An Interview with Ess-vid
by Migellito

I took some time recently to speak with ess-vid on a variety of subjects. Our conversation began with skinning and GUI design, but near the end turned to very different avenues. These remain in my submission, as they offer some additional insight into this interesting member of the GUI community - although he wouldn't use that word.

Tek: For those who haven't picked it out of the round-table with SkinWerkz, what led you to the world of skins and GUI modification?

ess-vid: heh in typical me fashion, I got into GUI work by being pissed off at the norm. Remember I started with icons, and only did those for a long time, and back in the days of Customize.org, the only two names in icons were Copland and DOT, and they barely produced... I wanted the Windows icon scene to match that of the Mac.

Tek: How long were you the icon man?

ess-vid: mm... how long... I'd say sometime first quarter '99... been a -long- time so it's hard to remember... may have been even before that.

Tek: I've talked with Copland before, and was sad to see him leave the icons for Windows foray..

ess-vid: heh, so Copland is a he after all?

Tek: I really don't know - lol. Who is/was DOT?

ess-vid: http://dotstudio.m78.com/DST/ENG/

Tek: I'll check it out in the background quickly..

ess-vid: Loads slow, don't it :>

Tek: Yeah... my cable connection helps, but it's pokey :)

ess-vid: DOT's famous for all those "techy" sets... C-Metal, Future, etc. - click Data Files.

Tek: I recognize those set names, too. Yes, those are nice sets.. some of the main meat of IconPackager.

Tek: So at the time, it was yourself, Copland and dot. It hasn't really expanded as much as you might have hoped.

ess-vid: yuh, other good artists like scrow and M are a little more well known, but it's not what I wanted.

Tek: The Mac custom icon world is incredibly expansive. What do you think it is about the Mac that has created this?

ess-vid: The ease and scope. (In) Windows you can change filetype icons, possibly... on the Mac you can change them on a per-file basis. HFS is pants on a lot of points, but multi forked file systems do have their upsides.

Tek: For those who might not know the Mac OS as well, what is the basic difference between hfs and multi forked?

ess-vid: They're two different things... HFS is the MacOS file system (Windows 98 is FAT32, to give a more familiar reference) A multi forked file system is a type of file system where different data is saved in different "forks" of a file.

Tek: As opposed to a hierarchy.. I see.

ess-vid: HFS uses two forks, one to save the file itself (data fork), and one to say what type of file it is, what made it, the icon, etc. (resource fork) It's why MacOS doesn't use extensions, the filetype info is located in the resource fork.

Tek: So the application 'Resedit' would be editing the resource fork of various files?

ess-vid: yup - resource editor.

ess-vid: BFS (the BeOS file system) is even better, because it's basically infinitely multi forked... you can make your own forks and use the info they hold how you wish... i.e. add artist and album forks to MP3s and being able to sort by those in the Tracker.

Tek: I see.. thus the inherent ease of sorting in BeOS.

ess-vid: yuh... you can sort by date created, last modified, who used it last, all sorts of things.

Tek: I think another point of impetus for iconography on the Mac is the preeminence of the Iconfactory and their various applications.

ess-vid: yup

Tek: What program did you use for creating your Windows icons? Microangelo?

ess-vid: yup, Mike, start to finish. Most outside app help I use is Paint to move bits in and out of the Mike window as needed.

Tek: Microangelo is a great program for setting icons too, but it and IconPackager still show many irregularities in actually changing the icons, don't they? (Since the time of the interview, the latest versions of IconPackager no longer show the inconsistencies I spoke of.)

ess-vid: heh to be honest I can't really tell you... I have a pretty plain setup, explorer, normal icons, etc... the little I've changed icons with them though I didn't really notice a problem. As an editor though, Mike sucks.

Tek: What about Microangelo would you change?

ess-vid: Everything... you ever use it?

Tek: A few times, mostly to edit others' icons to my taste. It worked alright for that, but did seem effort-laden.

ess-vid: Especially in comparison to a real graphic arts prog. It's a $60 version of MSPaint that can save .ico... that's just stupid... unfortunately though everything else looks like a 3 year old with a crayon and too much sugar designed the UI, so it's Mike or nothing right now. Like AxIcon... they shoved everything into one app, and it's just horrible... no one can use something like that well.

ess-vid: speaking of the IconFactory, you check my PixelPalooza entry?

