Classic Shell: Forum

ASUS K20 Evolution (Win 7 style) Only works with CSM v 4.2.7

The menu skin started out from an Asus K20 minitower, web picture.
Took a while to denoise the jpg compression artifacts.
Then the creative juices started to happen.

It evolved, using many of the new features of the CSM "Metallic" .skin7

The "Asus" logo can be swapped out with a different symbol with transparent background image.
As long as matches same height 70 pixels. Anything bigger will extend on to rest of menu.


The glass option will give a flatter look, with not as much gradient.
For myself, if glass is not overridden in CSM settings to a dark menu color,
I tend to turn off the 2nd column border (DVD drawer).

There is an option for custom image for main menu.
If image is small, tiling repeats the image to fill the menu.
If too large, only the top corner of image is visible. It is mostly to use repeatable texture.
One can put in a picture image.
Would have to edit in a photo editor first, and adjust brightness,
blur, etc, for good menu text visibility.
To make image wrap somewhat around the sides, the image is only 80 percent intensity mixed with the grey background.
It is not going to jump out in full color. Rather subdued.
Once again, best not to use the dvd drawer option with a bright picture image, as its border will look fuzzy.


There is no transparency/blur in this skin.

Oddity note. If you change to have normal black text with black selectors, text will not be visible on split selector.

It appears I might be the first person to use a modified "Metallic" skin.
There could be errors in the way I composed the text script. Don't know everything. I don't see any big errors at this point.
I would have liked to have some of the options grayed out, when they don't apply. I could not figure it out. Sorry.
The file is honking big. This skin is only compatible with the beta CSM version 4.2.7



Feels like back in the 1980s, with brushed metal stereos.

Love it. I'm guessing you were initially trying to make something of the power button on the gray strip on the bottom? Shame that didn't work out
Maybe separate text color, and hover text color into 2 user-inputs instead of forcing black or white text color?
Also looking at the capabilities of the new .skin features. I wonder if a 'font' option with user-input would work? i know they would have to know the font-name offhand but a few could be listed in the hover-tip quite easily (I forget if options can have hover-tips?)
Shame I'm using classic with 2 columns still cause I would be using this otherwise (not a request to port)

Thanks Jcee.
Had Asus video cards, monitor- very good.
Way back years ago I wanted the best motherboard. It was an Asus $250 bare. Worst decision I ever made.
Took 2 years of firmware updates before all the bugs got worked out. No more buying the latest. Better to buy slightly older proven technology.
I'm sure the K20 is good. It sure looks better than my tower with a big maple leaf on the front, that I got from IT department.

Back to the skin.
It almost looks like a cell phone with rounded edges, when there is a photo image.

Power button on the bottom strip-
Briefly thought about it, making strip thicker. It can probably be done, but might be incompatible in some scenarios.
It's like forcing the user picture to be offset resembling Classic 2 column. It is not stable position.
Maybe Splitwirez could make a mod for it? Never know until it's tried.

It's getting hot where I live, and it's making me very lazy again.
I might think about porting to Classic in future.
More interested if more people can see what I did with Ivos features, and make a skin of their own.
I can help others with info I know, and we can all bug Ivo for intricate details.
Is there such a Universal logic text book for dummies?

Don't know enough about all that new custom text color stuff.
Was thinking of having a set for main, and a set for submenu. I'm just glad I got it to work at all!
I wanted to have customize color for normal, as well as hover on the same line. Nope, no can do.
Not smart enough to get it working.

I never did so much mixing of masks to get the 3d look. It's not perfect. It is not an overlay function.
Because there is no pattern for submenu, I had to fake the brushed look with a super tall submenu.

Yea I can tell it took alot effort. to get all of the textures just right Ill admit I haven't really touched any of the new features since the latest skin patch. (mostly for lack of time, but also for a lack of a sample skin for the classic style)
I might jump in and try my hand on adding a few features, and graying out the ones that are incompatible with other settings. If I do ill PM you the file and you can update it if you want

But yea; Asus makes decent stuff. but bleeding edge technology will always have bugs.. I'm just glad they are usually software related. (nothing worse than a design error that nothing can be done about)

This is awesome! I placed the images into a new folder in classic shell's hard drive folder, lol.

