Hello, all; I've been reading this forum for a while, and have been studying the excellent tutorial found here. I'm on p. 5 at the part where the author talks about slicing the start menu for reassembly in SS. My start menu isn't exactly square like the illustrated one is, so I'm not very sure about how to go about slicing it. Is it safe to publish an image here of a work in progress, or is that not recommended for security reasons?peace,
Mally
Edited to correct link
I'm loving it. Are you keeping up with your own blind, Uvah? It should be inspiring you to make a better one.
Who, me? Thank you!
peace,
Right on; that fixed it. You're amazing.
I keep meaning to ask you, Cyndi, about your dragon. Did you draw that in Illustrator, outside of your computer then scanned it in, or some other such thing? He's a great looking dragon.
Dave
I have no idea why your preview image goes black like that. As long as it works, it should be ok. Compare your shot to mine, looks like you have done some other things to that text. The only thing I did to that text was change it's alpha level, so maybe that's why (just guessing here).
The dragon started out as a brush (I have hundreds of them) then I played around with it in PS to get it like it is.
You're doing really well, ya know. You catch on quick. I can't wait to see the start menu once you get it finished!
Right again, though in my installed start menu, it left an unacceptable black streak behind the separation of the two panels. That void area is all part of the left side as is a tiny portion of the right side. I decided to be smart and convert one of several Tahoma font lines that come pre-existing in SKS to my transparent font. It wasn't an entirely bad idea, but there settings I didn't make on the Change Font screen including the Normal Text dropdown had been changed to text with no shadow. Once that was changed to normal text as in your example, no more black where it didn't belong, and all was well with my little world again.
I have several dozen. I like them a whole lot, too, but I don't know how I'd keep them organized if I had that many. Do you use some sort of software utility to help with that?
In my mind perhaps. Been busy with other skins right now but the good part is this thread will still be here when I'm ready. That is if it hasn't crumpled to dust first. lol
you can rename them before you import them to photoshop, i do.
abstract, hair, stars, butterflies, wings, ect,
but i keep the name of the author so i can tell the difference between each brush
xxx
Well, hey there! I feel I need to explain why I veered slightly away from your tutorial, though I still have a tab open for it, and refer to it often. It's the layers thing that my designs needs, and the non-traditional shape of the start menu. In fact, I was reading through it just now, and am at part 28.
I've been doing something like that with renaming my brushes, too, except I haven't been keeping the creator's name, much less a URL with them, so on a project to me like this, they are useless to me. But, I can do it right with future brushes I download.
I'm working on my search box. It seems I can put it in a number of places, so I'm going to put it in that lower left corner of the bottom bar. I'm building a small sculpt in Second Life of a sort of Steampunk monocle. Not being the magnifying glass you usually see in a search box, I want to identify it as such. I've seen text that disappears when you hover your mouse over a form field like this. I don't know if that's only a CSS trick, or if SKS has the ability to do that, also. If anyone knows a way to do that, please pass it along. I've got the 5 images in the works for the different sub-images, or stages of the search button, and am wondering if I can use one or more of those to do what I want.
On that same general subject, I don't want to make a light colored form field. I'd prefer to keep it about the color it's box is. In fact, I don't even care if there is an outline for the actual form field, and would like to avoid using one if possible. I do want to make it obvious that they need to bring their mouse there, and start typing. Tough one. I'll give it some thought over another cup of coffee.
Nice of you for dropping by, Vampothika! Three cheers for that tute, too! That took a lot of work.
i remember some time ago, most of us wb skinners worked out that the magic number for the startmenu logoffpanelbottom height was 50 and the text in the searchbox didnt disappear in vista anyway, not sure about windows 7.
im not sure if thats what you were asking about....
no matter if you veer away from my tut, its not the only advice about skinning sk, you probably get better advice from xiandi,
she's more cluey at sk than me, im more paint than brains hahaha.
xx
for that search field, click on help (after you have clicked on the search field image in skinstudio) and it will show you the states and what they do.
Well, that's not exactly what I was asking, but now's a better time than later for this tip, so thank you! It leaves me a little bit confused, though. My entire bottom bar is 84px in height, and looks like this:
My idea was to put my search text field box in the narrowest range, the 22px height area. I wanted for people to see the word "search" in that area, and thought a 5 states image might be a way to do it. It would be simple enough to put search in the first image and only the first image. When a user hovered over it, the "search" text would disappear. But after I thought about that for a while, I wondered what was to prevent the word "search" from reappearing again after the search term(s) were typed, making the text in that box hard to read (translucency, maybe). I really don't know when the Disabled and Focus & Default states are used; perhaps one or the other of them could help, too.
Here are the image states for the start button as I'm picturing them. Do y'all think this will work to get me where I want to go?
In context, it would look like this:
Thanks to all who have helped, and to those who have patience to continue in the future.
Now I have a question for you....
You said earlier that you only had XP. Does that mean that you are only skinning for XP or are you skinning this for Vista or 7? The main reason I'm asking, is that XP has no search bar on the start panel (unless you have found a way to add one).
In Vista and Windows 7, you cannot cannot control the 'search' text in that box, so adding your own text to the field would not look good at all.
What Vamps is talking about happens in Vista only. What happens is that if your bottom part of the start menu is more than 50 pixels high, the word 'search' will be off center vertically, or not show at all. This is not a problem in Windows 7.
Now if this is for Windows 7, your searchbar image will work, but it will make the text very hard to read, since that text is black when you type there.
