Please let me know of any suggestions for improvements that you might have. Thanks.
They're both really neat skins, thank you, but I can't help feeling that they need some serious polish...
The wooden theme should follow throughout the skin, so, the pane headers should get similar treatment to the list column headers. The glassy blue effect is really jarring and detracts from the excellent work elsewhere in the skin. The same applies to things like the shared_selection.png graphic. Consider using a different tree_selection graphic for use in the tree that better fits against the tree background, and bring the the list selection graphic into the wood theme of the rest of the skin.
Consider doing away with the playerbar_display graphic altogether, as imvho, it looks much cleaner, as shown below:
With - Note how, despite your efforts, the display graphic does not quite blend correctly with the main player bar (it shows up at each end):
Without - Removing the playerbar_display graphic altogether gives nice clean grain lines across the whole display area. Note how out of place the 'mouse over' button image looks here.
Look again at the two images above. Note how the the progress bar is actually being stretched as the track progresses? The skin's XML needs to be updated there. Try removing the "DrawMode" instruction, and amend the margin settings for positionsliderfront to read Margins="10,0,10,0" and I think you'll see an improvement there.
Next in the firing line are areas such as the search wizard, customise links and some of the options screens:
Customise Links
Search Wizard
Consider adding a background image to the frame area, replace that dark grey with something wooden. Perhaps consider a wooden 'default button' image, and also, review the margin settings for the default button, as, as you can see from the customise links image above, the buttons are being stretched at the ends.
Finally, have you considered making your own, wooden, tab images too? Those default tabs look way out place against the wood.
Hopefully, you take my comments as they are meant, ie., constructive criticism. I've only released two skins myself, and in both threads I found the feedback, albeit from only two or three of the hundreds who downloaded, to be invaluable, and the comments and suggestions really helped me.
There's a "skinning tutorial" thread pinned at the top of this forum, if you have any questions, could you possibly ask them in that thread? It would help to keep the tips and tricks in one handy location.
I really like these skins, especially the oak variety, but have to say, the glassy blue stuff, at very least, would have to go before I used it for any great length of time.
Great work so far, keep it up!
regards,
-marko.
I Still Want A Jersey Cow Skin
I've been thinking about this....
Author
Topic: New Yesteryear Wooden skins preview (Read 3994 times)