Comments about the Windows customization poll

By the amount of new members that have come on board lately......I would say customization is very popular

I'm with paxx.....there are several skinners churning out 'the same old thang' over and over again.....some of them do them well...but even good boring skins are still boring.

People need to be creative....unique....stupidly original, even.

The slogan for skinning shouldn't be 'have fun'...

but

Be Different

Be Different

Hmm, sounds mac-ish.

Be Different

Amen to that.

I totally agree with Paxx. There has to be variation as much as originality, and as Jafo said, good boring skins will remain boring.
I guess the fact that many people are getting into skinning and are experimenting for the first time inspired by the style of other artist is the reason why we see so many 'repeats' of designs. Hopefully as they learn to skin they'll developed their own unique style
...(hopefully)

Don't forget that most computer users don't even know how to change their friggen resolution, let alone start applying different skins!

Are you talking about me?, You talking about me?

I agree with what has been said above, for the most part. And I think A67 made a good point when he talked about new skinners. I know I myself have been working for months to develop something I felt would be good enough for my first submission. I definitely want to do some new and different things. The suite I'm working on now will definitely qualify in that regard... whether it will be accepted remains to be seen.

But before I could get to the point where I felt I could really try new things, I had to learn the basics. And the way I've had to learn is by trial and error, tearing apart the work of others and seeing if I could build it again. Consequently, a lot of my 'practice' skins look a great deal like someone else's. Between my regular work, and family, that has taken a while.

So it's only now, after several months, that I'm beginning to feel really confident enough with the mechanics of Skin Studio, Icon Developer, and the various apps to be skinned that I'm finally producing some things I feel are close to being worthy of submission. It isn't that my 'practice runs' aren't of decent quality, in my opinion, I just don't want to submit something that people look at and think... "Hmmm... looks a lot like So-and-so's work."

I've seen several new skinners take a different path than I have chosen, and as A67 mentioned, their first submissions seem inspired by one artist or another. There is nothing wrong with that approach... I just want my submissions to be my style from the beginning.

eh, back to the drawing board with me

Shameless Designs - I'm with you there, though what I keep finding is that I'll try something and think it looks cool, and then realise I have seen something similar before but I'd forgotten it....I think my "furry skin" I asked for comments on in the Skinning board (that I've put on hold for now while I get better technically) is the nearest to being "original" that I've come, even though others have done furry before...

Just remember, that whatever you make, you are unique - just like everyone else (quote source not known)...

One can only be different in area's concerning technical and excellent graphical work, If their skill and knowledge allows them to be. The cycle of old and boring skins will continue as new people learn to skin and start off with simple ideas and so on.

Be Different

Coincedentally, thats the motto for my new minimalistic skinsuite...'Mime'

Although, perhaps not quite the same meaning...

/me winks at cerebro and IPlural...

...Beauty (or 'different-ness') is in the eye of the beholder...
[Message Edited]

/me winks back

Maybe you should show them your promo vid?

...made a new one...Much better than the old, but it has yet to be 'approved' for 'mass viewing'....

well, as far as being original goes, I have found that originality is a limitation of the application so far

But it is the best thing going, I just need to figure out how to force it to do what I want...

Your also speaking of demand and supply...

People like Mac looking skins, they like Blue and they like want they want right now.
So, one has to decide if they are going to be the popular skinner feeding the same old sludge to the masses just because they are used to it and at the point of not having any taste buds anymore or any vision.

Or do you beat your own path through the jungles and deserts of skinning and maybe still be somewhere in between the two on the fringe of both...

Personally, its my cloud and if I like green knickers with pink and yellow pokie dots with the HokyPoky blasting out at 10+ frazzling 500 watt spearks to shreds, well you get the idea...

Don't forget that most computer users don't even know how to change their friggen resolution

And what resolution should the friggen be set to??

