4. Tizio’s SkinMaker v.1.07 – new Manual 2012.

[SergeNL]

Tizio’s BSP SkinMaker v.1.07 – new Manual 2012. (By SergeNL, march 2012 v.1.0.)

Creating a Skin for BS.Player is a nice ‘creation-game’, ending in a fine useful product.
Editing a background image and buttons, and puzzling a bit, you produce a real mediaplayer.
Discovering the fun of Skin making, made me write a few supporting manuals.

Apart from the graphical design in a photo-editor, there is the technical design of the player:
a text file “Skin.ini”, with codes for button location and functions, volume slider, colours, etc.
You can create Skin.ini manually in Notepad, ór use Skinmaker to do that for you.
Both ways are good. But for beginners the easiest way to learn and to produce may be this:

Start reading the first parts of my manual “Making a very simple skin” about manual design.
(not posted yet. wait a day or so)
Once you’ve understood some basics, switch to this Skinmaker manual again to make a Skin.
Switch back to manual design later, for things Skinmaker can’t do, or to solve any problems.
You can design in Skinmaker and afterwards improve the Skin with Extended Panels or more.

-> Consider Printing this manual or use two monitors, to avoid switching all the time..
(This manual is currently on the Skin-forum, but will be as .Doc or .Pdf on the website soon.)

Skinmaker is a fine and easy tool, showing the design, and a clear layout of options.
Starting in Skinmaker looks a bit like preparing a table for a top dinner..
You bring your own tablecloth and plates and glasses, and start grouping them on the table.
Then you replace, improve, regroup, and refine everything.. The sky is the quality limit here..
You’ll go on, until it looks all fine to handle any audio- of video-dish that may be served..

1. Skinmaker can..
2. Skinmaker cannot..
3. Download and Install.
4. Load a Skin in Skinmaker.
5. Create-Edit a Skin in Skinmaker.
6. Find New Button Images.
7. The Full Screen Skin.
8. A New Skin.
9. More Info.

(All these Links are to posts in this Topic-thread. The Manual has 2 pages.)

[SergeNL]

1. Skinmaker can..

* Create a Skin for BS.Player out of your main image and all button image files.
* Load and Edit Skins, to study skin-making, or to improve existing skins.
* Extract Buttons from BSZ-skin-files, to study their design, or to edit them for a new skin.

Skinmaker creates and edits the text-file Skin.ini, that builds a player from your image files.
(BS.Player reads Skin.ini to see where buttons are placed, and what their function is, etc.)
And at the end Skinmaker compiles a complete BSZ-skin-file from your images and Skin.ini.

Skinmaker can edit Skins for BS.Player v 2.xx (Skin.ini, or SkinFS.ini for the Full-Screen-panel).
It also can edit Skins for BS.Player v 1.xx (Skinv1.ini, or SkinFSv1.ini for the Full-Screen-panel).
.

[SergeNL]

2. Skinmaker (1.07) cannot..

* Skinmaker cannot create or edit any image files for the main image or buttons.
Skinmaker just uses the images you load. (See chapter 6., how to find images.)

* Skinmaker cannot handle Extended Panels in BS.Player, like in Base-Skin on the right.
The last version 1.07 from 2007 doesn’t support this, and may refuse to load the Skin.
If you load such skins, and save changes, áll codes for extended area’s in Skin.ini will be lost!!

It is a challenge to create such extended panels, by manual edit of Skin.ini in Notepad.
But once you start with that, NEVER use Skinmaker again to edit that Skin!
(Remember to make Backups of Skin.ini or the whole skin, by copying it to a different folder.)

* Skinmaker cannot edit the Media Library, the Playlist, and the Equaliser.
Tizio planned support for it, but did/could not realise it (yet). You can edit them manually.
Once you’ve understood skin making, you will easily find out how. (I might write a manual)

* Skinmaker cannot handle buttons with unusually high Action-numbers in Skin.ini.
This is just a small problem with some buttons in a few Skins, after you load them to study.
If you click one in Skinmaker, a popup says: “Run-time error ‘380’: Invalid property value”.
The Workaround: See chapter 5. Create-Edit a Skin in Skinmaker > Buttons > last note: Issue2.

The good news: Skinmaker is a very good tool. And what it can’t, you can do manually later.
.

[SergeNL]

3. Download and Install.

“System requirements” for Skinmaker: None, I guess.. (but install BS.Player Free or - Pro)
It is very light, and will probably work on every Windows system.
It was made for Win95/98/ME/XP, but even works on my Windows7 - 64 bits system.
(The Test-function doesn’t work in my Win7 (BSZ-error), but I test using BS.Player itself.)
So Skinmaker will probably work on Vista, and even on server-versions of Windows.
Skinmaker is Freeware. Tiziano: Thanks! :-)

Download “BSP SkinMaker 1.07.zip” at the bottom of this page (with Tizio’s version info.).

