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Longhorn Skinning A Reality

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the eye-candy-is-fun dept.

AlphaAlien writes "AlphaAlien of HardwareGeeks.com has figured out how to skin all of Microsoft's upcoming Windows release codenamed Longhorn. We can now skin Longhorn in the same manner we can skin Windows XP. Here's a picture of a very early copy of the first ever non-Microsoft skin for Longhorn. The only possible issue at this point is that Microsoft appears to be planning to move away from BMP based skinning altogethor and move to PNG based skins in which case any skins made for Longhorn at this point in time will not work far into the future. Also the patch to allow the skins to be loaded may not work many builds from the present as well. But for now we'll be able to hack away at the skinning engine at our leisure. in co-operation with BetasIRC.net we will be releasing the first few longhorn skins and a guide on how to get started on creating your own Longhorn skins."

23 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Planning for the future? by Lord+Grey · · Score: 4, Funny
    Are you guys anticipating that Longhorn will be that butt-ugly? That you have to plan this far in advance on how to avoid its mind-boggling interface?

    That, more than anything, tells me a lot about how people feel about Microsoft's operating systems. Past, present, and future.

    To paraphrase Douglas Adams: "It is no accident that there is no single word in any language that means, 'As pretty as the Longhorn OS.'"

    --
    // Beyond Here Lie Dragons
    1. Re:Planning for the future? by VertigoAce · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think it's really planning for the future. It sounds like a few people who have beta copies of Longhorn are interested in skinning them. These are the same kinds of people that would skin KDE or Gnome as soon as they got it as well (the fact that they have Windows set up to use Firefox as the default web browser is an indicator that they like to customize their system).

    2. Re:Planning for the future? by Denyer · · Score: 4, Funny
      "It is no accident that there is no single word in any language that means, 'As pretty as the Longhorn OS.'"

      Oh, there is. It's just very difficult to pronounce unless you happen to be in the act of vomiting at the time...

      --
      Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
    3. Re:Planning for the future? by SubtleNuance · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The first thing that they teach students in a graphic arts class is to never use primary colors together.

      I hope they dont teach this in ART class. Who says you need to bind creativity? I dont need my Art spoon fed to me, let them design as they see fit... I dont need some group-think confining my options, in ANY regard.

      Absolute rules are to be broken absolutely.

    4. Re:Planning for the future? by dasmegabyte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And keep in mind that graphic arts is about melding discordant shapes and images in a seamless fashion. User interface design is about demarcating where one conceptual function ends and another begins.

      Which is the whole problem with skins. Skin artist makes this beautiful brushed metal design, and then can't figure out where his scrollbars are.

      Apple done it right. Backgrounds are dull whites or brushed metal, but foregrounds are bright, gaudy mixes of whitish and bluish with big colorful icons. Shit, the three window accessory buttons (minimize, resize and close) are red, yellow and green.

      XP is of course a mess, but not because of the colors. XP is a mess because it replaces the simple icons and buttons with a shitload of text and an obnoxious dog. People don't want to read a short novel and wrestle Bonzi Buddy just to install a printer.

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
  2. Wait.. by superhoe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Skinned Longhorn = Circumsized OS?

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    -el

  3. PNG, great. by al.cx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps PNG support in IE will have been improved then; this is good news for web designers.

    ( http://entropymine.com/jason/testbed/pngtrans/ )

    1. Re:PNG, great. by AKnightCowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Perhaps PNG support in IE will have been improved then; this is good news for web designers.

      IE's transparency support for PNGs is definitely screwed up. I made a transparent PNG and it looks absolutely beautiful in Mozilla, Safari, Opera, Camino, etc. Load it in IE and it's a light gray background... Damn, can't they do anything right? Now I've got to "fix" it since 90% of the people use IE so they'll think it's broke.

  4. Skin the crash screens, too? by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I want to skin my windows crash screens, can I do that too? It'd be great to skin the crash screen to look just like the regular o/s, so I get the impression that everything is fine.

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    stuff |
    1. Re:Skin the crash screens, too? by Mr_Silver · · Score: 5, Informative
      I want to skin my windows crash screens, can I do that too? It'd be great to skin the crash screen to look just like the regular o/s, so I get the impression that everything is fine.

      I'm not sure if you're trolling or trying to be funny, but never mind.

      However, you can actually change the colour of the BSOD to make it more PSOD (pink screen of death) or maybe YSOD (yellow screen of death).

      Details are here although many Slashdotters probably won't like to admit that on W2K/XP they might never actually see the fruits of their labour.

      --
      Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
    2. Re:Skin the crash screens, too? by EulerX07 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Details are here although many Slashdotters probably won't like to admit that on W2K/XP they might never actually see the fruits of their labour.

      I've got a bad dimm on ram on my desk that I guarantee will give you a blue screen. I will sell to anyone that needs to test their BSOD mods, for a slight fee.

  5. The real issue.... by Kid+Brother+of+St.+A · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...for me isn't how pretty I can get an OS to look, but how well it works. If I can put all kinds of skins on Longhorn, but it runs as slow as molasses and crashes at the drop of a hat, then MS will have wasted their time developing this thing. On the other hand if Longhorn turns out to be a nice, stable, functional OS that happens to be skinnable then Linux will have some real competition (which is good for both OS's).

  6. Priorities by TheVidiot · · Score: 5, Insightful


    get started on creating your own Longhorn skins.
    How about I get the OS first?

  7. Re:Open Formats by AllUsernamesAreGone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'll rejoice at them using open standards on the day they fix IE so that you don't need to use an arcane DXImage loader incantation when you put a png with an alpha channel on a site....

  8. what the... by Underholdning · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't get it. This is news about a feature in an OS that's not available yet, and when it's available, that feature will have changed? Excuse me, but what the heck is this about? (I'm not trying to sound like a troll - I'm really confused)

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    Underholdning.info
    1. Re:what the... by dave420 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Windows XP uses a .DLL file (.so) for handling "visual styles" (skins). These skins are signed by microsoft, so you can only use their skins (to stop people from making virii or something, or to line their pockets). Since XP came out, people have been hacking this .dll file (uxtheme.dll) to allow custom, non-microsoft visual styles to be used. This is quite a coup as they've removed the need for signing before the OS is even released. It's not about the technology present in skinning, but the fact that they've circumvented MS's encryption/signing thingy 2 years prior to release.

    2. Re:what the... by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not about the technology present in skinning, but the fact that they've circumvented MS's encryption/signing thingy 2 years prior to release.

      The current Longhorn releases feature the same UI system as XP, using static images for everything.

      The final release will have an Avalon-powered UI. Because it uses DirectX, its a safe bet they will use scalable vector graphics (more flash-like, no BMP/PNG/JPG) for everything possible. The ability to resize windows has already been demonstrated, and keeping the UI clean and un-pixely is probably a big priority for them.

      I would be *very* surprised if the Avalon UI uses the same theming system. All they've done is apply an old crack to old code. Nothing amazing there...

  9. I just don't get skins by dave-tx · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Maybe it's all due to my lack of any sense of aesthetics whatsoever, but I have never, EVER, had the urge to change "skins" on any software I've used.

    Is this feature really going to be popular? Honestly, I'd love to hear what makes customizable skins so desirable.

    --

    >> "What would the robut do? Frame someone!"

  10. Re:that's Longhorn? by Biotech9 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't want Windows to waste my CPU cycles with hardware-accelerated graphics crap. I don't need fading menus and rotating icons.

    The whole point of hardware accelerated GUIs are that they save CPU cycles by offlaoding GUI rendering to the graphics card, hardware designed for rendering graphics.

  11. Can it be? by -kertrats- · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdot posting a positive article about a Windows OS? [regardless of the fact its years away from release, and still in extremely early alpha stages]. Slashdot, this is so unlike you. Where are the backhand comments against M$? Where are the links with Better Operating systems? I'm ashamed of you. Where's your prejudice? Where's your bias?

    --
    The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
  12. Heard of "Personal preferences"? by trezor · · Score: 4, Informative

    <obvious>

    Well, this might come as a shock to you, but I'll cite some examples:

    • Some people will get an iPod, rather than any competitor, simply because it is the smoothest looker.
    • Some people will buy a TV with fancy looking menus rather than a TV with simple, functional menus.
    • Some people care what colour their car, house or room is painted.
    • Some people like a sense of estethics when it comes to the full package, and that looks blend seamlessly.
    • Some might even also prefer WMP7+ before WMP6.4 because (suprise, suprise) they think it "looks better". Never mind the bloat and reduced funtionality when it comes to tweaking.

    Simply because you like your speakers in black, doesn't mean everyone does. I, for once, prefer mahogny.

    And as computers become a common thing, you might expect people to want to alter their looks and maybe even behaviour to suit whatever needs they may have.

    </obvious>

    If you really needed this answer, I think you spend way too much time alone in your room, boy. (Perhaps <obvious> as well...)

    --
    Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
  13. Re:probably not by bigman2003 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Microsoft does make it possible to create new themes. People do create them, in fact there are thousands and thousands of them out there.

    --
    No reason to lie.
  14. Re:Errr by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Informative

    You do know that green isn't a primary color, right?

    RGB is the three additive primary colors (and monitors use additive primary colors since they emit light, not subtractive).

    XP uses by default in G and B in its color scheme.

    Wikipedia article about primary colors

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!