i would like that too. but i don´t think this will happen. i´ll wait until Nivenh finishes integrating windows skinning into the Bluebox shell. this will be an extremely lightweight, vector based way to skin windows. until that i´ll stick with Illumination.

btw: a wonderful WindowBlinds skin, that does not care about the Exploder shell has just been released yesterday. so get jealous now http://www.deskmod.com/?show=showskin&skin_id=14722

Sorry, Mike.
I guess I didn't explain myself properly. Actually, I've been using WB on and off since v.50, and while OD did release a version called WB Basic (which really wasn't what I meant, but hey - the name sounded enticing ), I guess I was just addressing the issue of whether Stardock had considered a stripped down version. And when I meant skinning the taskbar, it wasn't just XP I was talking about, but Windows in general. Whether it was 95, 98, NT,2K, or XP, if you're using a shell app, there IS no start bar, per se - unless you create something to simulate it.

And Moshi, I agree, and while I'm looking forward to what BlueBox (or Blackbox for Windows, for that matter)has to offer, I'd still like to have one app to handle the windows skinning no matter what program I happen to be using.

And Crae is always looking for a scoop...

There's options in the WB settings to not skin an awful lot (each can be individually set)

Skin Standard Parts:

Standard Window Buttons
Taskbar Buttons
Toolbar Buttons

Advanced Controls:

Menu Borders
Progress Bars
Tabs
Scrollbars
Statusbar
Menu Backgrounds

looks like there will be an alternative soon check the BlueBox site for a wip screenshot. http://bluebox.lokai.net/

I'm not sure why you don't just turn off the features you don't want.

Another way of looking at it would be that die-hard users of Litestep, Nextstart, Hoverdesk, DesktopX, etc. are less likely to make WindowBlinds skins because they'd spend hours and hours skinning something they never use or see.

forget i asked about that. just downloaded the pre-alpha version of bwm (released today) and am drooling. still has a way to go, but it wont be that long. it actually works pretty good

so no reason to rip on StarDock, you did NOT disencourage freeware/Open Source developers.

Here is a fully functional UIS1 skin that I made (the Windows 3.1 skin):

---
[TitlebarSkin]
SkinName = Windows31
SkinAuthor = You
ActiveTitle=Windows31\horizontal.bmp

[Borders]
vertFrame = Windows31\vertical.bmp
HorzFrame = Windows31\horizontal.bmp
TopTopHeight = 24 ;start tiling 24 pixels from top.
TopBotHeight = 24 ;from bottom.
LeftTopHeight = 24 ;from top left (downwards)
LeftBotHeight = 24 ;from bottom left (upwards)
RightTopHeight = 24 ;from top right
RightBotHeight = 24 ;from bottom right
BottomTopHeight = 24 ;from the bottom in on right
BottomBotHeight = 24 ;from the bottom in on the left (yea, these could be named better)

; We want our title bar text to be moved over from the left
; by 30 pixels and there are 4 title bar buttons.

[Caption]
TextLeftShift = 30
ButtonCount = 4

; Our close button

[Button0]
XCoord = 0
YCoord = 3
Align = 0 ; align from left
Action = 0 ; close the window
ButtonImage = Windows31\sys.bmp
Visibility = 0 ; always show it.

[Button1]
XCoord = 19
YCoord = 4
Align = 1 ; align from right
Action = 1 ; maximize the window
ButtonImage = Windows31\max.bmp
Visibility = 20 ; show only if there is a maximize button.

[Button2]
XCoord = 38
YCoord = 4
Align = 1
Action = 2 ; minimize the window
ButtonImage = Windows31\min.bmp
Visibility = 22 ; show only if there is a minimize button

[Button3]
XCoord = 19
YCoord = 4
Align = 1
Action = 1 ; restore the window
ButtonImage = Windows31\restore.bmp
Visibility = 3 ; show only if there is a restore button.
-----

Pretty small.

That was an eFX skin. But yea, other than the title bars/borders a skin author doesn't have to do anything on a WB skin to make it work. It can be as "lite" as you want it.

And check out the size of wblind.dll, it's tiny.

Actually... there was a WB Lite back in the day. It was called WBLiteFX, I believe. That was back before Neil joined up with Stardock. But it's really unimportant, as it's extremely outdated and therefore pretty much useless. If anyone still even has a copy.

In the screenshot I saw eFX's icon in the system tray.

When it comes to a "lite" version of something there are usually 3 main reasons to request a "lite" version:

1) The lite version would use less ram
2) The lite version would be faster
3) The lite version would load faster

Item #3 doesn't really apply to GUI skinning. On item #1, WindowBlinds uses a fairly trivial amount of ram (how much ram does a scrollbar take? 5K?). And as for the big one - speed, that doesn't really come so much from # of items skinned but techniques used. For instance, compare WindowBlinds 3.4 to say eFX or Chroma or Bluebox.

WindowBlinds 2 was about twice as fast as WindowBlinds 1. WindowBlinds 3 was about twice as fast as WindowBlinds 2. And WindowBlinds 3.4 is quite a bit faster than WindowBlinds 3 (and WindowBlinds 4 on XP may be twice as fast as WindowBlinds 3).

That's the ironic thing about desktop enhancements versus other types of software, they tend to get smaller and faster over time because the success of a GUI skinner is not just what it does but that it has to do what it does without interfering with the primary purpose of the computer.

good point. it would be a good thing to have in skinbench.