Rats. It feels like I've hit a wall with this whole search idea. Between my son and I, we have 3 computers in our house; all are XP, and I've wanted to avoid Vista since it's first beta release. I've read much better things about 7, but unless and until I'm back to work, that's not a possibility. In any case, I don't have a way to test Vista or 7 from home. I have not been doing anything special for them to date. What should I be doing? I'll have to find another way to use my little ocular device. It's much easier to read when it hasn't been reduced so much.
I like your ocular.
Thanks, Uvah! Have you ever played around in Second Life (SL)? It costs nothing to play, the software is free, and it comes with all the tools you need to build something like this, or that odd plumbing thing. Like anything, it does have have sort of a learning curve, but it's not an especially sharp one, and free classes are offered for new and experienced builders alike in world. I have a very large building platform in the sky I'd be glad to share with anyone who'd like to get into SL building as a means to create original 3D objects that you can screen shot for your skins.
Its a game? I don't know if my laptop can handle a game. I have only three gigs of memory. But I'll check it out. You have a link?
Not really a game; there's no winning or loosing, no points gained, nothing like that. Second Life is a virtual reality world. The machine I use to access SL has only 2 gigs mem, our laptops less; all work fine. They have nothing special about their video cards; my PC has the best, an older but still decent nVidea. You can interact with other avatars, dress them up, dress & redress them if you feel like it (mine always looks the same, like the image in the avatar I use here), upgrade your newbie skin (there are also many freebie skins), change your shape to make it individual, go shopping if you feel like it (there are ample freebie places, but more for women than for men who tend not to collect so many clothes), and there's a whole world of virtual sex some (well, a lot of) people are into.Scripts make the things you and/or others have created function. They make wheels turn, steam blow, fires burn, snow fall, cast magic spell effects; they can change how your avatar moves, even how it can interact physically with other avatars. It's building and sculpting capabilities far surpass anything in a paint program; it has very few paint functions of it's own, but it exports images to your HD in PNG format. You can work with a large number of individual parts in the same sculpt; Blender can't do that, and Blender has that rather unfriendly GUI. You can use various textures on the same sculpt, and/or the same textures on several similar pieces to fool the eye into into thinking they were sculpted from one. Base units for building are prims. Prims are limited to about a dozen or so 3D shapes like cube, torus, sphere, etc. You can use either slider-like on-screen devices or mathematics or both as you please to change the appearance of prims. That comes with the experience of use, and watching other folk work.I bring it up in this thread a couple of times as a free new tool to learn to use to make 3D bits for creating your skin. I also want to avoid any questions about the originality of my work.
Pshew, that is a relief!
Morning Mally....I checked out Secondlife. I didn't join yet or really look into the site. But I did add the url to my speed dial. This way when I get some time to play I can go there and see what's up. Interesting intro.
I've been working on making my first multi-stage image work. I have some issues with it, though. Here is the image including all 3 stages of the all programs arrow:
This image shows an item from the programs list highlighted. It has a bright yellow spot on the arrow that the arrow image doesn't contain:
This image shows all programs highlighted. It should have the mouseover effect, but appears to have the pressed state in use. When I do press the button, it doesn't change.
1. What can I do about that bright yellow spot?
2. Why am I only seeing 2 states of the 3 in actual use?
3. How can I control the extreme length of the all programs highlight?
4. Is there a way to move the arrow a few pixels to the left?
5. I tried to use Cyndi's invisible text trick, and include the text in the arrow images, to no avail. The invisible text stayed visible.
Thanks for reading,
all progs arrow only has two working states, normal and mouse over, pressed has never worked.
you can use the all programs background (not the arrow) text tab and move it horizontally and squeeze the size down so that brown highlight dosent
cover your graphics , but when you do that, you will probably lose the default font that says 'all programs'
you can also do a 3 state arrow where you take a slice of the background where the arrow sits on. and use that for each state.
you also have to change the all programs background text to a minus number, normally its around between -90 to -95 , but every skin is different.
you will know its right when you mouse over it and it dosent move.
hope this helps.
1. It's very hard to see the spot you are talking about in the screenshot, which makes it hard to advise you as to what is happening. Can you zoom in on the image and screenshot that?
2. What you need to do though is reverse the last 2 states you have in the image. Then the mouseover state will actually show on mouseover. The help section in SKS is wrong on this image. The states are normal, pressed, mouseover, in that order.
3. The size of the mousover you see there is controlled by the text margins on the All Programs Background image. Think of text margins as 'content' margins. Doing this may move your arrow into a better position too.
4. Not really. I recommend a smaller arrow though, it will look a bit better in my opinion (and may fit better), but it's really up to you.
5. The invisible text does not work on this part. Just set the text on the All Programs Background to whatever font you want, but you will not be able to add your own text to it. Besides, not everyone who uses your blind is going to want that text in English.
Note: Doing the arrow trick like Vamps is stating is possible, but it's very tricky to get it to work, and it does not work with all languages, because the text will vary in length depending on the language used.
i would also change your seperators in programs list and places list, they're just making your startmenu push up way too high, because of their height.
but its ONLY a suggestion, its your skin, and your design.... xx
Thanks, Vampothika; that was bothering me.
In part 44 of your tutorial when talking about log off buttons, you said, "for now, it's best to design the buttons around the same height and width." Does that mean it's possible to use other sized buttons, and to move them slightly from their current places, or no? If so, by using my images above, can you give me a clue how to do it? I'm also having trouble with moving from part 44 to 45.
Just saw your remark about the separators. They've been torturing my mind's eye, too. That's the kind of constructive criticism I want and need to hear. Thanks!
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