We're going to take a break from One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part III for just a moment and get into the assembling of the windowblind in SKS. There are a few reasons for this that you may have picked up on if you have been following along.

• We've been making sections of the blind without putting them into SkinStudio as we go along. A majority of skinners will go back and forth between their graphics program (Photoshop, Paint, etc.) and SKS as they go along. That method hasn't worked for me in the past and I wanted to go through the actual design of several areas without the added confusion of SKS.

• There comes a point, once you get past the Start Menu and Window Frames and start getting into the Edit Controls, buttons, etc., that you need to see what they are going to look like and if they will work they way they should. I tried to just keep making the graphics without going into SKS but it's just too much detail and in this particular case, with a lot of the areas we'll be getting into, 'size does matter'.

One of the main reasons that I may have not mentioned for doing the Start Menu and Task Bar areas first is also to assist visually in determining how the overall windowblind will look (per Tim's suggestion). This will actually help a great deal when you get into the buttons, header bars, and other details and you're trying to determine the best colors and other design details.

The way in which I am approaching this is something I came up with some help from 2of3(aka Tim). As I said, not all skinners do it this way and the opinions I offer are just that  (my opinions) and by no means written in stone (or sand, Lucite, chalk, crayola, etc.) It if it helps anyone, let me know.

We'll be going back and forth between this thread and Part III. There will also, more than likely, be another thread where we can go over testing the skin and putting on the finishing touches. In this thread we'll be going over the assembling of the Start Menu.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS as to why something is done this way and not that or anything pertaining to the Start Menu ask them here. We will try to explain as we go along and may miss some things that you consider important or problematic.

If you're looking for Part I, II, III you can find them here:

One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part I

Design : Start Menu and Taskbar

One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part II

Design: Title Bars & Window Frames

One Piece At A Time : Windowblind Tutorial Part II

Design: Edit Controls

PLEASE :

• I am open to suggestions but may not use any of them. Please, don't be offended if I don't use yours.

• Keep the image posting to the skin(s)

• If you want to make a skin to go with this, PM me for the files. My PSD's tend to be a mess, but I save everything and will be happy to     share. I am uploading the actual files to the Graphics Gallery here on Wincustomize.

• We'll be skinning for Windows7, maybe Vista. If someone wants to do XP, PM me and I will get you what you need.

• Any files you request will come as I complete them. I won't be jumping ahead. Please be patient.

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The PSD files for the  previous threads are in the Graphics Gallery.

Roan WB Title Bars and Window Frames  

  Roan WB Taskbar Buttons

ROAN WB Start Panel UPDATED

ROAN WB Start Panel Search Mode