Tek: Haven't checked your entry.. I'll go take a look.

ess-vid: btw my entry's under OS X, Breakfast Treat 

Tek: Ah, osx.. didn't see you in the others. For anyone interested in icons though, the PixelPalooza contest entries are something to check out.

For Mac icons do you use Iconographer?

ess-vid: yup, although mainly for assembly.

Tek: Those breakfast treat icons look fantastic, btw!

ess-vid: Gelli Hedz and Breakfast Treat were done in Photoshop and brought over. Thanks, had fun doing them :>

Tek: Do you do most of your pre-production work in photoshop?

ess-vid: For the Mac sets? Sure... doing it in Iconographer would be a step back. Not that Mahai's app is bad, mind you, but it's not going to equal Photoshop anytime soon.

Tek: How about for your other gui work? Is P-shop the main workhorse?

ess-vid: Yes, now, unless it's a paint-type work, like the Street skins. Before I bought PS I was using MS Image Composer, which is ok, but nowhere near production level needs.

Tek: Do you see many differences between the Windows and Mac versions of Photoshop?

ess-vid: Other than the expected difference between Mac and Win MDI? Not really. In fact it's a matter of constant debate that the Windows version of PS is too much like the Mac version, both UI-wise and technically, which I don't like, at least from the technical end, 'cause as much as I love the Mac, it's really really nasty under the surface. CMT, no memory management, disgusting VM (virtual memory) scheme, etc.

Tek: Most of our current readers are probably Windows users. It's good to hear what it's like under the surface.

Yes, virtual memory is a constant headache for the current Mac OSs.

ess-vid: People talk bad about Windows, but a lot of times it's not Windows that's the problem, it's bad software, bad hardware, or simple user error. With the Mac the bad things really are bad things, because it's all 16 years of bolting crap on and hoping the whole thing doesn't go down.

Tek: Do you think Mac OS X will solve any of these problems?

ess-vid: Sure, but present new ones of course. They're introducing a lot of security issues, making it easy to root a box and such, and Aqua's just horrible, I can't believe they're actually shipping that crap.

Tek: Many have said the Aqua gui is from Kai Krause.

ess-vid: haha, I may have started that. Kai Krause was one of the big guys at (then) MetaTools. That's why it's "Kai's Power Tools" and such.... and if you've used any of that company's apps or plugins, the UI for them is just odd - feels all mushy and such. I get the same vibes from Aqua... only worse, because Aqua throws usability totally out the window for wow-factor.

Tek: I'm not sure what he's doing now that they bought him out and fired him... Power Goo, for one, has a very enjoyable and 'fun' gui, but it gets a bit tedious with protracted use.

ess-vid: Exactly. So I started telling people Aqua came about when they gave Kai Krause a computer with PS, a bunch of crystal meth, and locked him in a room with those.

Tek: I'm guessing you prefer more plain skins for programs like WindowBlinds.

ess-vid: I don't even use WB, actually. I don't mind nice looking stuff, but I do mind when it's in place of functionality and usability.

Tek: Do you use the standard Windows interface? How about on your Mac.. Do you use Kaleidoscope?

ess-vid: Standard on both... I only launch them for testing purposes, so I can test my schemes.

Tek: How interesting.. Most designers seem to be avid users as well. Do you use skins on other programs?

ess-vid: Only on programs that only use skins in the first place. I'm more interested in the creation parts of skinning... I like making the graphics then spending time in Notepad to make it into a skin... actually using skins never held too much interest for me.

Tek: I see.. There are so few (individually) 'skinnable' applications for the Mac compared to the multitude for Windows, despite the longer Mac history of gui modification. Do you have an opinion on the cause of this disparity?

ess-vid: Cost. If you notice, most skinnable Windows apps are freeware, even big ones. On the Mac almost everything is shareware, which is understandable, but adds up. $10-20 for an app isn't bad, but when you get a few or more it's less attractive because of the cost.

Tek: It's even fairly commonplace to offer bundled K-schemes as shareware. It would (currently) be shocking to see someone selling their WindowBlinds skins.

ess-vid: And funny, it'd be ripped within an hour.

Tek: Yes, it seems that for a skinnable Mac app to really succeed, it has to be really outstanding, like Audion.

ess-vid: yuh. Another problem is lack of centralisation. If you want some skins for Windows apps, you go to Skinz (at the time, Skinz.org was still viable,) or DM, or DA. Mac apps? You wade through the mess of Resexcellence and hope the dev sites have skin libraries.

