Classic Shell: Forum

well since you won, i see no reason why I cant extend it indefinitely for your re-submission.. , since its you who risk loosing the keys

...ugh...and here's where stuff gets awkward: My current situation doesn't really permit me to start playing more games, since I'm too invested in a series of modding projects .-.

I'm kinda tempted to forfeit, simply because almost anyone would get more enjoyment out of those keys than I would .__.

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I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, only to shatter them. Best wishes, wherever you're all headed next.

ah well you did already 'win' though your welcome to do as you please with the keys. I'm not so sure juniper7 wants them either, as I offered a second contagion key for his submission, and had no response.

You can give them to a friend, or whatever.

I promise to get back to making a second skin, or finishing the dogs breakfast one.

Using my free time on a different project.
I'm busy converting a families old reel to reel, cassete tapes to mp3 for a close relative.
The tapes are falling apart and are needing lots of editing. A long process.

Let Splitwirez bask in the glory of winning the duel, and the next one, as he will probably win again.


"Zombie. Sure I'll take anything free."

By the way, I'm still interested in playing that zombie shooter. Saw utubevids. Very scary.
I had checked the inbox for the key once, way back, but nothing there.

Ok so splitwirez. It does look like he wants a key, i have several (4 actually) just laying around) If you want to give him the key I sent you, just let me know. Otherwise ill send him a key of my own in a couple days

Thank you Jcee, for the game key.

DarkSpore Pie2 (Classic Style 1 & 2 ) (a.k.a Dog's breakfast)

More or less finished the skin. It ends up with a rough dirty look.
I made the skin from two bitmaps,
of the Pie folder, from Splitwirez.

The blue menu can become very wide, due to its many borders, especially in single mode. I count 7 big borders.
Had it thinner at one time in the process, just didn't have the same character, so left as big, and powerful looking.

Another aspect that stays big, is the height of all menus.
It's because of the way the stretch points, had to be, to keep most of the old fashion tv type look.
I had also reduced the height size, while processing,
then switched back to a compromise to keep enough of those aliasing lines as possible.
The problem with this is evident mostly on single menus, with "small icons".
If there are not enough entries in the menu, there will be an empty space at bottom of menu.
Even moving "Column Padding" in "Customize Start Menu" does not work.
One thing that does work is to drag a couple "custom"s and drop just above the separator.
For me, I just let it do it's thing, as menu fills up with entries, looks normal again.

Why not all docked in the corner?
The main menu, has tiny running lights, and edges that at times, glow a bit, with a dark background.
One can't see them all, when docked.






Feels like a marriage.
Do you column in black, take this column, dressed in blue,
to live happily ever after, along with your submenu little one?
Apparently not.
I see them as singles, in the one column section!
I like the single black menu best.

Make sure to turn off menu shadow in Classic Shell Settings.
Had to zip skin, as it got so big with all the variations.
I have no idea if the lines create interference on other screen resolutions. Mine is 1920 x1080

Edit: Fixed wrong bitmap reference

DarkSpore Pie3




A New Year, and a new piece of pie skin.

After many failed attempts, got the alpha transparency some what acceptable.
Lots of intentional overlaps, and the most 45 degree angles,
for any skin that's gone past me.
Those split selector buttons, can be quite a puzzle, to work out the odd shapes.
After more tries, than buying lottery tickets, I nailed it.

I put some preset color menus in skin. This was the fun part, making them so saturated with color, & tint shifts.
Pushed the saturation pink drive the most, just short of exploding.
They all have more dynamic range, than what glass color can provide.

As the skin has smokey blue tinge, and using Win10 limited color table,
the added glass option is best for just blue varitions. Other glass window colors don't blend nicely.
It can be overidden though, with Ivo's excellent "Overide glass color" in "Menu Look" tab.
I kept the glass intensity low, to keep glass from washing out the details.

Turn off menu shadow, to get rid of right vertical line. I put a shadow/glow on edge to make up for loss.

For the new apps/programs button, I borrowed some rainbowness from Pipalou50. Thanx.




OK, Splitwirez.
Your turn

EDIT: I added a dark pure grey option, with that bitmap,
used in combination with the mild glass option.

hi and gratz for this beautiful ones !

DarkSpore Pie4 (Classic 1 & 2 style)

The soft edge gives it a bit of a soapstone carved look.

Unzip it.
Turn off menu shadow in CSM settings.
Only has mild alpha transparency, no blur.





Time for a skinning break.

EDIT: I decided to add the giant user picture frame as option.
So options are bare, logotext, bare with name, bare with picture, bare with name and picture.
And of course, 2 column, 1 column, 1 column with caption.
That about covers it.

WAT

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

O:


MY GOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT'S EVEN...DARKSPORE... :Q

Also, random question, is there a way to enlarge the shutdown button on a Windows 7-style skin (and move it up and to the right a bit to compensate for the size, ofc)?

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I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, only to shatter them. Best wishes, wherever you're all headed next.

Ello Splitwirez.

The original 2 images were way too transparent for regular use, unless with a totally black background.
So I "copy merged", and pasted back on itself, like 5 times, to make less transparent.
It built up the alpha layer, while still keeping dynamics.

On Win7 shutdown button, I thought you did it way back?
I'll get back to you later today/night, about it.
I guess it can't be too big,
cause a Windows update places an update icon in button, which makes it wider.

Is this what you want?

It's Friday, where I am. I'm joking around today.
Any of the below paddings can alter the size/position of the shutdown button.
Each skin has different parameters.

Only you know exactly what you want from a particular skin.
I gather my sample is a fail?

