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illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

A package of skins with a "theme" or by a single author
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jsmorley
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by jsmorley »

Just a cosmetic issue, but one that I think you might want to address:

The vertical spacing is a bit off in my view. The values are a bit farther away from the bar beneath them (if they have a bar) and closer to the bar above them.
1.png
And Illustro, just for comparison
2.png


Also, "Opaque background color" isn't opaque for me...
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jsmorley
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by jsmorley »

On another note, I wonder if having Windows accent color as the only choice is really good. I actually like the gray/blue accent color I set for the taskbar and menu bars, but don't really care for it as a skin background. I might suggest:

Dark background / light text
Light background / dark text
Accent color background / toggle text

Adding color pickers / setters can quickly complicate things, so I'm not trying to send you down that rabbit hole. I guess as long as it is easy to set in a single place in a .inc file, that might be good enough.
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balala
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by balala »

eclectic-tech wrote: October 25th, 2018, 4:28 am I design the skins to have individual scaling for flexibility in positioning. I am reluctant to force the same scale to every skin and would like to know what others think on that. As balala noted, it can be "jarring" when you load a variant or another skin with a different scale. :confused:
I think a better solution would be to store the Scale variable into a comon .inc file, which was used by all skins. This way the users can't set different scales for each skins, just one for the whole suite. For this you might create a Settings.inc (or whatever you want to name it) into the @Resources folder and include that one into all skins, with some @Include options.
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eclectic-tech
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by eclectic-tech »

jsmorley wrote: October 25th, 2018, 12:14 pm Just a cosmetic issue, but one that I think you might want to address:

The vertical spacing is a bit off in my view. The values are a bit farther away from the bar beneath them (if they have a bar) and closer to the bar above them.
Yes they are closer, I will increasing the vertical spacing to improve the appearance. :thumbup:

Thanks!
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eclectic-tech
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by eclectic-tech »

jsmorley wrote: October 25th, 2018, 12:33 pm On another note, I wonder if having Windows accent color as the only choice is really good. I actually like the gray/blue accent color I set for the taskbar and menu bars, but don't really care for it as a skin background. I might suggest:

Dark background / light text
Light background / dark text
Accent color background / toggle text

Adding color pickers / setters can quickly complicate things, so I'm not trying to send you down that rabbit hole. I guess as long as it is easy to set in a single place in a .inc file, that might be good enough.
Initially, I thought SysColor provided enough variation, but I have not been truly happy with the resulting colors. :uhuh:

I agree that a simple scheme of reversible Light/Dark Background/Text, and one using Accent with Light/Dark Text is a better approach.

I don't want to go to the extent of a color picker, but will setup a few color variables so end users can easily change the basic colors.

I will make some changes later today, or tomorrow, and post an update. Thanks for your thoughts, they are appreciated. :rosegift:
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eclectic-tech
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by eclectic-tech »

balala wrote: October 25th, 2018, 1:18 pm I think a better solution would be to store the Scale variable into a comon .inc file, which was used by all skins. This way the users can't set different scales for each skins, just one for the whole suite. For this you might create a Settings.inc (or whatever you want to name it) into the @Resources folder and include that one into all skins, with some @Include options.
Thanks balala.

Now that I think about it a bit more, flexibility of individual skins does not matter as much as being able to scale up the original size of skins for HD display. So keeping all skins scaled the same is the better direction.

Yes, it is easy to change to a single scale and will incorporate that into the next update. :great:
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balala
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by balala »

eclectic-tech wrote: October 25th, 2018, 2:14 pm Thanks balala.

Now that I think about it a bit more, flexibility of individual skins does not matter as much as being able to scale up the original size of skins for HD display. So keeping all skins scaled the same is the better direction.

Yes, it is easy to change to a single scale and will incorporate that into the next update. :great:
:thumbup: I'm glad if you agree me. :great:
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eclectic-tech
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by eclectic-tech »

Updated RMSkin in first post with suggested changes

Thanks for the great feedback! :D

Give it a spin and see if you have any more suggestions :welcome:
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balala
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by balala »

balala wrote: October 24th, 2018, 8:34 pm
  • The illustra\Locator\WXDataLocation.ini skin usually works well, however sometimes a small background resizing issue occurs. I tried to make a search of my own location, so I entered gheorgheni into the searching box and I got the appropriate two existing locations. The issue is with the background, which wasn't properly resized (see the attached image). I'm not sure if this happens all times when there are exactly two results (couldn't find another location which gives two), but for me this happened.
Fixed. Good, thanks.
I hope you don't mind, but I still have a comment. As you probably know, WebParser became measure and an extremely good skin author as you, shouldn't have to use it as a plugin and especially not with those old style options (Measure=Plugin along with Plugin=Plugins\WebParser.dll). Now it is simply Measure=WebParser. This definitely isn't something which would prevent the skin to work, but would be great to slightly switch to the new format.
Otherwise congratulations. Great piece of work. :thumbup:
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eclectic-tech
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Re: illustra (Not your usual illustro clone)

Post by eclectic-tech »

balala wrote: October 25th, 2018, 6:10 pm Fixed. Good, thanks.
I hope you don't mind, but I still have a comment. As you probably know, WebParser became measure and an extremely good skin author as you, shouldn't have to use it as a plugin and especially not with those old style options (Measure=Plugin along with Plugin=Plugins\WebParser.dll). Now it is simply Measure=WebParser. This definitely isn't something which would prevent the skin to work, but would be great to slightly switch to the new format.
Otherwise congratulations. Great piece of work. :thumbup:
Good point! I tried to update all of the original code, but a few of the deprecated syntax made it through O.O

I will change that (although it will work either way :sly: )

BTW: I made a few last minute changes and posted version -B :lol:

Thanks! :great: