Please help! Troubles with modifying a WB theme in SkinStudio...

from Stardock Forums
Hi all!

I hope a kind deskmodder can find the time to help me out with some problems I'm having with modifying a WB theme in SkinStudio. I've read/watched a few tutorials on the subject, but I'm still stuck on 3 problems I can't see my way out of...

1. Some font settings in submenus are blurred in a rather ugly way, even though I haven't defined them this way...

2. Despite trying to change bar margins in all manner of ways, the windows title is cut down to only one or two letters for small(er) message boxes...

3. The resulting gradients of the top window bar doesn't match what the SkinStudio settings are...

Here's a link to a png that describes my woes in more detail...


http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/5814/problem1rq7.png

Since I made the image, I've upgraded to SkinStudio 6.0 Pro, so I'd appreciate it lot if someone could give me some help on fixing the problems with this edition... (or anything, really - I'm getting pretty desperate...!)

For me, the most important problem is the first one: I understand that it has something to do with a conflict between the WB-themed menus and the "classic windows"-themed submenus, but I'd really be thankful if someone could give a detailed description on exactly how to fix this...

Some info:  For the WB-themed menus, the font is Lucida Grande, size -11, normal weight. The text colours are: {disabled: 87-87-87}, {normal: 0-0-0} and {mouseover/focus: 255-255-255}. The gradiented highlight-tga (or bmp - can't remember...) is shown in the above pic. Hope this is enough to go on...

Btw: I'm (trying to) mod Blitzr's "Mac OS X Leopard 2.11" theme, I'm on XP Pro & WB 6.0 and (now) usingSkinStudio 6.0...

Cheers, Poul Nyrup
skinstudio
1,899 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
As for Problem 1 -

Some applications pull the submenu font from the system font settings. You would need to set the system fonts in the skin itself to match - it isn't easy as the font size of a skinned menu font and the corresponding system font don't directly correspond (why, I don't know, but they can use the same font & point size & still look different). In SkinStudio5, the settings reside in 'Miscellaneous/Fonts for classic widgets' - you have to define one or more fonts as subsections, then 'assign' them to the various system fonts in the parent section. You also need to use negative numbers for the font size setting (-10 for 10pt, etc.) - don't know the technical reasons why, but it has to be done that way.

As for Problem 2 -

Be sure you are setting the Content Margins where you want them in 'Window Borders/Titlebar Text'. The setting for the right content margin needs to be large enough to avoid having the text running into or behind the control buttons when present. If you are centering the text, that right margin setting will often cause the text to be truncated on very small dialog titlebars. Left aligning the titlebar text will help minimize the truncation but won't eliminate it for small windows like that.

As for Problem 3 -

Are you using any gamma setting? There could also be a video driver issue affecting the display. Beyond that, I don't know.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hope it helps get your issues resolved. I know how little things like that can be worse than a pebble in your boot. ;)
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
submenu fonts are weird...its like they have a tiny bit of see thru in the middle that allows the unskinned menu color to show thru.
you will notice better if you change the unskinned menu(classic colors) color to something bizarre.

Unskinned menu and font colors work best if they match the skinned menu colors.