Skin Studio and WBWooD skin - request advice

from Stardock Forums

So I re-discovered this skin recently... It's a rather busy skin, but very lovely to look at...
It also has this odd quirk, that used to be more common in the earlier days of WindowBlinds...
It has a column of buttons in upper-left corner (see attached image), that link to external apps...
Needless to say, since it was released in 2002, alot has changed, and most of those links don't do what they should...
The most obvious, is the hard-coded link to Internet Explorer, which doesn't even exist any more...

I would *love* to modify this skin so that it links to appropriate apps...
I cruised around Skin Studio, looking at this skin, but I don't see where these associates were created...
Could someone (basj ??  [beg, beg]) give me some pointers on how this linkage works, and hopefully how I can update the pointers?

WBWooD skin corner image

Here is the link to the theme:
https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/windowblinds/2585/

 

windowblinds
12,472 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Later note:
So I extracted wbwood.wba into a folder, found the file references in wbwood.uis (ca line 201), and changed that line to my editor:
<code>Command=texted.exe</code>

I then zipped up the folder, gave it a new name, renamed x.zip to x.wba, copied installed into WB, and loaded the theme...

but when I click on that button, it still runs notepad.exe ...
The only place that the name 'notepad' exists now, is in some backup files...
So I'm still missing something...

 

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Now that's a Retro skin. :)  

Skinstudio/Edit Titlebars and WindowFrames/Edit UIS2 frames/Titlebar buttons.

On the [Buttons]tab scroll down to the button you're wanting to change and click on it. Then click on the [Actions]tab type in the name of the program you want to run in the Command field. I haven't really played with these but I changed the Explorer button to Notepad++ and it seemed to work fine, I didn't even have to include the .exe on the end of Notepad++.

 

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Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Thank you so much, @DaveRI !!  I'll try this out tomorrow....

and yeah, this is quite a Retro; a few months ago, I wandered all the way back through the entire history of WB skins, and found many that were really lovely; it seems like it used to be easier to create really imaginative skins, because creations like this aren't seen much in the past 10 years or so... 

The only problem is that at some point, I reached skins that didn't have the taskbar in them, and those are *much* harder to bring up to the modern world...  I usually just use those for my console windows...

 

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Derell, reply 3

The only problem is that at some point, I reached skins that didn't have the taskbar in them, and those are *much* harder to bring up to the modern world...  I usually just use those for my console windows...

 

If you go back far enough you'll find some that had no Taskbar because they were for a different Shell [not explorer].  I did several for Litestep back in the day where you only needed Windowblinds to skin the um... Windows ...;)

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

.

Quoting DaveRI, reply 2

Now that's a Retro skin. :)  

Skinstudio/Edit Titlebars and WindowFrames/Edit UIS2 frames/Titlebar buttons.

On the [Buttons]tab scroll down to the button you're wanting to change and click on it. Then click on the [Actions]tab type in the name of the program you want to run in the Command field. I haven't really played with these but I changed the Explorer button to Notepad++ and it seemed to work fine, I didn't even have to include the .exe on the end of Notepad++.
 


Thank you for this excellent guide!  I'll bookmark this thread for future reference (though I don't know if I have any other skins that use buttons like this)... it worked perfectly...

I had a slight bit of confusion, because the menu on the left side of 'Edit UIS2 frames' was different than yours (probably because you are using a later version of SkinStudio than I am; I'm on Windows 10, using SkinStudio V10.1).  However, 'Titlebar buttons' *was* there on the menu, and everything else worked just as you documented...

I has a purr...

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Derell, reply 5

SkinStyle0.555
What is that?

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting JanOscar, reply 6


Quoting Derell Licht,
reply 5

SkinStyle0.555

What is that?



That's the text from the title bar...
okay, interesting... that value apparently has something to do with the skin, not the program...

It's actually SkinStudio Version 10.1 ...
I just updated the previous post.

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Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Derell, reply 5

I had a slight bit of confusion, because the menu on the left side of 'Edit UIS2 frames' was different than yours

I'd guess you have SkinStudio set for "Section based mode".  If you want the more comprehensive tree view in SKS, use the command line command Tools/Preferences and select [Edit mode] "Tree mode with search":