Why the mystery over how to build skins?
 

Either I just haven't found the right place, or info on building skins is a *lot* harder than it needs to be. Seriously, obviously some people know how to do it, because there are a lot of fancy skins available...so how come someone hasn't put together a basic how-to-do-it web page?

Sure, it's possible to do it by spending a bunch of time dissecting several existing skins, but why put new skin-builders through a hazing process like that? Doesn't seem like it does BSPlayer any favors by keeping this info secret. It's not like someone is making money selling skins.

For instance, what's the format for the rgn.dat and rgnfs.dat file? They seem to contain hexadecimal versions of the size of the skins, but in multiple places, so it's hard to know just which bytes to alter.

Can't one of you skinning mavens (or better yet, the BSPlayer authors) share your knowledge in an online tutorial for the rest of us?

search through the 'skin.ini' file in the 'skins\base' folder of your bsplayer directory. The text after the semicolons gives you most of the information you will need. There was also a previous post which gave all/most of the available actions for buttons. I'm not sure what exactly the 'rgn.dat' file is for, but i know that it is not required. If you have any other specific questions, i'll answer them.

I had to alter some hex values in the rgn.dat file in order to change the size of the skin, so it at least has that function. But there's more in there than that. I haven't tried deleting it entirely.

Specific questions? How about these:

What do the MainAnySape and ButtonAnyShape parameters do? What values can they be? And I take it the first one is a misspelling that should be left misspelled?

What are the different values for TrackKind? VolumeKind?

What does the EXtrNum parameter do?

What is StatTxt?

What do these color settings control?

[Colors]
FontClr=707070
PlayLBG=F0F0F0
PlayLTX=404040
SkinBG=F0F0F0
SkinTX=404040
SkinBGb=5098E0
SkinTXb=FFFFFF
AudSWBG=F0F0F0
AudSWTX=404040

[GUI]
MenuBackClr=F0F0F0
MenuBackClrIco=5098E0
MenuSelBackClr=FAFAFA
MenuFontClr=404040
MenuSelFontClr=202020
MenuDisFontClr=B0B0B0
MenuSeparatorClr=90C7E7

Hi Anthony,

Don't know if you have checked this http page out but it may be of some help.

http://kurtnoise.free.fr/BSPLAYER/Cr...transformation

Cheers.

Thanks, Kordo...I hadn't seen it, and it looks very useful.

That link gives a good breakdown of how to make pre-1.00 skins if that's what your looking for. 1.00 skins have a different syntax though. The 1.00 skins will start off:

[BSPlayer.Skin]
Version=1.00

The [Colors] area is for pre-1.00 skins. The [GUI] is for 1.00 skins. It is basically all the colors of the right-click menu and playlist.

MenuBackClr=788CD7 -- Color of Menu
MenuBackClrIco=4070B0 -- Color of menu around icons
MenuSelBackClr=80A4DF -- Color of selected menu item (highlighted item)
MenuFontClr=F8F8F8 -- Color of menu font
MenuSelFontClr=303030 -- Color of font of selected menu item
MenuDisFontClr=555555 -- Color of font of disabled item
MenuSeparatorClr=4070B0 -- Color of the separators in menu (i'd make them the same color as "MenuBackClrIco")
PlayListBackClr=6D82D3 -- Color of playlist
PlayListTextClr=303030 -- Color of file title in playlist
PlayListActTextClr=F8F8F8 -- Color of selected file title in playlist

I'll maintain my ignorance on the 'rgn.dat' file, but i do know that it is not necessary. The size of the skin would be the size of the image for the player minus any transparent pixels. 'MainAnySape' and 'ButtonAnyShape' just allow for transparent pixels (for curves) in a skin and/or buttons. 'MainAnySape' and 'ButtonAnyShape' can be 1 or 0 [1 for transparent, where pixel at (0,0) is the transparent color]. 'ButtonAnyShape' may also allow a value of 2, but i haven't tried this yet. I never noticed it but i guess 'MainAnySape' is mispelled.

[Volume] and [Trackbar]
PosSize=15,75,166,4
Kind=HB or VB or H or V or Vbtn or Hbtn
Bitmap=seek.bmp or ButtonImg=somefile (for Vbtn and Hbtn)
Border=0
BorderColor=303030
TransparentBg=1 or 0
BackColor=303030

'EXtrNum' is a pre-1.00 syntax which has been replaced with 'Number=the number of buttons' under the [Button] area.

'StatTxt' is for the display of the time/button function/trackbar position on a skin in fullscreen mode. I use it only in my full screen ini file; not sure if it works in the main skin ini.

Thanks for the info, Kylek. I still don't understand why this isn't all spelled out on the BSPlayer website. You'd think the authors would want to encourage skin building, as it can only lead to more widespread usage of BSPlayer.

The very fact that BSPlayer plays Quicktime files (and some RealMedia files) was enough to make me switch to it from WinAmp as my primary media file player. But WinAmp, having been around longer (and having gone through more versions), still has the advantage of having far more skins and plugins. In order for BSPlayer to catch up, they need to encourage people to make skins and plugins, not keep it a secret.