• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – LSYzController 1.0.2

• [bz][skn|sym|rls] – Samurize 1.55

• [bz][shl|geo|rls] – geOWeather 3.4.0

• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – xLabel & xLabelLight 3.0.9

• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – xTaskBar 0.9.8

• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – xDesktop 1.2

• [bz][shl|bb|rls] – bbAnalogEx 1.4

• [bz][shl|ish|rls] – iConfig 1.1

• [wc][blg] – froggy's tuesday night skin blog

Been busy these last few days. But I wasn't alone it seems, note the overdose of ‘x’ modules, all courteousy of Andymon. || craeonics | comments (5)

But RadLight is not alone. The granddaddy of all skinnable apps, WinAmp released a new version as well.

Cut'n'paste from DevArt:

“Changes in this version:

• Added eMusic trial offer to installer. Uninstaller included in Program Files\Winamp\eMusic

• Improvements in MP3 encoder configuration (added --alt-preset standard, etc...)

• Winamp modern skin now uses a 3 state repeat button: no repeat/repeat all/repeat track

• Added application desktop toolbars capabilities for layouts, add appbar="left|top|right|bottom" to use them

• Upped maki binary version, improved stack protection

• Current skin version number is 1.2 (this should not change for a long while now, and of course we continue to support 0.8 to 1.1)

• Very limited maki debugger (for now you can bring it up with invokeDebugger(); in a script then use 'x' to continue and 'i' to trace into)

• Fixed obscure capture problem with dragging windows

• Fixed rectrgn being forced to 1 in xml xuiobject buttons that are originally imageless

• Fixed hilited state not on after clicking on buttons while the mouse stays in area

• Fixed scripted onEnterArea/onLeaveArea not being always correctly called while mouse button stays down

• Fixed getToken being passed NULL throwing guru

• Fixed clipping of painting within the background's region of a group rather than within the composed region (the one you can change with sysregion)

• Fixed image cache problem when using the same bitmap as a map and a button image parameter”

eMusic trial, eh? I'm having some strange associations hearing that. Something with an ‘i’ and ‘tunes’ || craeonics | comments (5)

Hot from the SkinBase stove, RadLight MultiMedia Player. Freeware, skinnable, that's about all I can say, since my ISP is being professional again, meaning I can't reach the site.

“New version of this freeware multimedia player has been released. Read more to see the changelog.

• Native support for VobSub subtitle format (no need for VobSub/VSFilter)

• Native support for MKV (Matroska) and OGM subtitles

• Subtitle time correction

• Subtitle renderer selection

• Subtitle moving, resizing and style selection added

• Subtitle module improved

• RadLight SHOUTcast DirectShow filter v1.0.0.1 (bugfixes)

• Support for SHOUTcast .pls files added

• SHOUTcast tags & bitrate/sample rate are now displayed

• Experimental language files support (fully UNICODE)

• Includes English, Slovak and Srpski language files

• RadLight OSD filter fixed (should not crash anymore)

• Mouse auto hide

• Various bug fixes and enhancements

• homepage

• download”

I mean, come on, ISP. How hard can routing be? || craeonics | comments (5)

Skinnables reports on the latest incarnation of Kapsules. DesktopX clone, Konfabulator wannabe or genuine innovator? Who knows?

Interesting? Most definitely. Judge for yourself.

“Kapsules is desktop widget engine for Microsoft Windows.

What's a widget you say? A widget is like a miniature application which rests on your desktop. Widgets can do all sorts of things. A widget could show you the current weather conditions, display news from your favorite website, or even check your email for you.

Version 0.7.13.38 boasts a plethora of improvements to the last public version (0.7.1.19) . Among these improvements include new Widget Development API, faster load time, new configuration options, more graphical enhancements, Development API Fixes, new Widget options and a bigger and better Development Guide.

If you've already tried Kapsules, this upgrade is a must.

• screenshot

• download page

• getting started guide”

One meg download, plus a required 24 megs of .NET framework and MS Scripting 5.6. But you've probably heard me bitch about that before. || craeonics | comments (3)

• [bz][enh|rls] – Object Dock 1.02

• [bz][enh|rls] – xTrayTasks

• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – xLabel & xLabel Light 3.0.8

• [bz][shl|ish|rls] – iTasks 1.8

The xTrayTasks app should be familiar to anyone who's been tinkering with LiteStep. Now you can stick your tasks in the tray under Explorer as well.