Tek: That's actually one of the main points I wanted to touch on. Generally, it's mostly on the shoulders of the application sites themselves for the Mac. Why do you think there is such a great difference in strategy?

ess-vid: No one's thought of it, or no one sees it as a viable thing. Not that I blame them, some skinning formats on the Mac apps are insane - like MACAST... you have to buy CodeWarrior to make skins, and to legally distro anything compiled with CW you have to buy the $300 "pro" version... it's retarded.

Tek: Does skinning Audion or SoundJam have a corollary in the Windows world?

ess-vid: Graphically or format-wise? Graphically, there's not really anything to match Audion 2, because only W2K has the alpha blending API support.

Tek: As far as the process of producing a skin?

ess-vid: Format - I highly doubt it surpasses WMP. Haven't made skins for those yet, have to buy them.

Tek: ah..

ess-vid: WMP is going to be something to watch in the future, especially my work with it.

Tek: Do you know what path its evolution will take?

ess-vid: A lot of people complain WMP sucks because of the skins... but it's the authors, not the format, that's the problem. People are used to set-feature apps... "I'm going to put the play button here, and stop there, and it's pretty"... so that's how current skins are being coded.

Tek: I've heard the format is quite difficult. What coding language is it most similar to?

ess-vid: Similar is the wrong word... the format is both a custom XML defined tagset and JScript.

Tek: I see.. more flexibility than they know what to do with..

ess-vid: Exactly. This is why most of the skins suck totally, or are pretty but don't do much. We've all just scratched the surface, however I'm changing that with Windowed.

Tek: Can you tell us about it, or perhaps give us a preview?

ess-vid: It's not really in a demo-able form unless you have a lot of experience devving WMP skins, but telling you about the plans isn't a problem. The main "gimmick" of the skin is it's basically all code. A few status icons and some cursors are in the package, but that's it... the rest of the skin is sub-view rectangles and text objects, which causes some interesting problems, because the format isn't really designed with that in mind... so I have to fake a lot of things. Like I could have a slide bar, but no thumb for it... so I had to code a fake one that intersects with the slider object and the user can't tell.

Tek: hmm... almost like internet explorer..

ess-vid: Reason for all this is it uses system colours, unlike "Classic"... it polls your system and if your windows are bright red with a yellow title bar, this skin is the same.

Tek: Impressive.

ess-vid: It also solves one of the biggest problems with WMP skins... re-sizing. After that, it's all stuff I've tried and just haven't completed yet, or haven't gotten to yet but is planned.

Tek: Sounds very interesting..

ess-vid: it should help people see just what can be done with the tools available, i.e. the menu bar is custom, totally faked, I'm not using the "windowed=true" attribute... going to test multi-view code, have the playlist and EQ in they're own separate views so you can move them around. I'm going to have "modes" again like Main Street, but these are going to make that look like kiddie stuff. It's basically going to be a bar to measure the features of other skins against... and that's only the first version, there will be tons of stuff after that I still haven't touched.

Tek: Do you think wmp will become the premier media player for Windows? Will it supplant Winamp?

ess-vid: Dunno, but I don't see them as the same type of thing. WA is an audio player... there's hacks to play video with it, but that's what it is: hacks. WMP is competing against apps like RealPlayer and QuickTime. Both of which suck for Windows. WMP vs. QT is funny like that, 'cause WMP sucks for Mac.

Tek: It's my own viewpoint that the only thing keeping RealNetworks hanging on is their existing exclusivity deals.

ess-vid: Real is like NS, the suck is universal, and slightly different per platform.

Tek: WMP vs. QuickTime is the classic example of inside coders making apps that shine on their own OS, really.

ess-vid: Yup, that and the ports are half-assed. For those that don't know, QuickTime is an OS level service on the Mac... it's almost akin to DirectX rather than Windows Media... the problem occurs because they feel like they said "let's port this as quickly as possible" and brought it all over wholesale.

Tek: So where do want to take your personal efforts in gui design? Do you have a goal?

ess-vid: Right now? Do what's fun for me.

Tek: And in the future?

ess-vid: I have no idea in the future, there's so many other things I have in the pipes 1, 3, 5, 10 years from now.

Tek: What other pipes do you have humming? Are they all graphic arts related?

ess-vid: CleffieSOFT, the Jinocys project, actually putting my character designs to use in writing or some form of game... everything. They're all over the field really... one thing I've mentioned recently, but is some time off, is taking the fancy computer case thing to its extreme. I mean, everyone lauds the Mac line, but they're not that special... and these homemade cases are goofy for the most part. Imagine having a HardLine case, or a Remember case, or a case that looks like a big sea shell.

