Creative help needed

[zwylle]

Hi all,

I am hoping for some input on the skin I'm working on.
It is an SAP R/3 window captured in WinAmp.
Most of the controls and icons are adapted from R/3.

What I have now (hope the file is attached)is 3(almost) finished windows building 1 unit.
Now I have to decide how to continue with the other ones.
Don't quite know what style of titlebars or buttons to use.
I made some buttons for the browser, but it appears to me that they do not go with the rest of the skin.
Would it be better to use buttons, or are icons the better choice?
As each of these windows is an own unit, would it be better to use the blue titlebar on all of them?
Looks a little too bulky to me.

Thanks
zwylle

PS.
SAP R/3 is business software, used by more than 90% of the top 100 companies in the world.
I happen to spend alot of time with it.
Hope this isnt posted twice. The first time I got the message that my attached file was too big and the message disappeared .

[Mr Jones]

Don't forget to package a free brick to throw thru the screen R3 drives me nutty, I was part of the implementation team when we upgraded from R2 to R3 a couple of years back at the company I work for, arrrrgh, nightmare days.

I hate using on a day to day basis as well he

[zwylle]

LOL Mr Jones!
Not quite the answer I had expected, but it probably shows a typical user
Nah, I don't forget to include some fun.
My titlebar cursor is an hourglass

[Mr Jones]

Sorry, you just picked the wrong day, I spent the best part of the day working on R3, and on a baking hot day when my temper is short at the best of times, adding SAP frustrations to the mix just make a great day NOT...

You should do an R2 version as well heh, some people still use it you know, in fact we still have it running on our mainframe for some activities that just won't work under R3, great huh.....

[Mr Jones]

Actually , an R3 skin would be quite handy, it'd blend in nicely with all my various other R3 windows, only snag is I don't like the default blue scheme, I prefer a softer green one.....

[skinme!]

So, what's this SAP R3 business? Some kind of backend system? Database? Porn server?

[Jellby]

Originally posted by Mr Jones
Sorry, you just picked the wrong day, I spent the best part of the day working on R3, and on a baking hot day [...]

You call 30ºC a "baking hot day"? Last night, at 2AM, we had 30ºC

[Mr Jones]

It's baking hot for the UK, anything about 20 is to hot for me, I like to be chilly, I'd work in a fridge if I could....

[Mr_007]

Cool skin!

[zwylle]

Originally posted by Mr Jones
only snag is I don't like the default blue scheme, I prefer a softer green one.....

If I ever get to finish this one, I might make a version for the green color scheme next.
Thinking about the titlebars a little more I will probably go with blue titlebars and a status line like in the playlist for all other windows.
Maybe the most consistent way to do it.

[zwylle]

This is the newest picture.
Browser and Video window are done so far.

Any opinions / suggestions?

I am having trouble with the browser. It seems like I can't get the MBINNER displayed. Not just for my skin for every skin. My firewall doesnt allow WinAmp to access the internet, so I just get this errorpage. Does anyone know how to fix it, means let WinAmp show the mbinner.bmp?

Oh and SAP R/3 is: "business software that helps improve relationships with customers and partners, streamline operations, and achieve efficiencies throughout the supply chain"

Thanks
zwylle

[LuigiHann]

Zwille- I have the same problem. Can you open up the mbinner.htm in your regular windows browser? Then you copy the adress, and paste it into the "open internet location" thing in the minibrowser, which is in the menu in the minibrowser. I know that description doesn't make a whole lotta sence, but I hope it helps. That's what I do.
I like how the skin looks so far-- are you still having trouble choosing colors for the Library? Maybe you could do something similar to the EQ... you know, using the same shadow and higlight colors as ... well, something like the attacment, which I made just to figure out what I'm talking about. It's a png, but if you want you can save it as a bitmap and try it. Then you could put a frame around it like the eq or playlist.

[zwylle]

Thanks for the tip, I can open the mbinner if i type in the location. Still I think there must be a way to have it opened default, when I open the skin.

I was going to put a little more blue in the genex, but I'll try this version. The buttons are about what i had in mind, similar to the cbuttons. Genex is always the 2nd last i skin, last is winshade. Don't like to do either of them, lol.

[zwylle]

Finally white and blue became the Library colors. Main reason for the white is authenticity, as the default background color for a treecontrol in R/3 is white.

I made some other changes for authenticity, mainly ragarding fonts and buttons.

Here's a beta if anyone would like to help me find the remaining bugs or point out some better ways to do things. What still is missing is main and EQ winshade mode and pushed titlebar buttons.

[not in santiago]

I'm not familiar with the software this skin is modeled on, but I like it nonetheless. It's neat, clean, well-labeled (the playstacks are particularly nice), but not excessively plain.

About the Mbinner displaying, you have to make sure the winampmb.htm file is removed from your skin folder before it will display properly (and it keeps popping back up so you have to be quite vigilant about it). Once you've removed the offending .htm file, refresh your skin or just switch to another skin and back to your own.

Couldn't find any bugs except for one. And you may not care, but I care about it a bit because I rarely use the bitmap font option. When the option is not checked, the song title bar becomes slightly wider, so if it has a border, the border only becomes visible at the ends. I'll include an attachment to show you what I'm talking about.

If you've skinned the Mbinner, you might as well skin the Mikro too. There's a template for it included in Skinner's Atlas.

[LuigiHann]

I like the way your library looks now! I didn't think the blue and white would work, but it does. Good job! Ooh, I found a random bug! If you click the "V" button in the clutterbar, part of the "I" disappears. Check it in doublesize mode. Your hourglass cursor might be missing the lower-left corner too. I don't know the software either, but like santiago said, nice clean skin.