And yep, it's one of those days where all the news comes from blizzle. || craeonics | comments

Newsplorer, a freeware skinnable RSS news reader. Supposedly freeform, but judging by the screenshots, that's a relative term. What gets skinned appears to be the border, the inside is still a rectangular box.

“Newsplorer v0.50 comes with these features:

• Supported news formats: RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, RSS 0.9x

• Fully skinnable interface. Any shape is allowed, enough of the boring rectangular windows!

• No adware and no spyware

• News sources are grouped by category

• Unlimited number of news feeds and categories

• Popup window displaying the latest news as they are fetched

• Non-intrusive: The popup window can be suppressed and the interface hidden

• Multiple news refresh intervals”

500k download from a very fast server. It was on my disk right after I started downloading. Wow!

News stolen from SkinBase. || craeonics | comments (4)

• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – LS Y'z Controller 1.0.1

• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – LS Syndication b0.9.4

• [bz][shl|bb|rls] – bbMuse 0.5b

• [bz][shl|bb|rls] – bbCalendar 1.0

• [sk][sys|rls] – nLite: WindowsXP/2003 reduction tool

nLite looks interesting. There's too much stuff in XP I have no need for, so when the author rewrites this without the .NET dependencies, I'll be checking this out and off cleaning my OS. || craeonics | comments

Aside from the browser Firefox and the mail app Thunderbird, Mozilla has also spun off a calendar app, called Sunbird.

And it needs a new default theme.

“At the moment we are still using the old suite classic theme for Sunbird and we want something, which looks more modern and more appealing to users. For those of you who do not know anything about Mozilla Sunbird, information can be found under this link.

We want to do ask the community because in our opinion there a lot of very talented themers out there and we believe Mozilla Sunbird to be a project where the community can actively participate.”

Mind you, the word ‘community’ up there applies to the Mozilla community, not the (highly fragmented) skinning community. But I figured someone out there might be up to the challenge.

Making themes for a Mozilla app is quite different from your average skinning job.

Anyhow, thanks to sryo for the heads up. || craeonics | comments (19)

Just when I thought I could finally get away from this machine and enjoy the sun, Doreen went panicing (Hmm, how does one spell that?) over me.

“Dutchy looks like they gave AU a face lift! but it's lagging really bad can't move =(

Strange now it's loading like lightning? anyways a new playground!!!”

Yup, ArtUproar has been recoded and should be slicker than ever. It's supposed to have a multitude of new features, but unless someone tells me what they are, I won't recognise 'em.

Things do tend to jump around a bit, but at least I can see where I'm typing here, unlike LotsOfSkins (perhaps they fixed that as well).

At any rate, go check it out for yourself. || craeonics | comments

sryo sent me word of this new skinnable icon conversion app, AveIconifier2.

Operation is quite simple: drop a .png (or a series of .png's) on the PNG pane to have it converted to an icon. Or the other way around, drop an icon on the icon pane, to have it converted to .png.

Yep, looks like a Mac. It comes packed with a number of XP and OSX skins.

“Features

• Convert ICO to PNG and vice versa.

• Simple drag-'n-drop interface.

• Totally skinnable application.

• Right click on the captionbar to select a skin.

• Select output formats for icons (right click on the icon pane).

What's new?

• Multi Icons are now created from PNGs: 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48, 64x64, 72*72 96x96, 128x128 are possible. All 32bits.

• Converts faster

• Batch converting, just drag multiple icons/pngs to the pane.

• Any PNG size is now supported.

• Luna skins included and made default.”

Works quite well, although you shouldn't drop files on the wrong pane (as I found out). Downside is that it's quite a big app (.exe is 600k) for something like this. || craeonics | comments (6)

And the scepticism continues with the following entry, another media player: Zoom Player.

