ASCII skins?

I don't get it.... 8 bit bitmap images?

Sput: I just did it because I could never remember the order of the icons on the right side, but thought the program icons were distinctive enough not to need the text. I thought I remembered seeing something somewhere about showing the Undock icon, but I dont remember where.


JtB: Using text and stuff in images to represent window borders. Y'know, like they had back in the green and orange screen days?

ASCII windows, sort of like this (this will look wrong because it's not a fixed space font):

/====================\
¦.Window Title Bar..............¦
=====================
¦ Window body here..........¦
¦................................................¦
L__________________/


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BTW - not that anyone would be interested, but one of my first ever jobs (after working in a soap factory) was writing a tutorial program to go with some software for a company - and a key bit of that was writing routines to draw windows using ASCII characters, including different borders and colours, and animated popping up and vanishing in various ways

When I first saw a compact menu....I said to myself...."Self, why, if there are compact menu's hasn't anyone made one with no user icon or user title?" So I did for the skin I entered in the GUIOlympics. I don't know if that has been done before or not, and I labeled it an ultra-compact menu

https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=1&SkinID=3614

I uploaded a skin a while ago that had no user icon or user title. https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=1&SkinID=4036. It was rejected from the GUIO. I hope you have better sucess.

Yep Tiggz....You got NightTrain and I beat on that one I've had your skin downloaded on my computer for a while...didn't think nothing of the compact menu. That's the problem with the WB Configuration Preview....it only shows the window frame, not the startmenu.

/me applies Tiggz' skin to see how he did it on his

Tiggz....Really nice skin....easy to see why it's rated so high

-500 content margin Tiggz pushes the user icon and text off into the next county

I just figured out how to get rid of the Log Off and Shut Down buttons. Problem is, now I cant Log Off or Shut Down. I'm trying to make the text size 1 and the same colour as the area behind it, but its not workin for me.
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I cant Log Off or Shut Down.

It looks really cool though!

I know you can define a font for the BottomBar, but it doesn't seem to affect the LogOff/ShutDown text....which is weird, because there is no other text on the BottomBar to change. If you can figure out how to change the font....change it to one with no characters in it and then you don't have to worry about making the text the same color.

I can change the font colour, but not the size or actual font. So now I just have a big gap in between the buttons that says "Log Off" when I mouse over it. I can get rid of the "Shut Down" text with content margin tweaking, but I cant do it with the Log Off one. Seems to be an interesting problem.

I hope you figure it out I'm off to work on my 4-bit WBSkin

Good luck!

-500 content margin Tiggz pushes the user icon and text off into the next county

I had to move my tv away from the pc monitor cos the user icon kept appearing on the screen

I don't claim credit for doing it first by any means, I am sure some cunning devil did it before me

the user icon kept appearing on the screen

I cant Log Off or Shut Down

https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?searchtext=advance4%2F3&sort=updatedate&order=Descending&library=1

To me, the ultimate compact start menu. Compact with all info available. Genius ...... sheer genius I tell you.

Ooh, now thats some sneaky margin tweaking for the Log Off and Shut Down buttons, along with the All Programs button!

HAHAHAHAHAAAH.....HAH!

I did it. I took SZ71's compact menu and tweaked the margins and a couple of graphics to get both menu's with no text.......and the All Programs with no text. Works both with small and large icons on the left menu, but Large Icons looks better.

Do You think the admins will allow me to post a pic of the menu here (since it isn't mine) or do I got to wait until I build my own skin to show it off?

Arg! Essencay, you beat me to it. I was just workin on that!

Seems we're always one step ahead of each other. I think you could probably post a pic.

Okay....I take absolutely no credit for this....



I was totally inspired by SZ71's compact menu....I hope he sees this and incorporates it into his WBSkin.
Right now I have it set up to work with large icons on the left (you could make a sub-style with different margin settings to get it to look right with small icons on the left. I showed it with small icons....doesn't look quite right without tweaking it.

Here's how cool it looks with a full menu...

Well, we now have conclusive evidence of the MOST compact start menu! Thats friggin' cool Essencay...