Fn'G- Front Ends and Skins

J's89 · 03-21-2005, 08:52 AM

First post, but long time lurker...

I'm getting ready to do my carputer install this week. I'm waiting for the monitor to come in on Tueday. Regardless, my question is about front ends, and skins. I get the impression that most of the front ends were created by members here. Is one for user friendly for a newbie than the others? What is needed to design a skin for them? I have Adobe Photoshop 6.0, and I'm assuming it could handle the actual creation of the skin. How do you go about saving it, loading it, or making it function, if you resposition buttons? I'm obviously pretty new to this stuff, so take it easy on me!

Gobby · 03-21-2005, 08:55 AM

Welcome to the forums, personally if I were a noob again I'd go with an already made skin for a frontend. There is no frontend designed for newbies etc, they all have their own different reasons why people choose one over another, its all personal choice. Take a look in the software frontends section, download a couple of frontends and test them to see which suits you best, then download a skin for that particular frontend, leave designing a skin till you know more about the frontend you choose.

J's89 · 03-21-2005, 09:00 AM

Thanks! I always seem to jump the gun a little... Thanks for the honest reply.

Is there any good website to read about how to design/ program skins. There doesn't seem to be a lot here. Just-"Here's my new skin" types of threads, and not so much on the "how to's". Not that people giving away their hard work is a bad thing, just not the type of info i'm looking for!

MatrixPC · 03-21-2005, 09:10 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by J's89

Thanks! I always seem to jump the gun a little... Thanks for the honest reply.

Is there any good website to read about how to design/ program skins. There doesn't seem to be a lot here. Just-"Here's my new skin" types of threads, and not so much on the "how to's". Not that people giving away their hard work is a bad thing, just not the type of info i'm looking for!

If you are good with Photoshop, just down load one of the font end and try it. Once installed, look at one particular skin then figure it out. Usually there is a text difinition file to the area on the picture (skin).

J's89 · 03-21-2005, 10:44 AM

Cool, that's what I'll look for, thanks!

Bugbyte · 03-21-2005, 10:46 AM

Yep, best way is to take a look at a functioning skin. Some of them use XML to specify the button location and states. You have to match those to the location on your skin, provide "up" and "down" states for the button appearance. Frodoplayer has a skinning app, but I think it's mainly for helping to select where on your skin the buttons are.