Classic Shell: Forum

I found some old Nintendo Theme suites. One of the things they have in them is a start menu skin. I would like them to made into Classic Shell skins. It has all the bitmaps to do it, but I don't know how to put them together. Can someone make a skin with these as sub-skins?

I tried, but sadly I still don't seem to be quite capable of creating themes as of yet. I understood the instructions well, but there turned out to be far more work to it then I expected, and I'm not yet able to put that much into it yet. Basically the themes your asking for are much more massive then I expected. Sorry. Hopefully someone will be able to make the themes your wanting though.

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

Hi Weboh.
I think for me, you are asking for the nearly impossible.
I'm a newbee at skinning, and find it hard enough
figuring out how to make simple skins.

I pass. Sorry.

looking at the Nintendo menu pictures,
I can see that there are all kinds of textures and pictures in the menus.
I don't think CSM can do that kind of stuff.
From what I learned so far, can only have pictures, or texture in the corners.
Everywhere else will be stretched, or shrunk.

Looks like Windowblinds uses a different way, of jigsaw puzzleing the parts together,
and then repastes to build up height and width.
This avoids stretching.
Probably Vector graphics too, but really don't know.



Wow. You triggered my memory from XP days, way back.
I used to have Windowblinds. There was some kind of animated dragon on top of the menu.

Just went to their site.
They have encredible skins.


Can't you just use an updated version of Windowblinds,
and try their skin studio, to fix the bugs/os changes?

But but, you're the only person that posts skins here! (Besides GauravK, but he's only posted one skin)
GauravK, does this look like a fun challenge?



I did. Buuut.....
1. I don't know how to use SkinStudio well enough to change it.
2. No-one at WinCustomize forums wants to do it either.
3. I don't want to pay for WindowsBlinds.
4. Even if I did get it working, I'd still want a Classic Shell skin for it.

So there you have it.

I'd like a whole custom Windows 7 Theme with a CSM skin for it, but that's looking less and less likely. If I could only get a CSM Skin, I could at least use it with the Classic Theme to get the colors right.

Hello Weboh

Here is my story for you.

Bad Omen.
Strike 1.
Having bad luck even activating their new trial version, that apparently has SkinStudio in it. Tried two times. Gave up.

Strike 2.
Searched my room, and found old dusty version Windowblinds ver5. Installed on XP. Tried your files. There is some corruption, maybe are for v6 or above. Dang it. There is no SkinStudio on my $24.99 disc, to try.
Website just takes me to upgrade, only $9.99. Cheaper now. But not again.

Ball 1.
I see a skinner, Vampothika, has a SkinStudio tutorial slide show, over there at Stardock.
The program looks as sweet as honey. Very visual, and easy to understand.

Strike 3.
Saw your posts over there. They don't want to help for legal reasons. The names and characters are prized by Nintendo.
I'm no lawyer, but see their point. If I recall, even Ivo had to change the start button, as MS complained about it.
So big companies can ask for take down, or worse action. Unless Ivo puts more options to include more floating pictures,
like the user image, I don't even want to try, even if files sent personally. The menus would look very incomplete.
Making anything round is prone to big time jaggies, especially outside of corner areas.

For those reasons and more,
I'm out. Sorry. Not the end of the world.

You can still play. Even if people on forum over there, don't want to help, they still said you can to do it on your own,
and not upload it. With help from tutorial, I can tell, you are smart enough to geter done.

I don't get what you are saying about getting the colors right? Is it the xp classic menu, Nintendo themes, or something else?
If it's Nintendo themes, I can change the color tint of say the sunshine yellow menu to any color, in Windowblinds old version.
If it's xp classic, meet you over there, on that topic.
If it's something else, I donno.


ps I believe there are lots of skinners with CSM. They make for themselves or companies, but don't share.
Got a feeling though, in some cases, when one closes account, all gets deleted.

The corruption is actually because of service pack 2. They're actually compatible with Windows 98!

No, that's not it it. There are Nintendo themes on WinCustomize; their reasoning was the skins themselves were copyrighted. The original creator said that he couldn't tell me either way if I could use it, as did Nintendo. Nobody with authority told me no. I highly doubt Nintendo would go after this--especially since they were originally offered for free and would still be offered for free buuuut.......

