Bow wow wow, yippee yo yippee yay. Woof mofo, the big dog came to play. The biggest, baddest dog in the neighbourhood, the Snoop Dogg of Skindom, Windowblinds, has reached the ripe old age of 4.5.

“WindowBlinds 4.5 includes the new ability to change the color of visual styles through hue shifting along with modifying the brightness and saturation of the visual style. It also includes the ability to have alpha blended Start menus and standard menus which enable users to have semi-transparent pieces to those parts of Windows XP and eliminates the "jagged" look around the edges of the interface.”

Good. Now all we need is alpha skinning of window borders, so we can get rid of the jaggies there as well.

Froggy recently posted a more in-depth preview of this latest release. Free version will cost you nothing, but doesn't skin everything; non-free version sets you back $19.95 and umm, skins more. || craeonics | comments (3)

Froggy was just complaining that Konfabulator has the upper hand over DesktopX publicity-wise, while the latter is technically the more potent app (his words, not mine, haven't run either app (as usual)) and here we have the new build of Kapsules. And the old description of that went like this:

“ Kapsules is a scriptable, whatever-suits-you application engine. Similar in many aspects to its source of inspiration, Konfabulator, it differs in many ways. Kapsules makes use of the Windows Scripting Host, which allows it to use any language which is availible with an Active Script engine. Kapsules ceases its similarities with Konfabulator beyond its general purpose and function.”

That's got to hurt.

Seeing that I can't find a changelog anywhere and not even blizzle (where I stole this from) has any info on that, I have no idea what's new and improved about this release. You'll just have to grab it and see for yourself.

If you have the bloody .NET framework and can meet the other requirements, that is. || craeonics | comments (8)

When you look at skinnable apps, there are basically just two categories: 1) apps that are skinnable; and 2) apps that skin your system (shells falling under the former monniker). Flagship of that last category is ofcourse the window skinner, which takes care of (as the name implies) windows and the widgets thereof.

But there's more.

Cursors for instance. Yeah, sure you can already change the cursors and have been able to do so since the dawn of time. But that's not really skinning. Changing your window colours and fonts pales in comparison with what you can do with a window skinner and similarly, changing your icons is no match for an app that actually skins them.

Enter CursorXP, formerly known as CursorEx and in a strange way related to ‘widget engine’ DesktopX.

Version 1.31 brings us… not much new?

“New in version 1.31: Various performance tweaks along with support for 64bit Windows (for those of you with the AMD64).”

As with most StarDock customisation apps these days, CursorXP comes in two flavours: the free version and a $10 ‘plus’ version which adds a bucket load more effects.

So why aren't I running this thing then? Yeah well, err… I umm, like my basic black cursors? || craeonics | comments (2)

SkinYourScreen.com recently had a chat with StarDock kahuna Brad ‘frogboy’ Wardell. And from quite a different angle than the interviews I've seen so far.

Snippet of note:

“In the next major version of WindowBlinds we plan to let skin authors be able to skin everything they want. Right now, we just skin the standard parts of the OS. That is, the elements of the Windows interface that all programs share. The next step is to make it easy for skinners to start skinning specific apps and elements of specific apps.”

To which one can only respond with a quote from Macho Man Randy Savage: “Ooooh yeah!”. Finally!

Bit curious what SkinYourScreen.com is all about. Luckily, they can explain that themselves. || craeonics | comments (3)

A couple of days ago, I got this question about a screenshot I stole from the @zPod site:

“hi, love your site and have a question- in the attached pic (taken of your web) what is the bar on the bottom being used to launch stuff? In a more general sense I want to replace XP's quick launch bar but call me stupid I just can't seem to find one that looks like that one (in picture). What I want is something that doesn't go from one side to the another.”

What he was talking about was, ofcourse, ObjectDock. And lo and behold, there was a new version of it as well.

“New in ObjectDock / ObjectDock Plus 1.1:

• Zooming tabbed docks (icons in tabbed docks can now zoom).

• You can now always resize tabbed docks from corners

• Can now run on limited user accounts

• Supports WinKey+D now (show desktop no longer hides ObjectDock if it's set to always on bottom or top)

• Unicode support

• Multiple language support (see files in \lang directory)

• Standard docks adjust themselves properly on screen resolution change.

• Auto-hide sensitivity options added for standard docks

• Folder menu items with &'s in them now supported

• Many other minor tweaks”

One difference between the regular and plus version is that the latter adds stuff (hence the name), like tabs, ‘fly out menus’ and allows multiple docks. Another difference is that the first is freeware and the second costs $19.95. || craeonics | comments

Iconist Mormegil is doing something at the moment that qualifies as ‘pretty damn cool’:

“This brings me to the point of this blog. Starting today, I am going to find some time every day to make one (1) Icon. This will give us a new complete Iconpack in about 60 days.

Here is my plan.

1. Design 1 Icon a day, starting with the folder. (Can't help but do this)

2. Post that Icon in the Misc Icons section over on wincustomize. This way anyone who wants to can get the Icons as they are made, and not have to wait for the completed pack.