“Zoom Player was originally conceived to fill a void in Multimedia playback. Prior to Zoom Player, playing media files on the PC was either overly simplistic for the Power User or overly cryptic to the common user. Zoom Player tries to both simplify the playback experience for the common user, while giving the Power Users all the tools and interfaces they may require to manipulate their playback environment to their exact specification. ”

If that's so, then why does it look like WinAmp's cousin?

That's probably only the surface though, since I don't understand half the entries of their gargantuesque feature list, there's got to be a maze of configuration screens hidden below. I do see that it supports my favourite audio format, so that's a definite pro.

There are two flavours: a free one and a shareware pro version (uncrippled, $19.95). || craeonics | comments

New build of this freeform skinnable media player, again courteousy of the pandaman.

If you've seen one media player, you've seen 'em all, so let's skip straight to the change list:

“Version 1.00 RC1 Build 809 released (16 Jun 2004)

• Fixed problem with Matroska files with only audio streams

• Sometimes audio stream names with Ogg files was corrupted, fixed

• Selected audio output device will now be remembered when switching audio streams

• Sometimes skin would revert back to base skin, should be fixed now

• Fixed problem with freezing when seeking

• Movie length was displayed as 0 after stop, fixed

• Last subtitle line was still displayed after switching subtitles off, fixed

• AC3 filter will be visible now in filter list

• If video window was left on secondary monitor and in full screen mode, position wasn't remembered, fixed

• chapters from ini files should now be read like in 0.8xx versions

• ini shutdown option wasn't working, fixed

• fixed bug with resolution switching in full screen mode

• fixed freezing problem with some skins under Windows 98

• filters defined in bspfilters.dat will now be loaded even if other libraries are required (for ex. xvid.ax require xvidcore.dll), just put them all in .\filters directory

• added option to open locked (in use) files

• subtitle position will now also work when 'Draw subtitles to overlay surface option is checked'

• Subtitle language for subtitles in Matroska files is now properly displayed”

Okay, so it's actually more of a video player than an audio player, as it can play quite a lot of video formats (through codecs).

Free for non-commercial use, but what's this?

“As a registered user of BSPlayer you will get tech support.

Your personal data cannot be accessed by third parties.”

Statements like that make me switch to paranoid mode. || craeonics | comments

Panda posted a list of new/updates skinnable apps the other day, one of which was this Desktop Sidebar app. A six meg taskbar on steroids.

“Desktop Sidebar displays e-mails, appointments, task, notes, Messenger contacts, stock quotes, weather forecasts and constantly updated news from blogs,RSS newsfeeds and web pages.”

And it displays those in a massive sidebar.

It's skinnable too, although those appear to be limited to changing the background (can't find the specs) and you'll have to scour the forum to find them.

This takes up way too much screen estate for crae the minimalist, but the app seems to pack a lot of functionality and has numerous plugins and extensions, so give it a spin. || craeonics | comments

Whoever invented cut and paste should win a Nobel prize or something, 'cause it makes writing this article so much easier. A lot of news blurbs on SkinStudio have already been generated, all I have to do is hit Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.

Ofcourse, one shouldn't believe everything one's told.

“SkinStudio is a program that allows you to create skins for Windows.”

Well, no, it's a program that allows you to create skins for WindowBlinds. And WindowBlinds can skin Windows.

But wait, they've noticed that themselves as well:

“It comes in basically two forms: A freeware version that creates GUI skins that can be applied to your entire Windows GUI via WindowBlinds and a Pro version which adds support for creating skins for Windows Media Player…”

Excuse me? I always thought it was a skin builder for WindowBlinds, now it turns out you can create Windows Media Player skins with it as well? That's an entirely different beast!

I'd like to see some screenshots on how that's implemented, but unfortunately, I can't find any.

“…and lets serious skinners to able to create new skins by mixing and matching parts from skins they have on their computers.”

Hmm, call me old-fashioned, but to me, serious skinners code by hand.

“SkinStudio 4.3 has two key new features:

1. You can now easily create and export toolbar icons and progress animations (see new section on WinCustomize.com)

2. It takes advantage of features in WindowBlinds 4.3 to enable easy and seamless importation of most visual styles that use the .msstyles format.”

Those two new skinnable things (toolbar icons and progress animations) were (naturally) promptly added to WinCustomize's ever-growing list of sections. || craeonics | comments

• [sr][brw|rls] – Mozilla Suite 1.7 out tomorrowtoday?

