Component Skinning Blues

[ZeLonewolf]

It's been nearly a month since the release of winamp3, and as yet, skins have been trickling in. Why? Because the knowlege of how the skinning language works outside of the basics is held by a select few. Basic beginner tutorials abound, and with enough time spent, one can figure out how to skin all parts of the main window, the equalizer, and the thinger. Even basic Maki can be learned by checking out other's examples and the forum.

However, there's one thing missing: the component skinning. This has brought winamp skinning back to the days of winamp1 where ONLY the main window was skinned. Even browsing through the message boards here shed little light on the subject.

The best bit to date is this thread, where we learn about the following ids:

* top-stretch
* bottom-stretch
* left-stretch
* right-stretch
* top-left-corner
* top-right-corner
* bottom-left-corner
* bottom-right-corner

The post provides some insight on creating these layers, but won't tell you where to put them to make them work correctly. There's a plethora of other parts of the component skinning side that haven't been noted, and there's a whole slew of unique bitmaps ids that are mapped to specific area which are - never mind documented - not even LISTED anywhere. This makes it difficult to read other skin XMLs, since you don't know if something is a system id or one defined within, which is made especially difficult by the fact that they're often broken into multiple files. It's put me on the brink of abandoning development of my (already published w/o components skinned) skin until Nullsoft or anyone for that matter, gets *some* kind of documentation written.

So I ask the community... plaese... share here any knowlege you have of component skinning, unique component skin ids, and any other useful pieces of knowlege that may aid the community in getting these skins out. Also, please share any experiences you may have had with getting the components working, so other skinner won't have the same problems.

[AndrewMackowski]

I agree. I think Nullsoft itself should post more info on the subject of component skinning, or at least make skinning components a bit more straightforward.

[Naamloos]

Vica and I are working on the info

[ZeLonewolf]

Would you consider sharing what you have as you write it? I don't think ANYONE in these forums would have a problem reading a work in progress. Please...there's ZERO documentation on the subject.