How to skin windows

INTRODUCTION
Skin Formats

TIPS AND TRICKS
Special Effects

NOTICE TO SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS

The Skinning Languages used by WindowBlinds (UIS1 and UIS2) are the intellectual property of Stardock Corporation. Unlicensed use of them is strictly prohibited. Prohibited uses include but are not limited to reading WindowBlinds skins into an unlicensed product, converting UIS skins from UIS to another unlicensed skin language or format, or using portions or components of UIS (such as the unique button graphical layout or keywords of UIS) for unlicensed use. If you are interested in obtaining a license to use UIS in your software please contact directskin@stardock.com.

The first very short section to complete is where you give the skin its name, identify yourself as the author, and add any special notes about the skin.

he [TitlebarSkin] section within the UIS file is where you identify the skin and your role in it�s creation. If you look below you can see this information for the skin we are studying.

This is where you give your skin a name

SkinAuthor=Johanne Chain� AKA Alexandrie

Here you identify yourself as the skin author so you can receive the credit you deserve

Enter your e-mail address here so people can correspond with you

Here you can enter the address of your website.

Generator=SkinStudio ver 1.4.1, Build 377 — http://www.skinstudio.net

If you use software to create your skin, it can enter information in this parameter which identifies the editor used

This is where you can specify the version of windows for which this skin is intended:

310 = WindowBlinds 3.1 or later

The first two values are compulsory. If you don�t specify a SkinName and a SkinAuthor then WindowBlinds will not recognize the skin, and it will not be listed in the list which can be selected by the user.

There are some other attributes which allow you to make notes:

Enter any notes or message you wish to about your skin here

Editors such as SkinStudio can display a message when you load the skin for editing. Enter here anything you would like to appear in this message.

In this key section you add the main graphical frame for your window, and set up some of the basic parameters.

his is a key section in defining your skin and it�s basic parameters and graphics. Before you get into the detail of the skin there are two lines you can specify which can make your skin more efficient if it meets the appropriate criteria.

Earlier in this document I explained that you could use transparency and have non-rectangular frames for your windows. If your skin does not have a non-rectangular frame, which uses transparency of this sort you can add this line for optimization.

Similarly, if the buttons which you place on the frame do not use transparency then you can add this line for optimization purposes.

By looking at a SkinStudio preview as shown on the left, you can quite easily see the makeup and the key elements of a skin.

This also shows you how the final Aquarium skin looks.

The first thing we are going to look at is the skin Frame, which is made up of Top, Bottom, Left and Right components as can be seen in the diagram below.

What you must remember is that there are two types of window state, the Active and the Inactive window, both of which must be skinned.

You can click the toggle button to switch the Preview that is visible to you.

As explained in Chapter 3, graphics can contains the image for both active and inactive states.

The code used to specify the four images, one for each side of the frame, is placed in the [Personality] section as is the code in the rest of this chapter.

A standard bitmap for the frame contains the images for both the active and inactive window states, as you would see above. If you look at the actual bitmap used you will see that there are many more frames. This is because in the Aquarium theme uses an animated image for the active window.

This is reflected in the following line of code.

These lines are necessary even if the skin does not require animation as the value reflects how the source graphic is made up, by reflecting the number of �images� displayed.

1 (one image) = all windows have this image

2 (two images) = active windows have first image, and inactive windows have second

3 (three images) = as above, third image is for disabled windows

4+ (4 or more images) = animated window image and inactive window in final image

The image above would have the code TopFrame=2 , but the actual image used has the code TopFrame=15 because there a 14 images making up the active window animation and a single final image to represent the inactive window state. It is important to remember that even if only one side of the window frame is animated all the sides of the frame must contain the same number of images.

You also need to specify the speed of the animation. The line below specifies the time interval between images of the animation in milliseconds; i.e. in this case there is 0.3 seconds between each image. An AniRate of 0 means that there is no animation.

For optimization purposes, another command is required to specify whether all frames of the image or the same shape. If all the frames are the same shape (i.e. the same areas of transparency), then WindowBlinds can function more efficiently. To clarify this, use the following line:

If your frames were different shapes, then you would set the value to 1.

At this time the animation won�t work properly because you need to add a special �Animation button� to provide the functionality, but we will come onto that in the Buttons section.

Because all windows on you desktop can change size, WindowBlinds needs informing how to scale these images. Each side of the frame has TopHeight , BotHeight , and Stretch parameters as you can see below.

TopStretch=1

The image contains a section at each end, and then a section in the middle which is resized depending on the window size. For each edge, the TopHeight value is the number of pixels from the left (top or bottom frame), or the top (left or right frame). In this case the image up to 52 pixels is the left segment.

The BotHeight value is the number of pixels from the right (top or bottom frame), or the bottom (left or right frame). In this case the right 109 pixels are the Right segment.

