Guest deadzombie Posted February 10, 2002 Share Posted February 10, 2002 I've helped run a fairly popular skin site for almost 18 months now... AquaSoft The site specializes in every skin available to make a Windows system look like OSX. Over the past 18 months I have seen hundreds of skins, beta tested Aqua Apps for windows (such as the AquaFinder) and reported to the world about the goings on of the Aqua skin community. So what I don't get is this; Why is it that every single person that does an Aqua skin, claims its "the very best Aqua skin yet" ? Going on about how exact the skin is and blah blah blah -> Are all of these skinners blind? It saddens me that after 18 months you can still take every single Aqua skin ever made for Windows and the damn things just don't match up to the real thing. Poorly done buttons, incorrect gels, fuzzy text effects and a host of other items plague these skins. Will someone please duplicate the Aqua skin in either msstyles or WB3? Until then, make mine Sosumi (OSX theme ported to Win!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ja450n Posted February 11, 2002 Share Posted February 11, 2002 i think the problem with most of the aqua skin "designers" is that they have no, or very little experince running OSX... apple has a look. and a feel... and an idea.. in OSX.. you can mimik the look.. that is fairly easy.. the feel.. that it a little more tricky.. but i don't think anyone has mastered the ideals that Apple has put into OSX... OSX isn't all about the GEL of the buttons.. or the pinstriping... it's more about a professional FLOW... an allover feel that was started with the Copland look of OS 8... OS 8 had an all over feel... it was complete.. os 9 had some improvments.. and fixed a few spots that Apple had missed in the whole of os8. OS X is something totally new.. it has a totally new look, feel, and idea... apple is going a different direction with this new OS.. and untill Windows Skinners discover where Apple is taking their OS, the skins will never Feel like the real thing.... Jef at Aquasoft has a very good set of aqua controls for VB programmers... they are very realistic.. and are quite difficult to distnguish from the real OS X... i feel that JEF would make one H377 of a Windows Skin... there are to many AquaSkins.... that is the entire problem... too many DIFFERENT people think that they have captured the REAL feel... i feel that no ONE person will ever make the best OSX skin... it must be a community effort... DEADZOMBIE... you and aqua-soft should head this effort... to make ONE skin.. that can be set as the STANDARD in Aqua Emulation... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest deadzombie Posted February 11, 2002 Share Posted February 11, 2002 Ja450n (and everyone); Actually this has been in the works for over a year... Jef F. has been working on the AquaControls for VB for quite some time. For those not familiar, these are what give Aqua applications for windows their Aqua look and feel. Graphically they are near perfect ( I know you're familiar with them...what do you think?), and they have a good 'feel' to them. But they're still 'in progress',very beta, and their use in a 'unified' shell replacement is still a way off. I agree with everything you've said, and I've watched you recieve some unnecessary flaming. It seems to me if people would stop and actually take the time to compare what they are working on to the actual OS, the standard of quality would be raised considerably. It seems some people 'get it', some don't. Ack, what can you do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ja450n Posted February 11, 2002 Share Posted February 11, 2002 I think the Controls are VERY well constucted.. as myself.. being a Mac and wIntel user.. i can say that they are VERY close to the real thing.... i am currently ripping (sorry jef) all the resources from the Controls.. and i will be using them in the next release of my AquaBase theme.. (unless i get a mail from jef in the mean time) i will also be porting them to Graphite (as jef has not done so yet) i will not re-construct the controls as i had planned to. seeing as this would be stepping on Jef's toes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJP Posted February 11, 2002 Author Share Posted February 11, 2002 Yep guys. The way to make aqua, is to intergrate it into the application itself, like the Aquabrowser. And the best Aquaskin? We can only make this if we work together. SO ALL AQUASKINNERS RESPOND!!! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest deadzombie Posted February 11, 2002 Share Posted February 11, 2002 After Jef finishes his Aqua controls applying them system wide doesn't appear to be much work for you VB coders out there. What it really seems is needed is a dock. A working, complete, fully functional, 32 bit true color alpha blended kick-@ss dock. Any takers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ja450n Posted February 11, 2002 Share Posted February 11, 2002 Originally posted by deadzombie After Jef finishes his Aqua controls applying them system wide doesn't appear to be much work for you VB coders out there. What it really seems is needed is a dock. A working, complete, fully functional, 32 bit true color alpha blended kick-@ss dock. Any takers? that one dock.. from that one company (not saying names, fear of the admins) appears to be written in C++ if anyone knows of a decompiler. wink wink, nudge nudge..... Untill Jef finishes his controls..... i will work on porting them to a MSStyle for those running XP.. and i might (MIGHT) consider .... ehh.. dare i say.... porting them to.... (must say it) (cannot hold out) a WB3 skin... (there, said it) for those with 9x, ME, NT, 2000 The way to make aqua, is to intergrate it into the application itself, like the Aquabrowser. ehhh... i dissagree.... if the APPS would be written to take controls from XP.. then all we would need is a good MSStyle... or... (ribbit) WinBlinds skin... i'm bugging a few of the aqua-soft guys now to release their programs without use of the aqua-controls.. so that they can be modified to use XP controls... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest deadzombie Posted February 11, 2002 Share Posted February 11, 2002 Msstyles are the way to go on an XP box, but alot of peeps havent upgraded, so I believe eventual shell integration may go side by side with the styles. don't tell anyone this[sic], but I'm sick of the gray stripes on white for now. I personally want the Aquafinder and browser to be skinned by msstyles. That way sweet Sosumi can skin my AquaFinder. Might talk to Jef about this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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