Tek: Much like the difference between concept cars and what Detroit actually produces. I've seen some very extreme designs, but few actually go into production in the computer industry. It has started to spice up a bit since 98 though.

ess-vid: The reason it's going to take time is the features... these aren't ordinary cases in functionality either... for example HardLine's going to need a separate power supply and a microcontroller. You think the PowerMac's are easy open? HardLine's side door will be mounted on hydraulics. Push a button and the case opens itself. (It) will also have a keypad to control functions and do stuff like setting passwords to do things like open the case or boot.

Tek: Fantastic!

ess-vid: And challenging. I basically have to learn electronics engineering to pull this off completely :>

Tek: :) it would be worth it though.

ess-vid: Other things are CleffieSOFT, which, at the beginning, will be primarily web code, stuff like PHP applications, but once Aoi is built I'm going to look into application development... C++ and such.

Tek: What sort of apps might we expect?

ess-vid: PHP or C?

Tek: Either... :)

ess-vid: With PHP the primary planned app is a forum... it'll be free to start with but eventually split of a retail version that contains more features. Other than that it'll be small things I find useful for myself or fun/challenging to do. Some things though won't be packaged, like a template system... something like that is too custom to be general. For C, I'm putting Impact Software out of business :>

Tek: :) Is graphic design your career as well?

ess-vid: Creator is my career choice, which includes graphics. I like to create, I must create, so it's what I do. I hope I get to create for cash again soon, I need the funds to build Aoi pretty soon :>

Tek: I'm sensing you don't have what some would refer to as a day job ;]

ess-vid: heh not at the moment... I live in a semi-rural area with a large population... the only places that have work have it due to high turn-around. heh no use getting a job they'll fire you from if their abuse doesn't make you quit first :>

Tek: hehe.. I came from a place much like that.. I know of what you speak :)

ess-vid: So at the moment I keep an eye out for contract work and increase my skill set... I'm a guru at HTML, been so for years, so now I'm tackling PHP and ECMAScript. Aoi will help a lot because it's going to do double duty as a general workstation and a testing server. As for jobs, I'm working on putting myself in visible areas that I don't have a problem being in so people will be interested and know who I am. Hence the pixelpalooza entry, getting on the disc for the March issue of MacLife... CleffieNET/PHP will be very attractive for that as well.

Tek: I'll ask what has become almost a standard question so far in Teknidermy. With all of the interest and recent development by the big companies, where do you think the future of skinning lies, as a whole?

ess-vid: The way it works now? A fad... I do envision a stronger coming to light of professional custom UIs though. Remember when I say fad I mean the typical way a fad works. It'll get really big, done to death, "die away", and in the end be the same thing it started as... a bunch of gear heads and psuedo-gear heads tweaking their boxes. So, in it's own way, skinning's here to stay... just not "take over the world!" like everyone thinks... that stuffs for Saturday morning cartoons.

Tek: Well, I think those are suitably dramatic closing words :) Is there anything else you'd like to add or discuss?

ess-vid: Up to you... I could yammer all day on various subjects.

Tek: What are your thoughts on the community aspect of Win skins vs. Mac gui?

ess-vid: How you mean, the Aqua thing?

Tek: I mean is there really a community in skinning? If so, what is your opinion of it? Does the Mac os have a community of designers?

ess-vid: I made a statement long ago that I stick by still: there is no skinning community. There's a skinz community, and a DM community, etc., but no skinning community. I mean, look at them for a while, the ass-kissing at each site and the hate for the other sites makes you want to puke. Personally I think they all suck.

Tek: A lot of people who frequent these sites have some measure of difficulty with the strength of your opinions. Does this concern you at all, or do you see it as a positive thing?

ess-vid: The way my personality works is to fill gaps, basically... the problem with the skinz community is it's like a bad Teletubbies episode: everyone's happy and not thinking too much, so I shake 'em up a bit, get the brains working :> ...and make them laugh.

I mean, look at how I present things... if you look deep enough, you'll see my intention is to make you think. If people hole up and just go "ego" they're not paying attention. Getting people to think more deeply is always a good goal :) I mean, you're all morons, insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but guess what? so am I! That's the main problem - we put too much value on ourselves, then we can't see the flaws. We're a bunch of monkeys with more ego than brains, so lets realise that, have a laugh, and move on to up the brains thing to higher levels.

