#Beos theme for windowblinds skin
#Beos theme for windowblinds software
#Beos theme for windowblinds windows

It was thought that visual styles might deal a blow to commercial skinning systems.

#Beos theme for windowblinds windows

WindowBlinds 3 accompanied the release of Windows XP, which contained its own skinning system called 'visual styles'. It also allowed experienced users to avoid trivial errors.

Font and color sections for specific controls and states.ДЄt this time, 'BuilderBlinds'-re-branded as SkinStudio in February 2001-became a popular tool, as it enabled artists to create skins without spending a deal of time learning the intricacies of the UIS format.

Scripting, though this was not widely used.

#Beos theme for windowblinds skin

For example, a Macintosh skin could now have two subskins to offer control buttons at the left or right of the window. Compound skins (later known as 'subskins') which made it easier to provide alternative versions of a skin.The 'Basic' (UIS1+) format, which offered greater program compatibility in exchange for a restricted feature set.WindowBlinds 2 was a major redesign in C++ that added the following features: Scrollbars, the task bar, the start button, menu items, the menu itself, and other GUI elements were added later. WindowBlinds (now re-branded as one word) quickly made its way to a 1.0 release, driven by the requests of users to add 'freeform skinning' (customizable window border shapes), sounds, and animation. For a short time there was also a scaled-back version of the original Window Blinds called 'WBLiteFX', a name which was still present in WindowBlinds registry settings as of May 2006. That name would later be reused for WindowFX, also created by Banfield.

Previous attempts by Stardock had included 'Object Look', a minimal skinning application, and 'WindowFX', an application written in Delphi. Stardock was looking for a developer to create a window skinning application, and Banfield had already created an application that he called 'Window Blinds' in 1997. WindowBlinds started in 1998 when lead developer Neil Banfield teamed up with Stardock. Some UIS2 skins include a UIS1+ subskin if problems occur, this subskin may be substituted as a 'per-app' skin. This format offers maximum flexibility at the cost of slightly reduced performance (as compared to UIS1+), and potentially more chance of incompatibility with applications. They may also feature titlebar background animation, or the use of scripting features. Typically these skins may have wider borders in some places, or none at all. The Advanced skin format is provided for when a skin design cannot fit into the above restrictions. Template:Citations missing Advanced (UIS2) Most msstyles can be converted to a UIS1+ skin. The advantages of UIS1+ are performance (Stardock has claimed that a UIS1+ version of the Windows XP 'Luna' visual style is twice as fast as the original in repaint and resizing) and compatibility. It is also only possible to put buttons on the titlebar, and scripting and titlebar background animation are not supported. This restriction was significantly relaxed when skin metrics-adjustments to using the standard Windows methods-were introduced, allowing changes to (among other things) the standard height of the titlebar. The main limitation is that skin borders may only be 'standard' sizes (four pixels wide for most of the side borders).

WindowBlinds skins come in two formats: 'Basic' (or 'UIS1+') and 'Advanced' (or 'UIS2').Дespite its name, the 'Basic' skin format can be used to create fully featured skins, and it is still used today. As of November 2009 there were 4448 WindowBlinds skins available at WinCustomize, with an average of nine being added per week another popular repository is deviantART.

WindowBlinds has been downloaded over 10 million times WindowBlinds 7.0 at and was voted 'Best Vertical Market Program or Utility' in the 2006 Shareware Industry Awards Foundation People's Choice Awards. Introduced in its sixth version, it supports alpha blending effects similar to the compositing of Windows Vista, but on Windows XP. It is also available separately, and as an ActiveX/COM component called DirectSkin.

#Beos theme for windowblinds software

It has been developed by Stardock since 1998, and is the most popular component of their flagship software suite, Object Desktop. WindowBlinds is a computer program that allows users to skin the Windows graphical user interface.