ROBSCIX

I found the Stardock Skin studio used for skinn alot of Apps, from what I have read anyway...I was just wodering if it could be used for skinng KX...Well I guess I could Try it out and answer my own question..lol

ROBSCIX

So..It Does Not...you can do it template style, but it would be harder then bitmap editing...

TsofT

Hi

Well, there's really no easy way to skin kxmixer. That's why there's only few skins.
Here are some tips, if you want to do it hard way:

You can load skin simply by clicking on it - if it's error free it will load instantly.

FAST EDITING:
Put two versions of same skin in directory, name them "skin1.kxs" and "skin2.kxs"
Click on "skin2.kxs" to load it. This is important, because you can not edit skin which is currently loaded.
Rename "skin1.kxs" to "skin1.zip", and open it.
Extract "kxskin.ini" or some other file, edit it your way, then put it back, rename "skin1.zip" to "skin1.kxs", click on it to load.

For positioning of controls use alt+printscreen to capture mixer, open file from clipboard with your bitmap editor, with selection tool grab button or whatever, put it on place you like.
On the bottom of bitmap editor screen, you will find positions (x,y) which you type in kxskin.ini.

If you don't know which button(control,slider) is which in kxskin.ini, simply delete(or better rename) "lang.ini". This file is used for displaying ToolTips in various languages. If don't exists, instead of ToolTip, mixer will display name of control when you put mouse over. So when you put mouse over, for example "swap speakers" button it will display "buttons.swap_rear.tooltip"
Discard ".tooltip" open kxskin.ini and search for "buttons.swap_rear".
There you'll find position of button.
If you want to know which bitmap is used by this button, search in "buttons.ini"



Tools I use to crate skins:

File manipulation :
Total commander -
For copying, renaming, zip and unzip ... I don't use RAR archives.

Edit ini files :
EditPad - Freeware
Fast & reliable text editor, can open multiple
files.

Graphic(1) -
Irfanview - freeware
For batch operations, crop, resize, change
colors, convert jpg <--> bmp.

Graphic(2) -
Paint shop pro -
Bitmap editor, fast loading, can use photoshop
plugins...

Graphic(3) -
RealDraw
Main skinning program, bitmap and vector editing.


If someone wonders why I'm doing this, answer is simple. All my respect to the author, but the skin that comes with drivers is a bit confusing. When I'm recording my guitar, I don't want to go all over the sliders, to see ToolTips, which slider is for what. Other skins from page were not working with latest releases, so I've created simple skin with text names of controls, just for myself.
That looked like a crap.
Next thing was complete redesign with new graphics and positions,
which I've released on this forum. Users seams to be satisfied : )
Now I'm familiar with the structure of kxs, skinning is quite easy for me, so
I will create more skins.

Any questions? Just ask...

TsofT

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[COLOR=Red]My Kx [/COLOR]SKINS