• [sr][shl|rls] – SphereXP 0.76.800

• [bz][brw|rls] – Mozilla FireFox 0.9

• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – xTaskbar 0.97

The mysterious masked man known as sryo has sent me word of a couple of apps. SphereXP looks very interesting, but as long as it has that .NET framework requirement, it's a no-go area for this crae.

And a new smaller FireFox is always good news. || craeonics | comments (10)

Already mentioned ‘best WinAmp skin’ earlier, but this week of the GUI Olympics also saw two other results: ‘best WindowBlinds skin’ and ‘best icon package’.

treetog again ruled the first category with his Antares, followed by another Pixtudio member, essorant with Pixel 8. Bronze went to b0se for his already acclaimed Vector-Cell.

Unfortunately, danilloOc's neOS ended up fourth. Probably because it's a black skin and not a blue one. Black's an acquired taste.

Over on the other side of the fence were the icons. The Last Order by Rokey was the people's favourite. Mwah, a bit basic, but okay. Thunder Storm, a rather bland set by (guess who) treetog, grabbed silver and Dementæcon, by the mad tinkerer known as MindlessPuppet, got bronze.

Froggy calls that last set the most original icons he's ever seen. Perhaps he should go take a look at this list of icon links.

That said, making icons is a tremendous chore, so respect to the authors.

Can't really recall what events are up next, but I think we're up for the big final ones.

On a related note, for those that haven't been paying attention (what's everyone looking at me for?), froggles also did a write up on what he considers are “some skins I've used a lot that didn't get enough kudos”.

Check it out! || craeonics | comments (1)

• [bz][shl|bb|rls] – bbAnalogEx 1.3 XL

• [bz][shl|bb|rls] – bbMuse 0.4b

• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – xDesktop 1.1

• [bz][shl|ls|rls] – xLabel & xLabelLight 3.0.7

• [wc][go] – GUI Olympics: best overall icons

No surprise here, Blizzle has most of the news I'm stealing today.

I'm going to save that ‘best overall icons’ 'till the results for ‘best overal WindowBlinds skin’ are in. || craeonics | comments

• [bz][shl|rls] – SharpE PB5 CVS Build 0.0.0.2

• [vp][cst|rls] – PopUp Icons Ex

• [wc][skn|blg] – Brad's Friday Night Skinning Blog Entry

• [wc][prs] – Alienware, Stardock and The Skins Factory partnership

• [da][art|rls] – Raster #30 - The Art Movements Chapter

While I do try to post on just about anything remotely related to skinning, sometimes I really don't have anything to say about or add to things. Up until now those things did not get posted. From now on, they will, in the above form.

Or: newstheftfeeds, with a twist. || craeonics | comments

Into some minimalistic customisation? StartButtoner skins your start menu button and the banner of the menu. Notable feature is that it uses stylesheets for skins.

Can't really check what other kind of features it exactly has, since a) I don't have a start menu; and b) this app and the site are in Japanese, but that shouldn't stop any serious customiser, now does it? Okay, so you should know how to unpack .lzh files, but that should be merely a threshold to seperate the men/women from the boys/girls, oi?

Small apps like these add spice to your daily dose of Skindom. Heads up to Targaff for posting this at Virtual Plastic. || craeonics | comments

You've probably noticed that google sometimes refers to directories when you search for something. The engine powering this is the DMOZ open directory project.

Now DMOZ happens to have a section for alternate shells, but it's horribly out of date. Or as ravi put it:

“The directory that Google uses (DMOZ) has been out of date for a long time where Alternate Shells are concerned.

Finally, we have some say in what goes there — since Tres`ni is now one of the editors for that category. If Google continues to use the DMOZ directory, this category could be a valuable starting point for folks looking for information about shells. (Several other services also use the DMOZ directory.)

So here's what I'd like people to do: Submit links to good shell sites. When you're done — post here and let us know which sites you've already submitted, so people don't repeat submissions (let's go easy on Tres`ni!).”

Sounds like an excellent idea. Everyone, get off your ass and help out!

Makes me wonder though. Is there such a thing for skins?