The rest in the centre can be scaled in 2 different ways. This is what the Stretch parameter is for on each side of the frame. You can either Tile the image repeating it side by side, or you can Stretch the image meaning that the centre image is resized until it fits the size required by the window. A Stretch parameter of 1 means that the image is Stretched, and a value of 0 means that it is tiled.

It is within the [Personality] section where you can also set the color of text used in the frame.

Throughout the creation of a WindowBlinds skin, colors are usually broken down into their Red, Green and Blue components, each of which ranges from 0 (none / darkest) to 255 (full / brightest).

The following lines set text in active windows to be white (255, 255, 255), and text in inactive windows to be a grey/blue color (210, 219, 223).

Without WindowBlinds, your windows are constrained to having their text at the left edge of the windows and the �buttons� on the right. With WindowBlinds you have the flexibility to change this depending on your preference. For example, if you are a left handed user, at may be more natural to have buttons on the left. This emphasizes how WindowBlinds is not pure �eye-candy�. It goes beyond the standard Windows interface, and other clones of the interface that rely on the Microsoft Visual Styles, and provides additional functionality.

The first thing to do is to define the position of the text.

This line allows you to determine whether the text is positioned on the left, in the centre, or on the right of the window.

You have 3 choices:

0 = left justified

1 = centre justified

2 = right justified

To qualify this, you can also specify horizontal and vertical offsets to allow you flexibility, and avoid the text butting into any graphics or buttons at the edges of the frame.

TextShift=21

The TextShift command specifies how many pixels the text is offset from the left margin, and the TextRightClip parameter is the distance from the right margin. The TextShiftVert parameter shifts the text vertically from the centre of the graphic, in this case 1 pixel down.

The final code you need to consider in the [Personality] section is the code for window backgrounds. You can specify backgrounds for Windows explorer, dialogue boxes, and MDI windows. If you don�t know what MDI windows are then here goes. Some programs allow you to open several files at once. Each file will open as a separate window within that application. These �windows within windows� are called MDI windows.

The code is simple in each case. All you need to do as specify the image, and this image will be tiled until it fills the appropriate window.

In this section we will also define the appearance of menus in your skin.

enus consist of the menu titles in a window, and the menus which appear when these titles are clicked. Both can be configured using WindowBlinds.

When your cursor goes over a menu title, the color of the text behind this title changes to reflect this selection. The following 3 lines define the Red, Green and Blue elements of this highlight.

You can also define the actual color of the text that appears in menus. This is done using similar Red, Green, and Blue parameters. The fourth parameter in this list ( MenuLeftTile ) is a command that allows you to offset the text that appears by a number of pixels in a horizontally direction. Aquarium chooses not to do this; therefore this parameter has a value of 0.

You can place an image behind the top level text of menus, as highlighted by the red box in the image on the right. The parameters to achieve this are as follows:

The first line specifies the image, which is a two part image; one for the active window and one for the inactive window. As with the frame images, the image can be split into three sections. There are 2 sides which can be specified and an area in the centre which can be tiled or stretched. The TileMenu parameter with a value of 1 indicates that the centre area should be tiled, and the TileLeftMenu and TileRightMenu parameters indicate the number of pixels at the edges which are unmodified. The Aquarium skin sets these to 0 as it tiles the entire image.

With WindowBlinds you can substantially improve the actual appearance of menu contents. This is done via the MenuBorders parameter, and the [MENUBACKGROUND] and [MENUITEM] sections.

The MenuBorders parameter specifies a graphic from which a 3 pixel border is derived to surround the menu. All you need to do is specify a graphic, and then WindowBlinds uses the outside 3 pixels on all sides of the image regardless of the actual image size.

The [MENUBACKGROUND] section sits outside the [PERSONALITY] section and is used to define the background image used on menus.

The Aquarium skin chooses to cleverly use the same image as is used by the MenuBorders parameter. This can be seen below in the IMAGE parameter.

To isolate the actual background image 4 parameters are used to specify a margin on each side. Here you can see that the RightWidth , LeftWidth , TopHeight , and BottomHeight parameters are all set to a value of 3. This works alongside the MenuBorders parameter which uses these excluded areas for the border.

The final parameter, Tile , is used as in previous sections to define whether the central area is tiled or stretched. The value of 0 means that the image is stretched. A value of 1 would have meant that the central area was tiled.

How to personalize your laptop windows 10

Windows 10 has many new personalization settings that let you change your screen’s Background, lock screen, windows colours, themes and much more. It contains a wide range of settings to make the desktop and apps look better. According to Cognizantt developers personalize laptop windows10, help them to work fast and efficiently. Here is how you can personalize Windows 10 appearance.

In this windows 10 guide, we will show you the steps to customize the desktop and make your experience better.

