Winstep Extreme

Winstep is easier to skin than WindowBlinds, way easier.  It appears that not many want to do it. It's mostly done with .ini files at the moment.

Also, side note Winstep is currently 50% off at BitsDuJour.

http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/winstep-xtreme/src=day?bdj-unid=890b1a69-9431-48e7-aaa5-86a9f0c02f0a&utm_source=DailyBits&utm_medium=email&utm_content=winstep-xtreme+Link&utm_campaign=2018-08-24+PC+B 

That would be my fault.

Winstep Xtreme is not hard to skin at all (especially not when compared to the hundreds of objects you need to skin in WB) and it used to have a built-in GUI for making themes.

Some years ago there was a total UI make-over and I decided to remove the skinning settings - very few people make skins, so those options were mostly clutter to the vast majority of users. The idea was to make a stand-alone theme builder some time later.

In the mean time existing skinners could use the old v9.5 version to make new themes or even edit the configuration files directly. Because of this, the motivation for me to actually do the theme builder was not very strong.

I did come up with an early alpha of the Winstep Theme Builder that could already make native Nexus docks skins (i.e.; it could only be used to skin the dock) and I asked for feedback. Unfortunately existing Winstep skinners at the time did not seem very excited with it and I ended up not bothering to develop it further.

Another reason: one of the very first Winstep applications was NextSTART (today a component of Winstep Xtreme, but back then it was sold stand alone) and 20 years ago there were a TON of skinners making themes for it at Skinz.org. In fact, a lot of well known skinners started their skinning careers making themes for NextSTART (for instance, Treetog).

What happened shortly after was that Stardock and WB became extremely popular and Stardock started developing applications that competed directly with Winstep applications (ObjectBar vs NextSTART, for instance). This completely fragmented the market and helped preventing Winstep from reaching the critical mass required to enable it to start hiring professionals to make skins for Winstep applications, create its own themes site, etc... Not blaming Stardock, that's just how it is.

Me taking years to finally come up with a dock (Nexus), although one was planned from the very beginning, didn't help much either, so...

And here we are now. Only a handful of skinners are left as far as I know, and most are still making skins exclusively for WB - and the Winstep Theme Builder is STILL not finished (working on it - vs. adding new features to Xtreme and Nexus - is extremely boring to me).

This said, the upcoming v18.8 release required such a mind blowing amount of work and took so much out of me that I will probably go back to the Theme Builder now, just to rest my head for a while.

That would be great to have a theme builder. I know my way around ini files but I would not know where to begin at making a complete Winstep skin. 
If you can finish that theme builder I will certainly give it a shot. 

You can try it now (there's a link to it on my post) and you can give me some feedback. I tried making it a mix between a GUI for making themes and a themes tutorial.

I think only WB has a Theme Builder, which is essential for WB given its current complexity. Winstep applications used to be the exception too.

Anyway, most if not all of the other skinnable applications are skinned by editing ini files directly. The problem is always the same, though: a total lack of documentation.

This is where other skinners come in (Mindy and Picco14 for Winstep applications, for instance) they can help you understand what all those settings do (looking at existing skins also helps, of course).  Skinning is thus like a dark art passed by word-of-mouth.

The old WorkShelf User Guide can help a bit too.

Count me in too, I'd love to learn how to do Winstep as well, want to broaden my horizon.   

Quoting don5318, reply 5

Count me in too, I'd love to learn how to do Winstep as well, want to broaden my horizon.   

Well, you should start by downloading and installing Winstep Xtreme then, followed by the very early alpha of the Theme Builder from the link above.

I also recommend downloading the beta of v18.8 by enabling the 'Notify me of beta (test) versions' setting in the Advanced tab of Preferences, followed by a click on the 'Check for Updates' button for immediate results.

Hmmmmm, by the time I get paid (two weeks) the sale will be off, and right now, $39.95 is a little steep for me, I'll have to wait this one out.....   

Quoting don5318, reply 7

Hmmmmm, by the time I get paid (two weeks) the sale will be off, and right now, $39.95 is a little steep for me, I'll have to wait this one out.....   

Send me an email to the Winstep support address identifying who you are, we can work something out.

In the mean time, just download and install Winstep Xtreme anyway, see if you actually like it - it will run as a fully functional 30 day trial.

I'll give it a try then, and I'll email you as to what I think, thanks a lot.   

Quoting don5318, reply 9

I'll give it a try then, and I'll email you as to what I think, thanks a lot.   

Thanks. Feedback, good or bad, is ALWAYS appreciated (as you can see from above regarding the Theme Builder) - that's how things get improved.

Quoting JcRabbit, reply 10

Quoting don5318,

reply 9

I'll give it a try then, and I'll email you as to what I think, thanks a lot.   

Thanks. Feedback, good or bad, is ALWAYS appreciated (as you can see from above regarding the Theme Builder) - that's how things get improved.

I installed the theme builder and will see what I can figure out.

On a different note, I have been trying to figure a way to get the weather working with sysmetrix. It is probably a dead horse that I am continuing to beat however it is such a shame that there have been so many skins created for it that cannot be fully used any longer. That is one of the reasons why I deleted all my sysmetrix skins, they all utilized the weather as a major part of the skin so I figured if the skins could not be used as I attended there was no sense in having them available to download.

There should be a way to use aviation weather in place of the old noaa.gov metar but I have not quite figured it out yet. Nick a and I were communicating a few years back and I was the reason why the last update took place when the weather was not working. When it failed again he would not reply to my update request in-spite of me trying to convince him that sysmetrix was still relevant because it still had a verily large fan base, heck, I even offed to buy the program at the time but Nick was having none of it.
I have yet to be successful at making the weather alive again but I have not tried everything yet either. maybe I should not even be messing with it seeing how it is not my program, however, if I could get it to work for my own use it would be a major accomplishment. 

http://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/observations/metar/stations/%1.TXT

Replace %1 with the location's METAR code (e.g.; LPPT). Inside the text file is the raw METAR conditions string.

I don't think you will be able to change Sysmetrix to use the new location, though. Back then the HTML in the NOAA pages had to be parsed first in order to get at the raw METAR string.

Pity Nick abandoned Sysmetrix, but there you go, another example of what usually happens with freeware: if the application gets too popular, the author is eventually forced to either go commercial (which is a HUGE risk due to piracy, etc) or give up on it because he simply does not have enough spare time to support it. Nick chose the latter.

Thanks Jorge, I gave that a look and tried a couple things but I know I am still doing something wrong. I need to sit down with it when my attention span is greater than a 4th grader. 

Yup!  As soon as Jorge gets off his butt and stops chasing skirts...  ...and provided I'm still breathing...I'll possibly start pumping out themes again. But right now my health makes it hard for me to mess with .ini files for to long.