INTERACT FORUM

Dragyn, I love Opus..mainly because it's blue (my favorite, I just don't like those metal type skins).  My only request would be the buttons (play, stop etc).  Love the shape, but is it possible to make them light up (as opposed to just the little center markers)?  If not, it's ok, 'cause as I said, I love it the way it is, the off white background makes it easy on the eyes, yet really easy to read for those of us with failing eyesight, or those who are too vain to wear our glasses (not me, of course )  I also like the rounded corners you had on one of the skin - Am looking forward to seeing the product.   PS did you get a piece of the action, or just verbal accolades for making the skin for the Best Buy version?    Would they have to silence you if you told anyone??!!  

I thank you, my eyes thank you, and will keep a look out for developments.    Bet

Looking great!

I hope you're planning on making it "shrinkable" like some of your other skins, so it can shrink down to just the player controls.

-John

Lookin' really good, Dragyn!  

Hey bro. Im here in Shanghai and stopped into an I-Bar to check my email and perused the MC forum and here you are. Just a couple quick suggestions. Please dont take my words as harsh, they are just coming from an incessant visual tweaker.

1: I think the action window should have the same bar as the caption. Reason being the same as you mentioned. Many things in the action panes have square edges and they look funny with rounded edges. It worked in Opulence because there were no edges, but I noticed it being a problem in Opus. I like the idea of making the action pane look like the Start menu, however, since this particular port is from a skin that is meant to look like classic, I think it would be more pleasing and more uniform if the entire skin were modeled after the explorer style.

2: Consider, if possible, making the left/right and top/bottom pane dividers/sliders similar to that of the windows explorer. Just a simple bar that is colored the same shade as the menu area. That would give it more of an "explorer-like" feel.

3: Dont change the status and menu bars. I think they are great the shade they are. As long as they match the cooresponding menu area colors in the Codename VS.

4: Consider also, if possible, making the tree area, groups area, and files area all the same color as the background of the main window area in explorer.

5: Finally, and this is just my extremely obsessive compulsive, anal retentive, meticulous side kicking in, is it possible to scale down the title bar area to match that of the default size of the Codename VS. Perhaps it already is and my resolution is decieving me. If that is the case, I can take the time on my own to resize the image.

Extra for good measure: Shouldn't the "close" button be red like the Codename VS?

OK, that's enough of my crazy nitpicking. Hope you're not ready to hunt me down and break my fingers. Should you be in need of any more ideas or constructive criticism, I'm available on Mon- Fri and my hours are 9:... ....I mean, just let me know

-edit- I just noticed something as I was looking again. The menu items in the title bar. I noticed that in the Lunatic Silver/Blue/Green skins the designer was able to somehow get the menubar under the title bar. Is it possible to do that on this one? I know its just some more nitpicking, but I think it would make a great impact on the aesthetics of this skin. Please feel free to post your thoughts about my suggestions on here. You dont have to worry about offending me, after all, you are the designer and I would imagine you are far more skilled at this than I am. I have never been much of a builder/beginner. Im more the idea guy. But, I've been told that I'd make one hell of a reverse engineer. Anyway, Im off again. -edit-

just spent the last 3 hours working on a new action window you requested just to discover that nothing lines up.

here's the only part of the new action window that works:



The inactive state (minimized) gets stretched and offset. It's ok for simple things but nothing like this.
There's no active/inactive icons so I had to make outlines to go with the inactive caption bar.
The minimize button is offset by 1 pixel if there's only one showing (no close). I found this when using outlines from above.


I don't think there's any way around this.

As long as I'm getting technical...

List View Headers are offset by 1 pixel.
No skin related icons for tag info. This really throws off the look.
Scrollbars are still not using all the images. I know I said this one before but was told otherwise.  
No mouse overs in windowed mode.

I know I've been slackin lately. I said I would update that skin and I know others have been looking for it....so I'll probably do that until I can figure something out.  

3. I was referring to the "File, Edit, Tools, etc." menus that were in the title bar and the status area under the action pane and the playing now window in your picture. What I meant was that that color should remain the same as the menu area and status area of the explorer and then the window area of the tree and group and file list areas should be the inner window color, like where all the icons are in explorer. Also where the "play, stop, etc." buttons are and the track info and search area should also be that same color.

Everything else is ok since it cant be done. Perhaps there may be a way that you can set it up to do like explorer does when you bring up the left pane. When it brings up a little flat looking window with a simple "x" in the top right corner. I dont know if that would function properly, but it would give you a little more leeway with the positioning of the icon as there wouldnt be any type of button to line things up with other than a possible "mouse over" state. Once again, this is probably all just being overly picky but I hope you can use some of these ideas.

I have this idea of what it would look like in my head, but everytime i try to put it to words, it gets all jumbled. So when I get back Ill try to put together a mock-up of sorts and then post a link here for you to look at so you can see what I'm talking about and tell me if itll work or not.

Anyhow, gotta run, its getting late here and were heading out to Hanzhou tomorrow. Ill be back on in a few days.

Haha, Sorry, I just realized that I didnt punctuate a single word in this post.

Thanks Rasmus but I don't do the graphics, I just port them over. I'm sure there are others here that can do better.

Is this looking like anything you want? (see first post)

Do you mean something like this?

(play button shows mouse over and pressed)




I know some want round buttons. Maybe I'll release a patch to it.

Should the icons inside the buttons change on state change?