Tek: A friend of mine always says "what got humans to where we are now? Muscle? No. Brains."

ess-vid: But people have a hard time with that because most people are dualists... they think in black and white. That's the thing, where are we now? We blow up our achievements and pretend to be the great masters of all, but when you look at everything you see we really haven't even started.

Tek: True. Many think in terms of opposites. That's one reason it's so easy to see the computer industry as divided between only Mac and PC, and then vehemently take sides.

ess-vid: People tend to do that with everything... that's why a 'holist' like myself is such a curve ball for people.

Tek: People are so often fogged in by their own little world, they fail to see larger issues. It makes it hard to make major societal achievements. Look at something as small as the technological achievements Arthur C Clarke envisioned for this year - and the only reason we don't have them is because people don't see them as important in the short term.

ess-vid: Also why I'm "mean"... established systems don't like new ideas, they want the norm to be maintained... as Mac users you and I see this all the time... so I use the alternative... I thrash 'em around a bit and force them to look at things differently and form their own opinion.

Ever heard of Gundam?

Tek: Anime?

ess-vid: yuh

Tek: I only got the chance to -really- watch one episode. It looked quite insightful.

ess-vid: The original storyline (stuff like Gundam Wing are alternate universe things, just using the franchise) had an interesting concept about man and technology. There were normal people, who wanted to go to war and all that, as there are now, and so they built "Gundams" for this next evolution of humanity being born, called "newtypes." The newtypes didn't care about war - they saw the whole thing as a sort of game... "we can get neat suits from these guys and challenge each other and have a blast." So the older generation had all this emotional and societal baggage making them bitter and accusational, and the new generation didn't really care, they knew better. Sound familiar? This is what's happening to our world... we've advanced beyond our means... we're smart but not wise. So good old evolution is fixing that... we're evolving from a dualistic mind to a holistic one... what you see now is the clash from the shift, because the world's going to totally change... things like Christianity that are rooted in dualism will have to totally mutate or die away... it scares the older so they lash out.

Tek: Do you think we'll get wise soon enough to avert some sort of disaster?

ess-vid: dunno, but I hope not... we don't need a dualistic police state to rise up and attempt to force the world to stay the same, because it'll fail... either it'll fall to the oncoming change or the whole race will vanish.

Tek: You remind me a bit of another Texan - R.E. Howard :)

ess-vid: You should read Douglas Rushkoff... I don't agree with all of his points but he describes this generally well, particularly in Playing the Future (these are non-fiction, btw.)

Tek: ah, I'll have to check him out.

ess-vid: hmm, Google's turning up a fiction writer (for R.E. Howard)... this correct?

Tek: Yep.. he actually wrote the old original Conan stories back in the 20s.. a friend and cohort of H.P. Lovecraft. Many of the same sort of societal opinions.

ess-vid: (I'm) just glad you didn't say L. Ron Hubbard...

Tek: lol!!! You must free yourself of your reactive mind...

ess-vid: hehe, I don't have a problem, it just gets a laugh. Hubbard was one hell of a yahoo... I can't believe people buy into scientology.

Tek: I read Battlefield Earth years ago and thought it was.. well.. odd. Full of Dianetics dogma.

ess-vid: I mean, one of the rules is to not read anything that attempts to challenge the claims of Scientology in any way... if someone can't find fishiness in that, there's something wrong upstairs. Getting back on subject though, once you really, truly look at the world, you realise holism really is the proper mode of thought... dualism is just an attempt to simplify things.

Tek: It's human nature to desire categorisation.... 2 categories takes less memory :)

ess-vid: I mean, is there really right and wrong? Of course not... it's karma and consequence. Do you not want to steal that person's car because it's "wrong"? or because you don't want people stealing your car, and don't want to make the person's life hard? This is how the world works, everything's connected, everything affects everything else, and "right" and "wrong" are just attempts to encapsulate what we hope is the best balance. There's a flaw though. It's the same thing that makes applied learning so much better than the current methods... dualism isn't teaching, it's preaching. People just know "this is bad and I shouldn't do it", when they should be taught to think "doing this isn't a good idea because the possible effect is X"

At this point, the connection failed, and ended the conversation. I'd like to thank ess-vid for taking the time to speak with us!

*Ed's Note: Perhaps the Scientology Secret Police popped the connection?