SkinStudio 4.3 Release Notes

The Basics...

SkinStudio is a program that allows you to create skins for Windows.  It comes in basically two forms: A freeware version that creates GUI skins that can be applied to your entire Windows GUI via WindowBlinds and a Pro version which adds support for creating skins for Windows Media Player and lets serious skinners to able to create new skins by mixing and matching parts from skins they have on their computers.

When you load SkinStudio, this is what you are greeted with.

Making a Skin

If you choose to create a new visual style, you start out with this mode.  SkinStudio supports the new USF skinning format that can be exported to a variety of skin formats.

Once you are in SkinStudio, you start with the default Windows XP look (even if you're not running Windows XP). From there, you can modify the skin as you would like.  For fun, let's take advantage of one of the power user features of SkinStudio: Template images.

Here's a screenshot of another operating system. eComstation, an OS/2 Warp 4 derivative. We'll use this as our template.

So I go to to the file menu and open this JPG I've saved.

From here, I can select the piece of my original Windows XP looking visual style and then replace pieces of it. SkinStudio will automatically take care of the other states for you.

So here is our half-breed skin. You would repeat this scenario on each part you want to change. On title bar buttons, you would need to delete the Glyph images (see on the right side there?) if you are not creating the little button glyphs independently.

Toolbar icons and Progress Animations

New in SkinStudio 4.3 is the ability to create just toolbar icons and progress animations.  WindowBlinds can use toolbar icons and progress animations independently of the skin. WindowBlinds can even colorize toolbar icons on the fly.

Here's a progress animation example.

To export you can do it from an existing skin or create a skin that is just a progress animation. Go to the file->export to do it.

And then just name it however you want.

Using MSStyles

In the past couple of years Microsoft's limited skinning format .msstyles has become popular. The main problem with MSStyles is that in order to use them, you have to patch your system DLL uxtheme.dll which can cause problems (particularly when dealing with XP service packs).  Some programs mistakenly claim that they can use these files without using "any memory" or "system hooks" despite the fact that the file they patch in memory is what provides a system hook. 

With SkinStudio 4.3, you can now import most MSStyles files into WindowBlinds skins and use them directly without having to patch any system DLLs. WindowBlinds is Microsoft certified for Windows XP, 2000, ME, and 98.  Moreover, by default, SkinStudio will import MSStyles into WindowBlinds's accelerated UIS1 skin format which can improve their performance by up to 25%.

Here's an example - on deviantART.com, an MSStyle file is found and downloaded.

Here is the downloaded file.

Extracting the ZIP file I get these files.

When I double-click on it I get tihs dialog.

Once done it asks if I want to apply it.

End result

Enhancing visual styles with toolbar icons and progress animations

Since MSStyles don't support toolbar icons or progress animations as part of their format, WindowBlinds users can select toolbar icons and progress animations they've downloaded from WinCustomize.com and make use of them.

In this option, the skin will use its own if it exists but if it's missing, it'll use these.

Toolbar icons changed (in some circumstances one might need to restart Explorer).

Conclusions

SkinStudio is the ultimate skinning program. It lets you create your own skins in a variety of formats and allows you to seamlessly use/edit most WindowBlinds formatted and MSStyle formatted visual styles.

You can download the free version at: www.skinstudio.net. SkinStudio is part of of Stardock's Object Desktop suite of Windows enhancement utilities.