Unless a program like WB reaches the necessity point, it is unlikely it will be too popular. People aren't taught enough that they can change things up.
Lots of people don't know how to change the resolution, but also willing to bet they also don't even realize they can change the basic Luna theme to two other themes. The average PC user simply wants things to work. They don't care about looks or even organization.
I gag everytime I see someone else's screen and its full of icons on the desktop. To me that is a mess and not very useful. They just haven't been taught how to properly use their pc. Start menus also get very clogged with useless stuff, but again no one taught them now to use it.
I think some might love their pc more if they knew they could customize it. The message isn't getting out there.

agreeing with ghos to an extent. younger users who just play games seem to have the crowded, flashy desktops.. the developers need streamlined desktops with quick access to commands and navigation. but even by catching admin comments on 'what the community wants' (wink, karmagirl ), artwork has been created that isn't anything really different then what has already been done. there is still a need for the variety and some skinners are realizing this. for that i say customization is still on its way up. a lot more can yet be done. when everyone can log in and find exactly what the want, it will flatten out.

Ghos, I'm told "an untidy desk means an untidy mind".?

It 'shouldn't' be about supply and demand.....not unless your motivation is to simply be listed in a 'top skinners' table.

The parameters of the design 'brief' should NOT be 'lowest common denominator to give largest possible DL count', but 'I'll make it like this because I want one like it and there aren't any already that suit'.

Being an Architect for 30 years means I understand the difference between 'off the shelf' and 'tailor-made'.

The former is for lemmings...the latter is for actual individuals with the power of personal taste.

Skinners need to get off the freeways and into the backroads of creative thinking.

It is not impossible to still be ground-breaking with originality just because there are already a lot of skins out there....not for anyone with a brain and creativity.

Particularly with Windowblinds....stop rehashing the predictable Luna interface....leave that for the sad sacks who think StyleXP is actually any good....THEY don't have much option.....but YOU....you CAN think outside the square.

It is my opinion that the days are long gone where skinners were trying to be original, come up with new imaginative ways to have things look and feel.

It is possible that you have seen too many skins Paxx, you have become desensitized, and now you need a pick me up. A skinning version of Viagra that could serve a dual purpose of making desktop customization seem new again, while simultaneously bringing back the thrill of your first time would be just what the doctor order.

AR.....no...I think it's more about the true innovation and whacky diversity of the early skins....by early I mean pre-XP.

We have XP to thank for for skin popularity...but also to rue for mediocrity as everyone recolours the same old crap...

I think the challenge in being different is, most everthing that can be done has been done.
When I think specifically of Litestep which customized your entire desktop, even there there seems to be a lack of "uniqueness".
I don't have any quick answers unfortunatly.

Phil....same issue applies with LS....perhaps more accessibility via OTS leads to more 'ho-hum' mediocrity.

While things were truly 'geek-run' and people were ALL new to the concept...the boundaries were still yet to be tested.

An example would be an early theme of mine....5 or 6 years old....had 2 wharfs.....back before it was supported.  I simply ran two instances of the shell....a primary and a second to load wharf 2.

These days people just want LS with icons on the desktop....they may as well be running Exploder.....why bother?...

I think there is a natural limit on how different designs can be though....and that's because people need to learn any interface in order to use it effectively.

Since the Windows interface is the defacto standard (on PCs), then to keep any design easy to pick up and use quickly, it has to mirror the standard layout, functionality and graphical metaphors at least to an extent.

For instance, with WB it is possible to shift most design elements to the bottom, or side of a window, but few (if any?) designs do this because people will be fighting the interface all the time. There was a HandOfxyz fashion for a while with Kalidescope skins on the Mac back in '97 time which had the controls shifted to the side, which had a certain novelty value, but I wouldn't choose to use an interface like that on a daily basis now.

Any GUI design walks a path between style and functionality. As an example of how that can be done well though, we've become so used to the pseudo-3d visual metaphor that it's hard to imagine something else...one reason why I think Boxxi's isometric view skin in the GUIO submisions is so impressive as (forgive the pun....) it's thinking outside the box

An example would be an early theme of mine....5 or 6 years old....had 2 wharfs.....back before it was supported. I simply ran two instances of the shell....a primary and a second to load wharf 2.

you should have edited wharf.dll with a hex editor and replace every "wharf" with "vharf". then you would have had a second, independent module. of course all the settings in modules.ini and step.rc also should have used "vharf" for the second module.
i did that with chronos.dll a while ago, before label.dll supported timezones. done with three clicks and pretty comfortable when one is not familiar with compiling from the source (as i was at that time).