• Background
• System colours
• Lock screen
• Themes
• Start menu
• Taskbar settings

How to change your desktop background on windows 10

Let’s start with the primary step; go into the personalization settings. The quickest way to get there is to Right Click on your screen and select personalize.

You will see different categories on the left side of your computer. The first option is Background.

When you select Background, you have three choices for your Background (pictures, solid colours, slideshow)

1. When you select the option picture, you can choose photos that come with the windows 10. You can also select images from your computer by clicking on browse. Choose a fit. You have to decide how you want that picture to appear on the screen.
2. When you select a solid colour, you have to choose a colour listed as your Background. And below that, if you click on the custom colour, you can select your background colour.

1. When you select the option slideshow, you can choose a group of photos from your laptop by selecting browse. You can use the “change picture every” and decide how often images should rotate. You can also enable

How to change system colours on windows 11

Here are some cool changes that you can make to improve the appearance of your windows.

1. Choose your
2. You can choose a light mode or dark mode.
3. Below you have to choose an accent colour from a palette or select the windows automatically pick a colour from your Background.

1. Below that, you can choose where the accent colour appears, start menu, taskbar, and action centre. Another option is to turn on transparencies for all these items.

How to customize the lock screen on windows 11

Want to change your Background on your lock screen? Here is what you can do. You can easily customize the lock screen that slides up every time you open your laptop.

• The lock screen uses the windows spotlight as a default option. These are images from Microsoft which appear on a rotating basis.
• The other choices are pictures and slideshow, which let you select images you’re your computer. Choosing any of these will give you similar choices.
• 
• Below you can select the option to use the app to show detailed information on your lock screen, for example, calendar.
• You can also choose several apps to give to a quick status update on your screen.
• Below there is an option to appear a background image on the login screen. You can turn on/off.

How to change themes on windows 10

Themes will have the most impact on personalizing the appearance of your desktop on windows 10.

• Themes give you a new set of wallpapers.
• It includes unique wallpapers, sounds, colours and a mouse cursor.
• At the top, you will find shortcuts according to your current theme.
• Scroll down previously installed themes on your computer will be shown there.
• To select a theme, left-click on it.
• To get more themes, click on the given link and get more from the Microsoft store.

To download a new theme

• Click the link to get more themes option.
• Select the theme you want.
• Click the Get
• Click
• Click the newly added theme from the themes

You can get more themes from https://skinpacks.com/

How to change the start menu in windows 10

The start menu is an essential part of Windows 10. If you are new to Windows 10, find the windows icon on the left and left-click on it. There are different ways to customize the start menu. There are several options to change your start menu.

• You can move the tiles around
• Right-click on any tile (gives you several options, including to unpin from the start, resize and uninstall the app)
• Show more tiles on start ( allows you to add up to 8 tiles in a single row)
• Show app list in the start menu ( allows you to have access to all the apps. Disabling this option will remove the apps list from there)
• The show recently added apps ( you can turn off this option if you don’t want to see newly added apps)
• Show more used apps ( allows you to see the apps you frequently use; you can also disable this option)
• Occasionally show suggestions in start ( option to see recommendations from Microsoft you can also turn off this option if you don’t want to see any)
• Use full screen ( enables a full screen and allows to you see all pinned tiles)

• You can also resize the pinned tiles by stretching the edges outwards with the help of the mouse.

How to change the taskbar settings in windows 10

You can make various changes in the taskbar. There are many options available in the settings to change the taskbar. Some necessary steps are:

• Click on taskbar
• Lock-on taskbar (you can’t resize or move the taskbar. If disabled, you can transfer)
• Automatically hide the taskbar in desktop mode ( the bar will be hidden if it turned on)
• Automatically hide taskbar in tablet mode ( the bar will stay hidden )
• Use small task buttons (if you are running out of the space on the taskbar. Enables small taskbar buttons)
• Change taskbar location (allows you to change taskbar location to left, top, right or bottom)

• Notification area (select the option, which icons appear on the taskbar, toggle to turn on the icons you want to appear in the notification bar. The notification area is in the right-hand section on the taskbar )
• 
• Multiple displays (if you have multiple displays, show your taskbar on all the displays and switch on )

With all these settings, you can easily personalize your windows. But there are hundreds of more ways to customize your windows 10. You can customize it the way you want. These are just a few of them; hopefully, it will get you started getting most of windows 10.

If you are a professional and need to do work fast, you need all things in minimum clicks for this purpose. It’s called user experience; a better understanding leads you to better performance.

For example: if you a writer and you want to write some academic papers or provide writing services like dissertation writing service and literature review writing service so, you need to personalize your laptop windows 10, according to your use as you think you can perform well. Personalization is depended on the user of windows how he/she want to set his/her laptop windows.