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Trillian Skins UGH!!
2006-Apr-30, Sunday 22:37UGH! This is SO frustrating. I have been TOTALLY dissatisfied with 99% of the Trillian skins in existence... so I decided that I was going to bloody well make one of my own. (I have decided this before btw and in fact at one time I WAS able to modify the Trillian Cordillera skin and made a light green version. What I'm trying to do is make a skin that will match the WinAmp skin I am using. It's nothing that complicated... just one of the stock skins, in the color combo called "grapefruit" Here's a picture of what it looks like (in this case docked to the top of my screen). It's not complicated.
Ok.. well that should be easy enough, right? I make a template, I paste in the appropriate pieces where they belong.. all done, no big deal right? I have the template done.. I have the splash screen done. Here they are. The preview was a 25 frame animated deal, which I've posted in gif format so you can see it. I've had to satisfy myself with just showing the final frame because the xml that is supposed to run the animation does not function. It causes it to show a blank white screen. Beats me why.. I've double checked the code, and there are no disparities. If you missed the animation, I think you can hit the refresh button and see it again. I don't have it set to loop. Sorry.
The left is an image of what it's supposed to look like. The middle is the splash, and the right is what it looks like NOW after changing all the graphics that should effect the top half of the screen, and halfway to the bottom this is what I get... it is NOT what it's supposed to look like at all. And I don't get why... You may note that it appears that you can see part of my modified screen THROUGH the graphics that seem to be laid on top of it. If you could see the whole thing, you'd see how the purple background shows through on the bottom of the contact list because the white graphic on top of it ends... it's weird.... very very weird...it's like there are 2 or 3 layers of graphics... I don't see why that's necessary at all.
I wonder if anyone reading knows anything about this crap, maybe something in the XML that I'm supposed to do that I haven't? I'm confused.. It took me forever to find ONE tutorial for Trillian skinning... and that one spends a GREAT deal of time explaining what this line of XML and that line of XML does... (oh and it doesn't make sense either... like... why would you WANT to tell one program to look up data in ANOTHER (one or two line) program if it is possible to just include that one or two lines IN the first program? That is SO not in keeping with my knowledge of programming. I understand the concept of having external style sheets for a web page if the style sheet controls several pages... I use them on Word Haven... if I want to revamp the pages, I just change the style sheet instead of changing over 200 pages of code over and over and over. But I'm not following the logic of this guy's tutorial... it doesn't help that he does not SHOW me anything that he's talking about.. i.e. show me what it does, no graphic examples nothing... his tutorial looks like an XML page to me, it's hard to keep track of where I am. Obviously it was written by a code head... probably one of those guys who makes an extremely plain square skin that is mostly grey and black with tiny letters and calls it 'compact' or something like that. hahaha...
Anyway, I would like some instruction from an ARTIST who understands the code, but also understands the need for an aspiring skinner to SEE how to do it, not just read a bunch of instructions that don't make sense.. It's like learning algebra without geometry to give it an application. >_<
On a side note, I really REALLY adore the Skye Boat Song, and this is a particularly nice version. All it needs is a choir singing the words now. I WISH I could find a copy of the arrangement that Floyd used for our Chorus back in high school... that had to have been the most beautiful arrangement... though... I probably feel that way because it was the first one I ever heard, and therefore in my mind that is the right way to do it. It gives me shivers in the refrain when the alto part takes such an unexpected minor (seventh? possibly a suspended seventh, but it's definitely not the way a first time listener would expect the chord to fall... it's just on the edge of discordant... and relays the sense of the storm perfectly.)
Ok.. well that should be easy enough, right? I make a template, I paste in the appropriate pieces where they belong.. all done, no big deal right? I have the template done.. I have the splash screen done. Here they are. The preview was a 25 frame animated deal, which I've posted in gif format so you can see it. I've had to satisfy myself with just showing the final frame because the xml that is supposed to run the animation does not function. It causes it to show a blank white screen. Beats me why.. I've double checked the code, and there are no disparities. If you missed the animation, I think you can hit the refresh button and see it again. I don't have it set to loop. Sorry.
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I wonder if anyone reading knows anything about this crap, maybe something in the XML that I'm supposed to do that I haven't? I'm confused.. It took me forever to find ONE tutorial for Trillian skinning... and that one spends a GREAT deal of time explaining what this line of XML and that line of XML does... (oh and it doesn't make sense either... like... why would you WANT to tell one program to look up data in ANOTHER (one or two line) program if it is possible to just include that one or two lines IN the first program? That is SO not in keeping with my knowledge of programming. I understand the concept of having external style sheets for a web page if the style sheet controls several pages... I use them on Word Haven... if I want to revamp the pages, I just change the style sheet instead of changing over 200 pages of code over and over and over. But I'm not following the logic of this guy's tutorial... it doesn't help that he does not SHOW me anything that he's talking about.. i.e. show me what it does, no graphic examples nothing... his tutorial looks like an XML page to me, it's hard to keep track of where I am. Obviously it was written by a code head... probably one of those guys who makes an extremely plain square skin that is mostly grey and black with tiny letters and calls it 'compact' or something like that. hahaha...
Anyway, I would like some instruction from an ARTIST who understands the code, but also understands the need for an aspiring skinner to SEE how to do it, not just read a bunch of instructions that don't make sense.. It's like learning algebra without geometry to give it an application. >_<
On a side note, I really REALLY adore the Skye Boat Song, and this is a particularly nice version. All it needs is a choir singing the words now. I WISH I could find a copy of the arrangement that Floyd used for our Chorus back in high school... that had to have been the most beautiful arrangement... though... I probably feel that way because it was the first one I ever heard, and therefore in my mind that is the right way to do it. It gives me shivers in the refrain when the alto part takes such an unexpected minor (seventh? possibly a suspended seventh, but it's definitely not the way a first time listener would expect the chord to fall... it's just on the edge of discordant... and relays the sense of the storm perfectly.)
