Major annoyances for basic needs

from Stardock Forums

I'm on Win 7 Pro, and I want to use the Corporate visual style and the Corporate substyle. I want to have Aero frames, but oddly enough the Corporate Aero Frames substyle works worse than the regular Corporate substyle: I can't adjust the transparencies of the title and task bars with the former while I can with the latter, completely opposite to what you'd think.

I bought SkinStudio thinking that I can do basic modifications to the skin of my choosing and then save it to Corporate-Corporate-1, for an obvious and dead simple user experience. But before that I thought that if my chosen skin is using my Windows > Personalization > Window Color Appearance > Advanced appearance settings (such as fonts and 3D object colors), then if I tweak these settings – in particular to smaller caption buttons and borders, down from stupid cartoony fat – WindowBlinds would be smart enough to integrate these changes with my skin, not revert back to stupid cartoony fat every time I make an adjustment from within WindowBlinds and click Apply Changes. Hence buying SkinStudio.

But I open SkinStudio to solve the problem with the caption buttons and border thickness, but instead of giving me straightforward navigation to adjust a value to caption buttons and border thickness it presents me with the task of having to learn how to program an operating system.

Give me a fucking break.

windowblinds
5,020 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

SKS isn't that hard, ask questions of Windowblind skinners and do some research. I doubt Stardock is gonna rewrite SKS for you.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I'm figuring it out. And I'll figure it out for what I need if I spend a few hours with it.... I just wasn't looking forward to doing all that for 3-4 minor adjustments, especially since last week I already spent something like 4-6 hours trying to get clear on how exactly WindowBlinds and Win Personalization interacted from the user point of view.... Felt like a huge waste for such simple unrefined needs that I never thought needed refinement for an OS theme.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

And no, they needn't rewrite anything... except for making SkinStudio stop distantly relocating my cursor when I click on things.

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

That sounds more like a setting in windows where your cursor snaps to the most likely point. Is it possibly that?

 

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Also, be sure that you have both the new version of WindowBlinds and SkinStudio. The old SKS won't work with the new WindowBlinds.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Thank you, yes, I unchecked the Snap To and that seemed to fix it....

I was using WindowBlinds 7 and it would open SkinStudio 7.3. I have WindowBlinds 8 Beta to download now. Can I use that with my current SS 7.3?

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Right now I'm trying out WindowBlinds 8 Beta. It looks nicer but unfortunately its programmatic behavior verges on pure shit just like its predecessor:

1. Yes, I want to override the font defined by the skin.

2. Oh, I have to update my Advanced appearance settings in Win Personalization, in particular the font for every item?

3. Sure no problem. I'm updating these settings and you're heeding to these updates as I do. By the way, I'm making the caption buttons smaller and the window border thinner, since popular psychologies evidently prefer them stupid cartoony fat.

4. Let me either reboot my computer, since that's something people do, or make one last adjustment here in WindowBlinds and click Apply Style.

5. (Apply Style on click.) What just happened to my caption buttons and border? Didn't I just say I didn't want them stupid cartoony fat through the dialogue box you were heeding to a moment ago? (On reboot.) What happened to the adjustments you made me make in Personalization who you were just partners with a moment ago?

Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting kaetheceri, reply 8
its programmatic behavior verges on pure shit just like its predecessor:
End of kaetheceri's quote

Join Date 06/2013. Maybe you should take a bit more time to actually use the software, and ask a few questions  of those more experienced than yourself before slamming the software.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Someone change the edit button, please.... X|

 

 

Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting RedneckDude, reply 11
Someone change the edit button, please....

 

 
End of RedneckDude's quote
Tooltips, Jim, tooltips. ;P

Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The creature that is Windowblinds has developed over decades, along with its skinning tool  - Skinstudio.  People who 'came along for the ride' have had time to understand the complexities of skinning [so many variations of] the MS OS GUI.

They call themselves 'skinners' because it's a 'craft'.

Unfortunately a skinner's tool can only be 'so simple' and not more.  There's a learning curve to even alter an existing skin, let alone create an entirely new one of your own.  SKS isn't a hobbyist's tool ...it's a skinner's tool.

One could consider oneself fortunate that skinning Windowblinds has moved on from its origins....notepad text editing and trial and error...;)

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

I know, I know. Simply being able to eliminate the blue menu bar in Aero alone made WindowBlinds worth it (which one could do reverting to Classic but then that's at the expense of Aero frames, of course). There are learning curves to things like Blender and PHP, and I had the patience to overcome them. I just had to accept that I need to have patience for things like skinning too, not in the least because we're sometimes talking about a battle in part against MS Windows probably....

Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting kaetheceri, reply 13
not in the least because we're sometimes talking about a battle in part against MS Windows probably....
End of kaetheceri's quote

Exactly...;)