SkinStudio 6 is easier to use once you get used to it. The same as MS Office 2007 ribbons. Needed 2 weeks to get used to them and now can't live without them.

I do miss the feature for building WinMedia skins in SkinStudio 6 so I have SkinStuid 5 installed as well to create WinMedia skins.

Anyone who's used SK5 can use SK6. However, SK6 is so seriously stunted that I find myself editing the uis with notepad. That's how skinning was done 8-9 years ago...

To change the colours. SK5 had a section for this, SK6 doesn't. Also the font angle. The uis takes just a few seconds to set up.

I still haven't found some colours though, like the blue text in explorer under 'favourite links'

Start menu all programs text fix - when you use an image to replace the all programs text, set the angle to 900 and it stops the all programs area stretching when foreign text is there (which messes up the image alignment).

SKS6 was a major disappointment for me, I was SO hoping it would make things easier, but I find it more of a nightmare than SKS5! I tried and tried to make a per pixel skin in 5 but it just screws up time after time for no apparent reason. I thought it was me at first, but I now suspect it isn't.
When 6 came out I jumped straight in hoping I could finally make a per pixel skin, but I found it twice as hard as SKS5 to use.

As a side note to the general skinning of WindowBlinds, the biggest step forward for me would be some kind of documentation that tells you the optimum size for EVERY image that you have to make, especially when it comes to the actual window frames and button sizes.
For instance, how wide should the titlebar image be to make sure that it stays useable at any size? and should the start button, taskbar buttons and the systray images all be the same size for the best results?

I accept that I'm not the most technical person in the world, but I'm sure many others who would like to make a WB aren't either. I guess it comes down to a lack of good, in-depth tutorials and walk throughs for Skinstudio.

This isn't a blast at Stardock or the developers, those guys know that I love them and couldn't live without the software they produce, it's just the honest opinion of a hobbyist skinner who likes to make pretty pictures yet struggles with the technical stuff.

Have Fun!!

kudos for the blue font going soon.........cant wait

I've adjusted to SKS6 fairly well. My only real complaint is the lack of the ability to do a few things, which I still use SKS5 to do.

Start Menu shadow and Fonts for Classic Widgets.

Still using 6 just have to find somethings in 5 and edit uis.

So it sounds to me that overall, people aren't very happy with 6 so far. I've been pretty happy with 5 up until now, but was hoping to get some more Vista skinning elements. But I don't want to have to switch back and forth between them. That's too bad. (

Try saving .tga's directly to the skin folder as opposed to converted png's via import.

The ability to enable/disable Start Menu Shadow is now in SKS6.