Install: Unzip the file to a folder. That’s all.
There is no installation program. Copy the folder to a place, where you can find it.
A good place could be the BS.Player installation folder, because the Skins-folder is nearby.
Start Skinmaker by double-clicking BSP_SkinMaker.exe.
You also can create a shortcut Icon yourself :
Right-drag Skinmaker.exe from Explorer to the Start-Menu Button, or to the Desktop.

Language? Menu Bar > Select Language > English, French, Italian, Portugese, Polish, Swedish.

Tizio warns, an error may occur: Msvbvm60.dll could be missing. (a small file, about 1,5 MB.)
This Windows-file should be in C\Windows\System32. It can be downloaded at Microsoft.
.

[SergeNL]

4. Load a Skin in Skinmaker.

* Download This Skin (All You Need - Version Of Kiss Skin, by Nir Segal).
You can download any skin you like Here. But I chose this one as an example because:
It is clear and has many buttons and functions to experiment with, and enough space too.
It’s Skin.ini is simple, and does not contain any confusing codes like for extended area’s.
It is a clone of “Kiss 2” by Frapan, a variant of “Kiss 1.0”, and very good for experiments.

Note 1: “Sample_Skin” (download Here), is too advanced for Skinmaker and quite complex.
It is very informative for advanced users, because of the many notes in Skin.ini.
Loading it in Skinmaker can be useful too, but Skinmaker will refuse it, until you do this:
Open Skin.ini in Notepad. Cut out “:pause” at Btn1 (Play). Exit and save changes in Notepad.
But if you save anything in Skinmaker, the many codes for Extended Area’s will all be lost.
Note 2: all standard skins included in BS.Player gave some kind of problem in Skinmaker.

* Install Skin. In Explorer, find the download “All_You_Need_Version_Of_Kiss_Skin_.bsz”.
Right-click it > Install Skin. But if that option isn’t there, copy the bsz-file to your Skins Folder:
That usually is here: C\ Program Files (x86) \ Webteh \ BSPlayer (Pro) \ Skins.

* Try the new skin in BS.Player itself first. Start BS.Player. Right-click it > Options > Skins.
In that Preferences-window, click the All-You-Need Skin.
Load some audio and video files, and play a bit to get familiar with the Skin and its buttons.

* Load the BSZ Skin file in Skinmaker.
Start Skinmaker. (Double-click Skinmaker.exe in Windows Explorer, or the Icon you made.)
Menu Bar > File > Open > find and select the Skins Folder. Double-click “All-You-Need..BSZ”.
You can also drop the BSZ-file from Explorer on Skinmaker.
A popup will appear. Click “Extract”. Now you see the loaded Skin in Skinmaker.

* Where are the Skin files?
The extraction created a subfolder in the Skins-folder, with the same name as the BSZ-file.
The subfolder itself is also a Skin, containing all images and Skin.ini. (see Windows Explorer)
Skinmaker uses that folder and the Skin.ini in it. You can edit and add images in that folder.
Changes will be saved to Skin.ini in that folder. Skinmaker does not edit the original BSZ-file.

* Load the Skin again? Load Skin.ini from the folder, NOT the original BSZ-file:
So if you edit, save changes, and close Skinmaker, next day open your work like this:
File > Open > Browse to the subfolder with the same name as the BSZ-file > Open Skin.ini.
(So do NOT open the BSZ-file again. You would extract again, overwriting all your files.)

BS.Player will show the Skin twice in the Skin-List now, because it is twice In the Skins-Folder:
As a BSZ-file, ánd in Folder-format. A Small Bug: You can click both, but BS.Player will
always show the most recent version of the Skin. (the version with the latest time stamp):
That is the BSZ-file if you created that last, or the Folder-version, if you have been editing.
This may give the impression Skinmaker saves changes to the BSZ-file too. But it does not.
To see both in BS.Player, rename the BSZ ór the Folder a bit, and renew the Skin-window.
You could also delete the BSZ-file. The folder version doesn’t need it.
.

[SergeNL]

5. Create-Edit a Skin in Skinmaker.

The easiest way to study Skin-making, is to load an existing Skin, and edit a few things.
The easiest way to create a new Skin is to load an existing Skin, and edit éverything.
So I’ll describe it all at once. It’s good for beginners too: just skip some details.
Follow the steps below, to see how Skinmaker works.

* Save Changes and Test.
* Main Image.
* Buttons. (files, options, texts.)
* Objects showing Text or Numbers. (Options, Fonts.)
* Time Line.
* Volume Slider.
* Colours of the BSP right-click Menu.
* Transparency of the whole skin.
* Add your comment or info to the Skin.
* Creating a Skin in BSZ-format.
.

(Skinmaker Screenshots. Click to enlarge.)

[Dejair]

Hi,

I resized skin from 1280x1024 to 1920x1080, all work ok, but
tracking slider and volume slider don't go until end of bar, it go only until old position of 1280x1024 skin.
I don't know how to correct this and ask for some help here.

Thank You

[spadanco]

Posts were awesome