[zwylle]

Could anyone please test if the MIKRO is skinned right? I don't have the plugin installed and tried to make it by following the atlas.

I won't change the frame around the main text. The text has to have this kind of frame and if I make it bigger to fit the non bitmap text in it would look strange (too big). It is easy to read, so I don't think its that big of a deal to temporarily switch back to bitmap mode for using this skin.

The OAIDV bug is fixed.

Winshade mode and titlebar buttons work now.

winampmb.htm is deleted.
I still don't get the mbinner displayed at startup. Whenever I open the browser it is trying to connect to winamp.com to get titleinformations or whatever. How can I switch that off?

Whats left is the hourglassbug, the easteregg, some nice content for the MBINNER and maybe a few changes on the bottom lines of Browser, Library and Video.

Thanks for your help Luigi and n.i.s.

[dimichan]

Note: you won't see the MBINNER yourself without using mikroamp. It's little, doesn't eat processor or anything...
http://classic.winamp.com/plugins/de...ponentId=63522
if you wanna include it for people who use it *waves like mad* and 1001 screenshots, might be an idea to snag it. That's the main reason I have it, since I've been known to transpose numbers in my html color codes and end up with some interesting effects (shocking pink as opposed to dark blue was interesting for the bcg for Melusina's mbinner... O_o)

Seems there's a newer version than I have, speaking of snagging...

And I'll DL and bugtest pronto.

[dimichan]

Ok, there's a l'il bug in the pressed winshade button for the playlist, I'm screenshotting it to show you. Not sure whether or not you want to fix it since it's caused by the separation (the blue) being a narrower amount in the shade mode than the full, but since it's actually feasible to fix, figured I'd let you know.

Also a 1 pixel lighter dot appears in the active state of the main shade mode that's NOT in the inactive state (the oh so wonderful shared line bug of course).

Apart from that I didn't see anything in the controls, and at least the way mikro is set up for me it works fine, didn't see any problems with it at all.

Hadn't had a chance to pop in on this one before, and I'm not familiar with the program it's based on, but it's very nice and clean, and easy on the eyes, and easy to use, nicely done!

[zwylle]

Originally posted by dimichan
Note: you won't see the MBINNER yourself without using mikroamp.

Dang... I just recently uninstalled microamp because I thought I wouldnt use it, lol.

Good Eye with the shaded line bug, Dimich. Thought I had made my way around it.

I was aware of the white line in the playlist titlebar.
It's based on the close buttons of the unshaded window been shown in the shaded window when you press the unshade button.
IMHO a Winamp bug, but yeah.. I could make them both look the same by moving the playlist upper border a few pixels to the top and prevent that. There still would always be another one, the one when you press the mouse button and move the mouse cursor on the unshade button in shaded playlist.
Let's just say I put that last on my todo list

Thanks for the input

[LuigiHann]

In the Mikro bmp, there is a set of graphics for the "Tray Icon" mode. You have given them a white background--- did you intend for it to be white or transparent? To make it transparent, replace the white with the light blue color you have in the lower right-hand corner. Unless it was your intention for them to have a white background.

[zwylle]

Bug free?

Here is what I've fixed with this version:

- shared line bug
- MikroAmp transparency
- MikroAmp symbols
- hourglass
- Easteregg
- Playlist titlebars... Yes, I did it The titlebar is different now. I'm not sure if I like it better than the old one, but I like it and it has not bug.
What do you think?

Hopefully I am done now and the only thing left to do is bring some more life in the mbinner and readme file.

[StillWater]

small bugs:

-no songname.cur

-when you deselect "always show clutterbar", it still shows it.

-when no song is playing, it still shows that it's in "stereo"



suggestions:


-When you move the cursor up towards the balance or the volume, you have to move it quite a few pixels into the balance/volume areas before it will actually let you slide the animation. I had the same problem in my T3 skin. To get around it, I made the hotspots a few pixels higher on all of my cursors.

-maybe make pwssize.cur have some arrows?

-/\\/X pressed states are very very faint


Apart from that, a very well made skin

[zwylle]

Originally posted by StillWater
small bugs:
-when you deselect "always show clutterbar", it still shows it.

What is the clutterbar and how can I get it to not being shown?

Arrows for the resizer sounds good to me, I will do that, fix the other cursors and give the pressed titlebar buttons some more contrast.

That it shows 'stereo' when no song is playing is no bug but an improvement. It is just the default. In a radiobutton group always one button is active (at least in SAP R/3).
The monoster.bmp is one of my favourite parts of this skin as I have never seen it made this way (on top of each other) before. Don't say anything against my baby

[zwylle]

Just found the clutterbar

Thanks all for your help.
It was the first time I started a thread here, and I am really happy with the quality of your responses.
Good forum. Keep it up!

[StillWater]

ah yes, of course. I didn't even notice that they were on top of each other...oops Yeah, I like monoster.bmp too. It works differently to everything else and it's surpringly flexible This one is made well.

[e-raser]

nice finnished product, good stuff...i realy need to spend more time on this fourm, i conpleatly missed this whole development :P

[zwylle]

Hooray, it's finished

http://www.1001winampskins.com/skin_...l?skin_id=3163

[Mr Jones]

Wow a featured skin and removed from the database all in one day,






http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....hreadid=148126

[Krynis]

dam shame

[zwylle]

And went back in one day.. it looks like now I probably have to delete it, as your advice did'nt work Mr.Jones
They published it with my comment please not to publish it...

Seems like the reviewer didn't read the description...

Deep Sigh.

[zwylle]

Never thought I would be happy to get an email that my skin is unpublished because its a rip

Thanks reviewer team