "What have i gotten myself into now?"

I dunno. let me know when you figure it out. So far I can make rectangles and flood fill them...

Very funny Chris

Hey, Chris......what's a rectangle?

and why would you want to flood it?....

Listen to Jafo.............that's exactly how I got started.

Listen to Koasati....

Isn't a rectangle a circle with four sides? Or is it a four-sided triange?

A rectangle is a circle with too much anti-aliasing.

Success!!! I've mastered Stick Figures

Thanks guys! i will open a skin and do an autopsy

Elvee, I, too, am in the midst of taking the plunge. Our similarities don't end there, GIMP user here too. I think what makes it all that much more complicated is trying to learn GIMP, and skinnning, and SkinStudio, and etc. I made hard copies of the more helpful tutorials, and have tried sleeping with them under my pillow. Rather than get too frustrated, I give it a day or two between attempts so that I don't feel too incompetant.

We ought to keep in touch ............ we may help keep each other sane through the whole process!

1Renegade: sure i'll keep in touch. Every little bit can help I have not done any serious delving into The Gimp yet, just playing with it for now. I have downloaded Grokking The Gimp, an online Tut and i will be looking through that over the weekend.

I got started theming Litestep by porting NextStart themes. Took the pressure off on the graphics side until I was familiar with the nuts 'n bolts. And the graphics program doesn't have to be fancy. Hell, I'm still using Micrografx Draw and PhotoMagic. Talk about primitive.

i have only made walls in the past but i really have the urge to get into skinning, i have an old copy of fireworks but thats it ill see what i come up with wish me luck.