Main_search_padding=14,24,6,20
Main_jump_padding=14,24,6,20
Main2_padding=4,20,3,20
Shutdown_text_padding=10,15,12,15
Shutdown_padding=10,9,10,25
Shutdown_icon_padding=5,3,-5,3
Shutdown_font="Segoe UI",bold,-22

Main_background=#FF0000
Shutdown_selection_mask=#00FF00

Hello Splitwirez .
Which skin do you have in mind, to alter the position of P button?

EDIT: FIXED:

:OD

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I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, only to shatter them. Best wishes, wherever you're all headed next.

It's amazing how much leeway, Ivo has put into the resizing of the power button.
Notice how small it can get.

This could take many hours to tweak. I'll hand it back to you, to continue forward.
I switched to using Aero default skin7.
Played with some numbers. Explorer did crash once. May have pushed it past the limit.
Did find that changing font size really helps. How much it changes with different languages, no idea?

Main_padding=10,10,3,8
Main2_padding=3,10,4,4
Main_search_padding=10,10,10,4
Main_jump_padding=3,10,10,4

Shutdown_text_padding=40,12,62,12
Shutdown_padding=0,9,0,4
Shutdown_icon_padding=5,3,-5,3
Shutdown_font="Segoe UI",bold,-1




Aw shucks. I don't believe it. Just when I'm about to post this, the two small dashes for the "shut Down" text show up, themself.
See other picture.
Maybe the text padding can be altered to hide it in front of something white?


Main_padding=10,10,3,8
Main2_padding=3,10,4,4
Main_search_padding=10,10,10,4
Main_jump_padding=3,10,10,4


Shutdown_text_padding=72,12,30,12
Shutdown_padding=0,9,0,4
Shutdown_icon_padding=5,3,-5,3
Shutdown_font="Segoe UI",normal,-1

Looking at your Vista picture,
another place to hide the text is make it black text for shutdown button.
And have it exactly on top of the black border of button.
That way no matter if language changes length, will still be hidden?

Main_padding=10,10,3,8
Main2_padding=3,10,4,4
Main_search_padding=10,10,10,4
Main_jump_padding=3,10,10,4

Shutdown_text_padding=72,23,30,1
Shutdown_padding=0,9,0,4
Shutdown_icon_padding=5,3,-5,3
Shutdown_font="Segoe UI",normal,-1
Shutdown_text_color=#000000,#000000

Well thanks Splitwirez, for making me play with the font size, as a joke.
If it wasn't for you asking, I would never have played around with large, and small sizes.

Think it could actually work.

...yay...? .___________.

_________________
I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, only to shatter them. Best wishes, wherever you're all headed next.

Sorry, but I figured I may as well announce that Darkspore itself was shut down a few days ago (March 1st). This is why online only needs to go die in a hole T__T

_________________
I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, only to shatter them. Best wishes, wherever you're all headed next.

Yikes, that really sucks.. especially since the game cost $$, I would call customer support and demand a refund personally , also sounds like a class action to me...

Huh.
Was bleach used?

What about regular Spore?
I'm in the process of making a Spore animated button, the game,
not the doorbell spOre.

From what I read, (did a bit of research after the post); The main game is alive and well..

This reminds me of original free trial Halo demo online. I used to play it a lot, with all the mods people made.
Someone has to pay for the servers.
Nobody was paying for a number of years, until got turned off abruptly.
The old bought Halo game online still works. Multiple other people host it, keeping it still alive.

EA, I guess is trying to save money, or like killing off old games to introduce new ones?

Maybe someone else will host and pay server fees, like Halo?



I put the finished Spore rotate button in the button section.
I made it for you, Splitwirez

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5779

I can confirm that :V

Indeed, Spore's modding community is so alive and well, I've been able to preserve a lot of Darkspore in Spore: Dark Injection 9.r teaser thingy for some reason

_________________
I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, only to shatter them. Best wishes, wherever you're all headed next.

i gotta admit, this looks badass.

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"A book is a mirror. If an ass peers into it, it doesn't expect an apostle to peer out." - E.M. Forster

There are more images in that folder that can be menus.

Even that cool submenu with the tiny lights, could be a main menu too.
Just put a vertical separator in middle,
or have column one staggered/stepped on top of column two.

These are ll awesome. I'd even like to see some matching taskbar images for use with the current classic shell beta =D

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"A book is a mirror. If an ass peers into it, it doesn't expect an apostle to peer out." - E.M. Forster

Remind me to bump this thread again once Start9 is publicly released

(...or in Open Beta, or whatever...)

_________________
I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, only to shatter them. Best wishes, wherever you're all headed next.

Dog gone it!

Remember when we were trying to make that Vista look shutdown button?
We couldn't get rid of the small -1 text, and you joked about using invisible font?
There really is an invisible font: I just couldn't see it.

http://www.angelfire.com/pr/pgpf/if.html

Heh, good times...I later went for Adobe Blank, actually, but I guess that one would probably work too... .___.

_________________
I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, only to shatter them. Best wishes, wherever you're all headed next.

You know how Windows has invisible icons.
Is there an invisble font in stock default Windows 7,8,10?
It is better to have text in skin linked to an invisible system font, instead of having a user install a font.

I would like to go back and fix our VistaLike skin. Certain languages show the tiny text pixels.
The invisibilty is still going to wreak some havoc with text padding with different languages though.

AFAIK no, there isn't.

_________________
I'm sorry for getting your hopes up, only to shatter them. Best wishes, wherever you're all headed next.