Published on November 9, 2011 By Island Dog In WinCustomize News

Stardock has released SkinStudio 7.3 today.  SkinStudio is an application that lets you create visual styles, also called skins, for Windows 7, Vista, and XP.  These skins are applied using WindowBlinds and can change the entire look and feel of the Windows user interface.  This upgrade brings several enhancements to the default skin and content settings.

Update includes:

  • Updated included template skin for improved Windows 7 support for new skins
  • Updated settings definitions
  • Added white button text setting validation for Office high-contrast compatibility
  • Fixes for paths not rewriting for colors/fonts on Save as operations

SkinStudio is available as a free download, and a Pro version is available with advanced features like Animation Builder, substyle syncing, and more.

Visit www.skinstudio.net for more information.

Windows 7 x64-2011-11-09-14-00-03 skinstudio2

Comments (Page 1)
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on Nov 09, 2011

Wuuuw.... *excited*

on Nov 09, 2011

Thank you for the update. Also thank you for the continued effort you are putting in to improve your programs.

on Nov 09, 2011

puh in time i still can upgrade...

on Nov 09, 2011

Updated settings definitions
No idea what that means, and if it affects the way we skin things in any way.

Added white button text setting validation for Office high-contrast compatibility
Can we get a bit more detail on this? Does this mean we can have black buttons without issues? Is there anything we have to do in SKS to use this or is it something that runs in the background that we don't see?

on Nov 09, 2011

Xiandi

Updated settings definitionsNo idea what that means, and if it affects the way we skin things in any way.



Added white button text setting validation for Office high-contrast compatibilityCan we get a bit more detail on this? Does this mean we can have black buttons without issues? Is there anything we have to do in SKS to use this or is it something that runs in the background that we don't see?

The skin definition fixes just mean some errors were corrected.

The high contrast fix is just a warning telling the user of a problem if they set the OS system colour for button face (not text) to pure white as this triggers office into a compatibility mode.

on Nov 09, 2011

Neil Banfield
The skin definition fixes just mean some errors were corrected.

The high contrast fix is just a warning telling the user of a problem if they set the OS system colour for button face (not text) to pure white as this triggers office into a compatibility mode.
Gotcha, thanks Neil! 

on Nov 09, 2011

so, download the file, double click on the exe and let it do it's thing, does this work?

on Nov 09, 2011

so, download the file, double click on the exe and let it do it's thing, does this work?
Works for me. 

on Nov 09, 2011

Xiandi



Quoting gmc2,
reply 7
so, download the file, double click on the exe and let it do it's thing, does this work?Works for me. 

on Nov 09, 2011

Would be nice to have a feature to port Win7 styles to WB7. I see so many I would like to use with windowblinds. 

on Nov 09, 2011

RoodVargas
Would be nice to have a feature to port Win7 styles to WB7. I see so many I would like to use with windowblinds. 

WB will apply .themepacks if that is what you mean. Just go to Windows Aero and select one from the substyles tab. You can even apply textures to them.

on Nov 10, 2011

Did you fix the buggy thing which gave a wrong size too rollup sized feature which is existing tll years ??

on Nov 10, 2011

Wizard1956
Quoting RoodVargas, reply 10Would be nice to have a feature to port Win7 styles to WB7. I see so many I would like to use with windowblinds. 

WB will apply .themepacks if that is what you mean. Just go to Windows Aero and select one from the substyles tab. You can even apply textures to them.

I think he meant "Visual Styles" or msstyles skins. But, could be wrong.

The way I understood that, the porting utility stopped working with OS's after XP.

on Nov 11, 2011

Does anyone know if skinstudio 7.3 is capable of re-coloring the preview pane or library pane the section to the right in windows explorer yet ?

I know the code exists or at least the program VistaStyleBuilder has been capable of doing this for a long time.

The ability to port msstyles to WB7 would be so useful, what a shame the utility was dumped, I presume it was probably a supply and demand scenario or similar. It's tough being a skinner when there is more money in games.

on Nov 11, 2011

okay, I just started looking at the new sks and noticed a few things that I thought I might mention.

the default skin, diamond, has been created with substyles already in place, It's pretty easy to delete those substyles that are unwanted but generally aren't substyles created after the main blind has been created to maintain margins and settings. now one would have to go a change all the settings and margins twice again.

I've only just looked at the edit start menu page there appears to be additional graphics not encountered being in place with the previous version. the 'search mode' graphic has been usually taken from the 'edit vista/7 explorer parts', not the start menu as there were some issues using this graphic. sorry, don't remember what.

also the bottom bar is now broken into a right and left graphic instead of one solid graphic. this appears to be a vista option.

the 'expanded start menu' is now a default graphic. one may not choose to use this option.

I guess I need to create a template from the diamond default blind to remove substyles and unwanted graphics before making another blind. I realize that I can just delete those graphics not wanted but I think that maybe the developers attempting to help have made the program more difficult to work with.

and it would have nice to update those "examples" to make them examples of what actually the graphic was suppose to represent. I guess a beta for feedback would have also been a consideration not employed.

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