3. Post a short blog on the making of each Icon. This hopefully will allow for feedback from users, and help make the pack better.”

Note that last bit. This means he'll post a step-by-step lusciously illustrated journal of how he creates his icons. We get to peek over his shoulder as he makes them, so to speak.

So far he's done four:

• closed folder

• default file

• text file

• open folder

Or for the full deal, check his profile. || craeonics | comments (8)

T-Man posted a request for comments from the new CoolPlayer dev, joh6nn, over at WinCustomize:

“Hi All. I'm joh6nn, the newest member of Coolplayer's dev team.

There are currently a number of problems surrounding skinning Coolplayer. Probably the biggest one is that the UI for skinning the playlist is currently broken. A close second would be that Coolplayer has two completely different skinning systems: one for the player itself, and a separate one for the playlist. I'd like to fix as many of the skinning issues as possible, and unite the playlist and player systems if i can.

This is where you come in. I'm looking for feedback. I'd like to know.

• how put off you'd be about your skins breaking

• how put off you'd be about having to learn yet another skinning system?

• what do you or don't you like about the current skinning system for Coolplayer?

• which programs have skinning systems that you like, and what do you like about them?

• anything else you think i should know

Those of you who run community sites, if you could make a news post about this, that'd be extra nifty.

The feedback that i get will pretty much determine what changes i make, and how. You can get hold of me for questions and comments at joh6nn@users.sourceforge.net, or at NotTilNextWeek@AIM

Thanks alot everyone, and Happy New Year”

The man has some interesting ideas on where to go from here, so if you're a CoolPlayer user (read: Ken), give him some feedback. And if not, give him some feedback as well. || craeonics | comments (4)

Bar None is a seemingly skinnable (not sure) app launcher by the boys from k23productions.

“Based largely on s:Kimo-Jo, Bar None is a tiny application launcher designed to take up as little space as possible on your desktop, while still providing a vast amount of functionality. Bar None has improved significantly on s:Kimo-Jo with a more user-friendly interface, and the ability to easily extend its functionality through the use of both ActiveX and scripted command addons.”

Changes in this version:

“Zen 0.94

• Added ‘Icon size’ submenu, under Options, where you can change the display size of your items (the size of the bar will obviously change accordingly).

• Included styles are now Vine, Leaf, Rust and Sky.

• Removed the Zen designation from the about box and exe comment. I'll keep using it in the changelog, however.”

Since the changelog mentions the word “styles”, I take it it is indeed skinnable. It's also a wee 330k download, so what's stopping you?

If you run into trouble, grab this update annex bugfix as well. || craeonics | comments

We had four and here comes widget engine number five. Announced on Aero-Soft by author LeFool a week ago, spotted by Blizzle, from whom I stole it (as usual): @zPod.

Surely these things must be The Next Big Thing™. They're everywhere!

“@zPod is a new Desktop Enhancer who show different kind of Widgets on your Desktop.

Available Widgets:

• Clock with Chronometer function

• Notes with alarm and attached link

• Calendar with Notes link

• Photo Album

• Calculator

• Google search

• PopMail Alerter

• Remote Windows Media Player

• Weather RSS Reader

• News RSS Reader

• Link Folder to store usual http links, files or folders

• Account Manager to manage your personal money account”

Haven't ran it yet (ofcourse), but I can tell you that it's a 1.4 meg download, which includes all available widgets. It's a .rar file though, so you might want to grab a decent extractor to unpack things.

Apparently, ‘0.9d’ watermarks appear to be placed across the widgets for some reason, but those will be gone in the 1.0 release, which is due in February. || craeonics | comments (8)

No, no need to check your eyes. It's really out now. After an eternity of nothingness, issue thirteen is published.

I'm going to cheat and pretend that we released it yesterday (and thus still in 2004). Ofcourse in reality I ran into a nest of bugs. Pesks always manage to show up when you want to finish things.

So, after eightteen months, what have we got? Mostly old stuff.

“Say what?”, you shout in agony.

Hey, can't let that stuff gathering dust forever. This issue is a blast from the past.

Teknidermy #13:

• Slacknidermy — AKA editor's notes

• CutTheRedWire — yeah, I know it's incestuous to interview incrowd

• Fizzgig — someone who struck Doreen's morbid eyes

• Liquidd — name sounds vaguely familiar, can't recall why though

• Miloszwl — argh, Mantzy is coming!

• Pearls & Skins — an oldie with Art'n'Skins founder Pearldrop

• PocketPC Skinning Revisited — Doreen's love child encores

• Rainy — the man, the myth, the legend

• Redllar — Kenray's shrine for his favourite dev

• Whodunnit? — obligatory bits and pieces

Ofcourse, a delay as such has had its toll. As in: no bunnies. *shock* *horror* “Say it ain't so!”

It's a bit rough around the edges as well, 'specially in IE. But then again, what serious skinner would go with a browser that come pre-installed anyway?

Also note that the interface is rather minimal. No need to replicate functionality already present in your browser. It has a back button, so use it.

If you spot any bugs, let me know. I'm getting rusty at my old age. And starting to talk to myself. || craeonics | comments (9)