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"A book is a mirror. If an ass peers into it, it doesn't expect an apostle to peer out." - E.M. Forster

Yep.
I've got a texture folder now too. I even have a plywood texured menu.
Even though I can see the break seam line, it adds to the cheap look of it.

Top and main custom images for one of the Pokemons,
and Yoshi too.

pokemon and yoshi fans everywhere can now squeal like little fangirls, lol. nice resources.

_________________
"A book is a mirror. If an ass peers into it, it doesn't expect an apostle to peer out." - E.M. Forster

Beautiful skin. Haven't checked the Classic Shell forums in awhile, and my, lots of great skins have come out. The new skinning features of the CS Beta are awesome too.

And Jcee, this and Classic Shell's new "Metallic" skin work fine in the classic with two columns style--just change their extensions to .skin instead of skin7. Haven't seen any issues so far.

So, this is actually a lot more complicated to add custom pictures to than it appears. I'm not sure the way the tiling works, and I'm not sure how to get the picture centered or at least the whole thing show up. I'm trying to do what juniper7 did with the Yoshi picture with this one. How can I get the whole thing to show up in it like that? Do I just need to shrink the top picture and move it more to top left or what? (Sorry for how huge image shows up in the forums. I'm not sure how to tell it to resize its appearance only.

Hey Weboh. Long time no see.

Ivo said it in text somewhere, that the image starts in the top left corner of menu,
top right if language goes right to left.
Because the Metallic , and this skin do not stretch the image like on regular menu skins,
there are good points and bad points. No stretching distortion,
but a big photo image needs to be correct for the users monitor resolution. Small tile image, no problem.

You would need to put in a photo program to resize.
Probably reduce to 540 pixels wide, so the jump view gets most of image, when using standard 96 dot per inch monitor.
Those little stars will only show if there are lots of entries in first column (tall menu).

For HIDPI, image would need to be bigger, or it will run out of image pixels, and tile.
The Metallic skin will show 100% full color image. The same image on K20, mixes with the background grey menu.
So image might need contrast boosted a bit, to make colors vibrant again.
Another thing with the K20 skin is if the top border is added, part of image will be hiding behind the top.
Does really become exacting sometimes.

Found one with a complete star:

http://water-kirby.deviantart.com/art/K ... -147653207

Contrast boosted +25 out of 100

If top bar is used, would need to edit in additional pink space at top.
If need even smaller, edit in more pink area and shrink full image more.

My favorite. Make some more with all the options

AppData.
Those worked out damn good.
Really jump out in your face, going for jugular.

Unless you added more custom image, and emblem options in the skin,
gather you are using an extended top logo custom image?
Looks good with the shadow too.

I'm using the top image, just resized them and moved them around the png 'til they looked right. The possibilities are endless

plz link the images and the required settings to make them work like that

_________________
"A book is a mirror. If an ass peers into it, it doesn't expect an apostle to peer out." - E.M. Forster

UPDATE: I didn't have all the files in the 1st rar. Here are these files and a few more I've played with along with some backgrounds
http://sta.sh/download/464593302777502/ ... 1474253095

Meh, may as well post this here:

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TILES WOOOOOO

This skin rocks! Thanks

Hi AppData.
That's nice of you to supply all those textures. Thanks.
It's like the custom image menus, are now the artists canvas.

By any chance do you happen to have the emblem image of the evil dog?
I tried duplicating like in your screen shot, but the dogs drop shadow looks like a kangaroo.




Edit:
Oh shoot.
I didn't notice you added doggy to new download. Thankyou

Just thought I'd share a slightly modified version of your .skin done for a request http://www.classicshell.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6966&p=29844#p29844

Unreal Jcee.
I was thinking of the same things, like the big sonic logo on top, with a new emblem for bottom with the shrubery.
More green and rocks below the logo.
I made a tile pattern with the brown bricks, but it drove my eyes bunkers, then quit and waited to see yours.
Love the blue at the top. I had cropped one of the orange selector buttons to use. Too late.
Good job.

Great minds think alike I kinda dislike the grass at the bottom. If I were to finish it, I would remove the grass (making a taskbar image out of it), Might also change the text color to gold (or make it user-definable) but lets see what the requester has to say first If he likes it as is, I'm probably not making the changes