Smart enough yes, but not enough time. And even if I did get that right, I still wouldn't want to use Windows 7's Start menu and would need a CSM skin--and if you can't figure out how to make it work, there's no way I can.

Just making the taskbar blend in and look right.

Ivo, how about adding support for floating pictures in the next update?

Weboh, Weboh, Weboh.
I did look into those defunct Pixtudio skins.
It is the same problem.
They were made for XP.
Power button's locations,
multiple fonts in same column,
different icon size in columns,
text shadows, etc.

Then, those skins are made for Windowblinds.
They are a complete theme package of menu,
and all the changes to XP operating system.
One or more of the menus have animations in them.
They only work from the windowblinds program.

I read somewhere that Win7 professional, can have XP system work inside Win7.
Did you try using old trial version of Windowblinds in that setup?

As I really like the bright yellow Mario Sunshine,
I tried to port only the menu over to CSM, for private use.
Got very complicated, and dissapointing.
Got to about 90% complete, then gave up.

It is near impossible. All one can do is stretch the bitmap pictures.
The submenu can't have the smiley suns, all the way down

As far as I know, Classic Shell Menu does not
have the capability to tile a bitmap,
to jigsaw puzzle an unstretched picture texture.
The Metroid menu would never be able to look as good, without tiling.

Give me 19 1/2 years, and I will figure it out!
Am only showing picture of what I made, not uploading. Don't want to be up dirty river.

As long as you are willing for large tradeoffs, and time for learning,
even you could can make a personal copied skin.

Bye Bye

Hey, thanks! It looks fantastic! The second "impossible" project you've done for me! Thanks!

Let me just show my gratitude for how much effort you placed into this project.
Doesn't necessarily mean that you released/going to release it; it amazes me what people can do to please other people.
Thanks again, in some sort of way.

_________________
~TickTockClock

Hi TheClock.

If you are really interested,
here are a few of them.
Just be aware, they were XP menus,
so there is no way to make them look the same.
Always a compromize. May not look good if menu text names are very long, or short.
If you want to have the power button isolated at the bottom,
go into "Customize Start Menu", drag 2 to 4 of the "custom" item commands,
and drop above the shutdown item. This will clear some space in between.

I hope I'm not offending the original Pixtudio artists.
They made some great skins back in yesteryear.

I tend to like the Game Boy one the best.

Bye.

METROID PRIME. (Classic 1 and 2 style) use with CSM v4.2.6

This was ported from a 2002 Nintendo Window Blinds theme. Thanks Stardock.
To make texture not distort, as the menu changes size, even HIDPI,
I added a black noise tile pattern for bottom, and right border.
I used a diamond tread tile pattern for the second column.
The way I got the gradient on them, was make the edge gradient on the red and green mask,
fade to black. Which makes it more transparent.
I made the background on the main menu image black with a grey edge line.
So when the mask gradient fades away to black, the look gets darker.
The grey line will show some of the masked pattern too.
Don't know if this is the correct way to do it. It works though.

I put another flat grey tile pattern option if tread pattern isn't your thing.
It will still follow the edge gradient of the mask.
For creature comfort emblem, it can be turned off as well.

You know, I was just about to ask you here if it was possible to make the other few skins with Classic Shell getting better support for more theming options that weren't possible before, and lo and behold, here one of them is! Only missing the Star Fox theme now. You're the best, juniper7! Do you have a PayPal account so I can thank you properly for all the hard work you've put in for me?

Looking at screenshot http://www.smasher9a.com/downloads/Nint ... tarFox.jpg

It would be impossible to duplicate.
It's like all the selector buttons are showing, like a web page. In CSM, the buttons only show on hover.

I'm wasting my weekend, regurgitating one of my abandoned skins, to have the Windows 10 black app mode look.

Maybe in a few of weeks I could look at a reduced look Starfox. No promises.
Other people could try to make it.

You've said all the ones so far would be impossible to duplicate exactly, but you've done such a good job on them I can't really tell the small differences between them. I'm sure whatever you come up with will be fine. And I was serious about wanting to compensate you for all this.

