Windows comes with a "Theme" tab in its display properties. But those Microsoft themes only support Microsoft's stuff.
WinStyles adds a new tab: .XPThemes. Don't let the name fool you though, it works on Windows 98 and above. .XPThemes not only support things like wallpapers, icons, and screensavers like Microsoft's themes do, it treats the myriad of third party desktop enhancements as if they are natively part of the OS.
.XPThemes are applied via WinStyles and they can include everything from an ICQPlus skin to a WinAmp skin to of course things like WindowBlinds and DesktopX. Virtually all the programs here at WinCustomize are supported by it.
In essence, a .XPTheme is a super theme format. It lets you apply an entire suite of skins/themes at once as a single entity. But it does more than that, it lets you control individual programs from the XPTheme tab. So when you want to change your WindowBlinds skin or your WinAmp skin or your CursorXP cursor, or ICQPlus skin you don't have to fish through those individual programs anymore to do so. You can just go to your XPThemes tab, choose the program in question and it will list all the skins or themes installed and let you apply the selected one individually.
It gets better though. While .xpthemes are very useful for users on their individual machines, distributing them is a whole different matter. Few skin authors know how to create an entire suite (outside Pixtudio and a few others). And getting permission for several different skins can be time consuming.
In response, the next beta of WinStyles is going to include support for a second format - .suite. A .suite doesn't actually contain any skins or icons or themes. Instead, it points to a URL where they can be downloaded individually. Hence, a user can take a screenshot of their system and include a .suite file (which will likely be less than a 1K). When a .suite file is applied, WinStyles goes and downloads the appropriate skins, icons, and themes from the net and applies them and converts them on your system to a .xptheme (so that next time you apply it you don't have to download them). WinCustomize has already been set up so that doing so will still increase the download count of the individual skin that has been retrieved.
As the project name Convergence implied, WinStyles is designed to bring all the different desktop enhancements into a unified environment so that they can work together. And it will expose those third party programs (particularly the non-Stardock ones) to thousands of new users that they otherwise wouldn't be exposed to.
