Thread: VisualDesigner for creating other skins

Originally Posted by robyweb

zorro,

Do you have a complete skin sample (w/ xml files) for the Frodoplayer? I would like to create my own skin but I do not have a list of the control types and their corresponding names. Do you have a list of all of the available commands? Any help would be truly appreciated!

Hi Rob,

I'm sorry but there's no complete skin sample yet. I did only the main screen as an example. But it's pretty easy to adapt other screens by doing the following:

- Make a new skin (within VD) for each screen
- printout the according INI file from FrodoPlayer that you want to adapt
- add the elements you'll find there and give them the same name, without appliyng the properties (_LEFT, _TOP, _FORECOLOR etc.)
- load a background picture and arrange the elements accordingly

Also take a peek in here: Need a skinning tool?

i cant download phone control i get the 'not found' screen, is it still up?

how do i get the laest version? your link is 404 Zorran.... Also how should I run the VD to open your sample skin?

VD is part of the PhoCo setup. If you have the latest version of PhoCo installed, you have VD as well.

To run it in the universal mode simply open the sample skin. In the status bar you'll see that it says for what app the skin is.

Zorro, any idea why it isnt loading the images from your test skin or even your test BFM skin?

The images, pngs, are all in the folder.... but it doesnt load any images... this is how a "Mkae Screenshot" looks like

I guess it's because of the path to the graphics.
You can get around this if you create a directory called "OtherDesigns\New\" in that directory where you run VD (usually PhoCo install dir.) then copy the files into that directory.
Or you move the contents of the ZIP file ("OtherSkins\New\") from the "..\Debug\" into the PhoCo dir.

Just a quick note.. i was going to quickly do up a ExportProvider for Mobius, the frontend im doing, but after looking further at how Visual Designer works, i decided against it. My skins work off polygonal buttons.. they can be any shape or size, and therefore need each point of the polygon defined, which i dont think VD does. What a pity

But i'd like to congradulate you on a very nice product, i can definately see the potential in a piece of software like that, to bring together the frontend skinning community. Well done

Thank you for the credit.

I was thinking about making the buttons from polygon-data as well, but then I refused because most peeps use bitmaps with transparent backgrounds.

But what if you look at the square of a button to be an polygon too? You would have all coordinates you need and a way for your users to make new skins very easily.

(BTW: the next release will produce much better JPG's than the current)