Classic Shell: Forum

I am working on a theme for my computer and not sure how to do the skinning, kinda confusing for me....but basically I am using the Metro skin currently, and I would like something similar but with the Umbrella Corporation logo in the background. as I said, the tutorial was quite confusing to me, so I figured I would ask for some help from the great people within this community...

Thank you in advance.

Some people can learn and retain the knowledge indefinitely.
Others like me, have a hard time learning, with an easy time forgetting it all.

There are a few skins made already that can display an extra custom image.
Just point to a location of custom image on your hard drive, to load it:

Metallic (7 style included in CSM)
Clasetro (7 style) viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7025
Asus K20 Evolution (7 style) viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6255
Startisback plain10 (7 style) viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6769

Tweaking your image for size, brightness, and free blank space in an image editor, is pretty much all that's required.



To make your own skin, with a built in image, is a lot more involved. It really has to be narrowed down to many details.
Type of menu - classic 1, classic 2, or 7 style.

If 7 style, will image show on all three types of the main menu, jump view, search view, and main view, or just the main view?

How will image be displayed? Image that shrinks, and expands,(distorts),
or tile repeat,(Pattern)
or show once only (Emblem)
or show many different images at different locations.
What dpi is your monitor. Higher dpi requires bigger images.
To show image full color, or show in alpha channel like watermark, and how much does image blend in with the original menu.
Usually one or more mask images have to be made as well, to block, or show where the extra image is seen.



If all this is far above ones head, you may not even need to have it so complicated.
Say if all you want is to have a small logo above shutdown button, like the Alienware head logo,
then copy off the sample 7 style Metro Alienware logo skin, or swap out the images.

The text was added at the very bottom of skin file.
The png images are medium size image 101, and small icon size image 102. It's only set up for standard 96 dpi.
Can work higher dpi, but image will be smaller proportion.



There is another way too. Just build image right into the main menu bitmap,
with slice dimensions to stop that menu corner from changing shape,(distorting).

It's best to do a simple sketch on a menu screenshot to see what you want.
The weekend is almost over. I may not be able to help much. Other experienced ones might be able to help out.