A Guide to Customisation and Shell Replacements

[apurva]

I have seen many newbies feeling a little embarassed to ask about basics in the forums here, so i decided to write up something that educates the newbies and also apeals to the pros here. I have been writing this for over 2 weeks now, and its finally ready. I would really like it if people reading it leave comments for improvements, additions or deletions. I could not post it hre cuz its way too long and formatted. Click below to read it on my site.

A guide to Desktop Customization, Skinning and Shell Replacements

hope this is helpful

[haaga]

I took a quick look (F1 just about to begin) but it looks very promising, looking forward to reading it later on :happy:

[Lan88]

wow..this really is a comprehensive guide... 5 stars!

[ThalSwe]

Very nice indeed. Think many people that are new to the whole scene will find this very useful and even people that has been around it for some time. Good work.

[Kenny McCormick]

Thanks, very nice guide.

[EDIT] I think you should take a look on the image links, I found a cople that lead to the wrong image...

[christracy]

that link "A more radical interface with ObjectBar " interface goes to the second of the very first screenshots and not what is showing with the link.

[Romasha]

great guide

[apurva]

that link "A more radical interface with ObjectBar " interface goes to the second of the very first screenshots and not what is showing with the link.

586264905[/snapback]

-Fixed. Thanks for the inputs... i will re check all of the links to images.... damn the content management systems!!

[iron2000]

Do you plan to add Y'z Toolbar, Y'z Shadow, Styler and WindowFX?

Toolbar skinners and Desktop effects?

Nice guide by the way.

But people like my sis would not sit and go through all the text.

[#47]

Very nice work!

[sryo]

good job! there are some apps missing like rklauncher and rocketdock in the app launcher section, dotwidget and @zpod under desktop widgets, emerge desktop and bluebox in shell replacements, shellwm in skinning, foobar2000, miranda im, trillian and qmp (to name a few) in other skinnable/themeable apps, and virtualplastic.net under skinning links, but it more complete than any other skinning guide currently availible.

[apurva]

Thanks for all your responses people.

Well, i know i have missed out a lot of applications here, for example if i actually had gotten into skinnable Media players, the article would have been twice the size.

What do you guys think of making this article the base content to start off a Wiki site for skinning and customisation? As far as i know, there is really NO content source on the internet that educates people on skinning and customisation. Yes the forums help a lot, but they still are not structured content. There are a lot of experts here who could help out on various parts of the content. I for one would love to do it, and since i have a few servers of my own, hosting space and bandwidth wont be an issue. However, it would be a lot of effort to set it up and would be a shame to have no or few contributers and readers.

What do you guys think about it? If there is enough entusiasm here, and a few volunteers atleast, then i could get started with it.

I am doing something similar (not a wiki though) for the BlackBox shell @ uZable.com

[dhigu]

What do you guys think of making this article the base content to start off a Wiki site for skinning and customisation? As far as i know, there is really NO content source on the internet that educates people on skinning and customisation. Yes the forums help a lot, but they still are not structured content. There are a lot of experts here who could help out on various parts of the content. I for one would love to do it, and since i have a few servers of my own, hosting space and bandwidth wont be an issue. However, it would be a lot of effort to set it up and would be a shame to have no or few contributers and readers.

586302023[/snapback]

I think setting up a Wiki to help out people with their skinning / customizations is a great idea! Especially, if we could somehow show people how to do the neat tricks or troubleshoot common problems, solve a few gotchas, it will be a great lifesaver!

I went through your article looks great, it is a bit longish though, come to think of it. If we could use it as a base to split it into a wiki and then elaborate on the parts it would be both comprehensive and easier to read, too.

And then you could go ahead and cover the media player skins / themes, too. ;)

[ste]

Very nice job and some great apps! ;)

[Tevage]

Hey that is awesome, i love all the different shells.

[Elmo]

cool guide (Y)

[eltomo]

Brilliant guide! I'm going to try some of the shells once i get my PC to work without crashing every hour or so.

[sryo]

What do you guys think of making this article the base content to start off a Wiki site for skinning and customisation?

586302023[/snapback]

there is already skinwiki http://www.skinyourscreen.com/skinwiki

[_I am Reptar]

Awesome guide wow.

[Advance]

You missed so much about windows customization, actually editing the system files. For beginners however, this looks likea good guide.

[kars85]

heck of a guide bud, IMHO, this is a must read for anyone interested in tweaking the look of their OS.

thanks for your time, it helped me decide what alt shell to use!

[_LeviatHeN_]

I have seen many newbies feeling a little embarassed to ask about basics in the forums here, so i decided to write up something that educates the newbies and also apeals to the pros here. I have been writing this for over 2 weeks now, and its finally ready. I would really like it if people reading it leave comments for improvements, additions or deletions. I could not post it hre cuz its way too long and formatted. Click below to read it on my site.

A guide to Desktop Customization, Skinning and Shell Replacements

hope this is helpful

586262588[/snapback]

(Y) really nice guide.thanx

[Von_Beard]

wow great guide thanks man

[Jadepixel]

Very nice guide, thanks for the link

[TriggerHappySam]

Thanks for the link - I checked out your site and I can't wait to apply some of the stuff