Also, I don't see an "extend bottom padding" option for the Metroid skin. How could I add the option?

You might be able to duplicate it using a pattern... (atleast with specific font/dpi/icon sizes) also you need to limit column width to a specific value

About Metroid. I took easy way out.

All of column 2 uses same text color, so black on blackish background, hard to read.
With 7 style, shutdown button text can be whatever color one wants.

The black box at bottom could be red/orange metal built into skin to stretch, then black text could work.
Would need xml customize file to put extra blank item so above text is off the frame.

I'm torn between my electronic hobbies and skin making. I'm getting way behind.

Couldn't you do something similar to what you did for the "LunaBB" style you did, and have the text be a part of the skin? Just position it right so that a shutdown button without a text label can be shown there, and when it's selected, it should in theory select the blank label too, appearing normal. I guess there's a way to add that as an option, because user pictures can be added as one--but I know nothing about skinning Classic Shell...

Well, do what you want to do first. The rest of us have plenty of the wonderful themes you've made to switch between to hold us over for when you release your next one!

Hey Weboh.

I installed that Starfox theme menu on my XP system.
The menu looks not that good.
Only one selector shows at a time, not like screenshot on internet.
The scanning lines make it hard to read the text.

I'm going to try and make a CSM start menu, in the next week or so.
I'm going to reduce the scanning lines by half, have white text instead of black.
The blazing sun might make text unreadable. I'll have to tone it down a smidgen.
The submenu will have to be plain, because tile texture can't be applied to submenus.

Don't expect too much. To me, this StarFox menu does not look as good as the other ones.
I'll put an option for user custom image, to swap out to a different space image.

Doesn't Classic Shell already have an option for that? .-.

_________________
TILES WOOOOOO

Yes, but not in this skin yet, cause I didn't make it yet.

Right now, I'm geting all the bits, and pieces in the theme file to assemble back into a menu bitmap.
This is going to be tough, due to it's a picture with scanning lines.
Any resizing will create moiré distortion fields.

I'll look to see if I can put the foxhead icons at bottom, with dead emblem text beside them.

Resurrection of Stardock's StarFox skin is finished. Classic 1/2, and Win7 styles. Have to use CSM v4.3.0

Various problems with this skin.
The scanning lines create havoc with text, so "text shadows" option can help.
To get sharper text, change "Font Smoothing to "Standard".
It is not original background picture. It had to be modified to work with CSM stretching menu.
Due to patterns are not available on submenus, there is a choice of plain background, or sudo tile pattern.
Sudo will compress, and look weird at times.

Menu skin can work on 96 DPI, or 144 HDPI. Not for 120 HDPI, as elements go out of alignment.



I put an option on classic style two column, to use extended bottom padding.
You need to load the xml file along with setting up the two icons.
Put the folder "StarFox Bottom padding xml" in drive C. Don't hide in another folder.
Put skins in Classic Shell skin folder.
Load the xml file, and it should switch to StarFox classic skin, with the icons at bottom.
If you want to use a different skin, load the other xml file to get back to normal(without customization}.

Menu skin only comes with one background picture.
There is an option to use another background picture.
The screenshot shows a couple other examples.

There are many wallpaper sites with pictures to use.

http://wallpaperswide.com/

You will have to crop them,
as most of what we see on the menu is top left of a bigger picture.



Why are there incredibly tiny selection buttons for extended bottom padding setup?
When xml option switches to icon button(without text), and if no icons are selected, guess what?
The selector reduces to just a few pixels high.
For some odd reason there is some interaction between 1st and 2nd columns that make selector bigger on 2nd.
So I took advantage of it, and put fake icons behind the semi transparent selectors.


Also, in past skins I used a custom blank item to push the above text out of the way.
It does not work when no icons are selected, and since Stardock made original separator as invisible padding,
I use a bunch of those to make buffer space above.
That's why no visible separators in second column, when extended.
I had to make the separators brighter to offset the scanning lines interference. I don't use them, as they get in the way.



Last thing.
StarFox's Mama said, "Never look at the sun. You will go blind".

Excellent! You really know how to work around Classic Shell's limitations! Looks just as good as the original!