Dragyn...like the round slider and round buttons(preferably that light up) the best, but with the whole scheme those rounded edged ones are tres nice...can the whole button light up instead of just the icon inside it with a mouse pass over ? The title bar is great as is, but where would you add the MC icon to it? Are you talking as a muted backdrop for the text inside the title bar?  that would be nice.  

wao, lots of questions

Should I make the display area bigger and have the progress inside? What about the DSP buttons...should they be the same as the player buttons? Or should I just use the icons instead?

Hmm, hard one theer. I think the progress line should be under it. In other words, keep the display the size it is now.  I think you should just use icons for the DSP etc. but I might look cool with small play-style buttons. Acctually it would be pretty cool with small buttons rather than icons, though the placement is essetial for it not to look weird.

What about the volume? Should I keep it like Opus?

 
I would make it as Opus (not opulence) though I would think the 'pointer' should be squared (again with round corners) rather than a arrow. Kindda like on the Blade mini skin.

Should I keep the titlebar the same? How about add the Media Center icon to it?

I think it looks fine as it is now. I think it looks classy with the MC icon.   Please consider to make a full screen version with square corners.

The player buttons:
I think they look really nice as they are there. I think they should liteup on hover and be presset on pressing (Strange sentance ). I like to square look of them, though the might would look nice being just a wee bit more round. I'm thinking OK-buttons from the screenshot at deviantart.
 

Hope it helps and thanks in advance for putting all the work into this,
Rasmus

Dragyn, it is looking very, very nice...I now see what you mean about the MC icon.  thanks for all the hard work on this.   Bet  

Ugh..I think I'm gonna scrap those buttons. They don't fit the design too well after looking at MC for a few hours.
Back to the drawing board.

Thanks Jared. I decided to use the player buttons afterall but I made some slight adjustments.

As for the DSP, Shuffle, buttons I used the same buttons as the player.

I just have to do the progress bar for the playing track and it's basically done. Any ideas?

Dragyn...this is looking fantastic!  the aesthetics are wonderful, well done indeed!   what brand of brain are you getting...got one labeled AB- Normal last time I went...  thanks for all the hard work.  Bet

Nice, simple and beautifull... Love it!

Disabled checkboxes (the ones you see when tagging mode is off) are visually too bright... it feels like they weren't disabled.
(not a big deal... I just had to find something to persuade myself that you're skin is not perfect  )

And still wondering where you can put butterflies....

Thanks Dragyn.

actually those check boxes are not skin related. They come with the other art inside MC. I can release a modified icon file to match this skin.

edit: see first post


progress bar is something I still have to do. I agree it doesn't look right. still playing with it.

thanks everyone.

I know i can probably just wait until i get home but I can't seem to tell. Is this the Codename Blue scheme or is this the Codename Alpha scheme. Ive been away from my laptop for about a week now so maybe my eyes are decieving me, but it looks just like the Alpha color scheme. In any event, this thing rocks. I can't possibly stress enough just how much this skin rocks, in a subtle, aesthetically pleasing, classic kind of way.

I wish I had your patience. I've had to recently give it a break on the skinning and modding scene. I've come to realize that a laptop is a dangerous investment. When I used to do this stuff on my desktop, it was ok, cause i could get as mad as I want and not worry. If I punched the screen on my desktop monitor, the most damage I would do is break my knuckles, which all in all would only cost a couple hundred dollars at the hospital. However, now that I only operate from my laptop, I have to practice a lot of restraint and patience, because if I punch the monitor on my laptop, I wont hurt myself, but I'll be making about a $2000 dent in my pocketbook that is not covered by warranty.

Laptops should be sold with a "Flaming Temper Warranty" for those of us who only get irate when computers incessantly insist on doing exactly what we dont want them to do. However, perhaps its the lack of such warranty that is keeping most of us from acting out our frustrations to their fullest extent.

Anyhow, once again, I'm gone.

been playing with this some more.

how's this look...or is it too plain lookin'



edit: using this for now. let me know how it works.

which buttons would those be?

I can do that. I planned on re-doing that corner anyway so it's not a problem.

Dragyn,

Just a quick note. I'm back and I've applied the skin and it rocks. I've already made an adjustment for the maximized window look to the title bar bitmap and adjusted the xml file so that the glyphs line up properly.

If you would like the file (im sure you can do it yourself, but It can save you time) just PM me with your messenger or email info and I'll send it your way.

I also made a slight adjustment to the "close" glyph. I dont know if anyone else does this or has noticed it. but in most of the "Luna" or "Classic" type skins, you can just throw the mouse cursor to the top right corner of the screen and click and it will close the active maximized window. I use this alot, and im sure many people do and dont even realize it. Its very convenient because it saves you from having to center the cursor on the "close" glyph every time. So to focus on that idea, I adjusted the "close" glyph so that it has a wider and taller active transparent area which covers the entire top right corner, instead of just the glyph itself. It still looks the same, but it allows you to just throw the cursor to the top right and click and close without the extra step of "aiming".

If you would like that file also, just let me know.

Ack. After typing all of that, I just realized something. My adjustment of the title bar file will probably not work for you, as I use a 1680x1050 resolution. Hmm, well, either way, if you can make use of it, let me know.

By the way, did I tell you that this skin rocks my world? Once the Alpha color scheme rolls out, my laptop will be complete.

Thanks Jared. Added Maximized. Please see if I meet your expectations on that.
This should be a part of MC since it does on-the-fly skinning now. Might have to drop a note in the request box.

bebop, I'm not sure what you mean. Sure it's the skin not MC?