I'm working on my second skin and, having found out how to get my skinned menus to appear in WinXP, its opened up a whole big can of worms for me.

So, and I'm hoping these haven't been asked a trillion times B4 (searched but didn't find!), I've got a few questions that I hope you experienced skinners can answer...

1. Text alignment in Tab Controls
In the tab, I want the text to start about 14 pixels in from the left of each button. I've set the content margins and in the first frame for the control the text appears in the correct position. Problem is that in the remaining frames the text is only about 4 pixels in from the left and is overlapping bits of the buttons that I want to keep visible. Anyone know what causes this, and even better how to fix it?

2. Drop-down Menu Background
My drop down menus always appear with a wide vertical white stripe right down the middle from top to bottom. Either side is skinned correctly, and I've tried various painting methods (tile, stretch etc. - btw the one I want to use is stretch horz, tile vert) but nothing fixes it. Does the image have to be a minimum width that isn't specified or have I missed something obvious? Haaay-elp!

3. Drop-menu Top and Bottom item images
Menu-item images have three sections right? Generic items, top item, bottom item. My items are .tga's and use alpha transparency. The normal items show correctly in all frame states, but the top and bottom items show a black border for the first frame where the transparency should be. The other four frames are fine. I've checked the masks and they seem correct, so what's the deal? Transparent and translucent are switched on in all three item-sections.

Well, thats it for now, though I'm sure this won't be the end of it! Tough being new to the game...


Fanks a lot!