The introduction of layering  to SKS and Windowblinds has been a tremendous asset,so I thought I would take the time to demonstrate the power it can provide.
Understanding how much times have changed small file size in a .wba is not quite as important as it use to be when dail up meant a 30 min. DL or limited ram meant slow performance.
DSL took care of our DL time and larger ram (especially on 64 bit OS where we are not limited to 3.5 gigs) HELPED to not slow down your system when using a large skin.For the sake of
this demo we will focus on speed of loading and memory usage though because even with all the advancements we all want it faster! Don't we!

 Ok lets look at graphics sharing first there are several places we still use not transparent or translucent bitmap images usally large file sizes becuase of what they are .I am going to single
out 4 of them .

(1) Toolbar (or Rebar background as called in SKS6)

(2) Status bar

(3) favorites menu

(4) more programs menu


1st I created my Toolbar keeping in mind I wanted to use it for all 4 images i made it smooth with subtle (not drastic) gradients so it would stretch smoothly.

Now lets set up sizing margins

Because we are using the same image all sizing margins will be the same and set to stretch

We now have an image that will get as small as we need it or as large as we need it without distortion

Now for the Toolbar and the status bar we don,t need any changes

On to the favorites menu

As you see in the image below we need a place for our icons to reside

This is where the layering comes in .

1st I created our vertical tray it is shown below with a grey canvas so you can see it better but in application is saved as a .png with a transparent canvas

Then I added a second layer to our image

You can see below where I set the sizing margins this strectches only the blank canvas. SKS  set to stretch

Now you can repeat the process for the MoreProgramsMenu

Keep in mind you may have to adjust content margins of the respective item under menu item to get icons to line up just right

Below is a shot of the menu applied

So now we have used 2 images in place of 4 looks like a 50% reduction right? Well lets take a closer look.


Now the ones we created.

37KB

4KB

Total 41KB

 50% with only 2 images and in some skins where the menus were large it could be be a huge difference

Anyway just loving Layering hope it helps some on

A/V