Took a little digging, but it turns out there is such a section. Perhaps we should blackmail CutTheRedWire (or some other hapless victim) into becoming an editor there? || craeonics | comments (10)

Actually, I wanted to wait until the other final results of the GUI Olympics were out, but it appears we'll have to wait a couple of days for those. So I'll just go ahead and post about the ‘Best Overal WinAmp Skin’, before it's old news.

Umm, too late for that. It already is old news.

Anyhow, the gold medal goes to kriptoner's D-Reliction, followed by 883's Enkera and VAG/MetaSkin's WooHooFER (with its “real time animated woofers”).

The other two events will be ‘best overall WindowBlinds skin’ and ‘best overall IconPackager, umm, package’. Results of these should be out somewhere this weekend.

On a more contemplative note, froggles wrote an article showing off some of his favourite submissions.

“For those who are interested, I've gone through some of the more popular GUI Olympics entries and talked about what makes them special, why they might win, why they might not, and so on. Took quite awhile to do as you can imagine but I wanted to show how much energy the judges are putting into judging these events and show off some of the things about these skins that the casual user may not be aware of.”

Going through all of 'em takes a lot of time indeed. That's why I didn't do it. Besides, for fair judgement, you should actually be using the skins and I'm more a ‘judge by appearance’ kind of guy. || craeonics | comments (1)

Half a day fresher is the latest incarnation of RainMeter, Rainy's sysmetering application. This once started out as a LiteStep module, but has grown into much more than that.

The changelog (at the end of the manual) is a mile long, but here's what Rainy himself figured was most interesting:

“There has been a lot of changes. The major new feature is that you can run several configs at the same time.”

It doesn't have the ease of customisation Samurize has, but it's most definitely worth checking out. || craeonics | comments (2)

Hot on the heels of the State of the Step came a new release candidate of LiteStep. But since I wasn't exactly around yesterday, it's cooled off a bit by now.

Let me grab the interesting bits from the announcement:

“Changes since release candidate 2:

• Fixed XP logon delay (many, many thanks to Nicolas Escuder)

• Fixed Logitech QuickSwitch closing LiteStep on middleclick

• TrayService now preserves NIM_SETVERSION and NIM_SETFOCUS return values

• STLport no longer necessary to compile or use Litestep

• Various minor fixes”

Most notable change is, ofcourse, the fixed XP logon delay. Bye bye, thirty seconds of needless waiting at boot time. || craeonics | comments

sryo sent me a note about the ‘State of the Step’, which was recently posted on the LiteStep Mailing List. LiteStep dev ilmcuts sits down to give the plebs an update on the current affairs regarding everyone's favourite shell.

“Dear LiteSteppers,

Welcome to the June 2004 edition of the State of the Step. After a long break, it is time for the next update from your friendly LiteStep Development Team.

For those not familiar with the State of the Step, it used to be a semi-periodic, official "LiteStep Status Report." Sent out by the Devteam between January 2000 and March 2001, it kept the LiteStep Community up to date with the latest news in LiteStep Development. The time has come to revive this tradition.

On the agenda this time:

1. LiteStep 0.24.7

2. The Development Team

3. lsdev.org

4. Plans for the Future”

For the chronologically challenged, let me summarise the article.

In short: 1) 0.24.7 is approaching completion, but they could use some help on the documentation; 2) the devteam is a real devteam again and not just ilmcuts, if you want to join, contact them; 3) they're looking for someone to maintain the development site and do something with litestep.org; and 4) some thoughts on 0.25 and the future.

All in all, good news. || craeonics | comments (4)

Another week, more events. This week saw the GUI Olympics' last event level contests. The only things remaining now are the ‘Best Overal This’ and ‘Best Overal That’ picks, which get picked from all entries.

b0se won the ‘Best Pseudo-OS Visual Style’ event, with his Vector-Cell skin, followed by (who else?) treetog and his Mini OS and Blanco's The Morphium.

‘Best Themed WinAmp Skin’ was mon z.'s Cardium II, followed by VAG's Metaskins.net-H2O Liquid and booster29's capsule II.

Final events next week. And then it's time to evaluate (what's everyone looking at me for? I didn't follow it). || craeonics | comments (2)