Skinning

[etherlad]

I've decided I'm going to try my hand at skinning. One skin, at least, see how it goes.

Any suggestions you experienced skinners have for me besides what I might find in the tutorial?

[Md]

Um... have patience and don't be scared to send your skin to a skinner to help you out if somethings not working, cause they may be able to debug it and let you know what went wrong. They won't steal your skin idea :)

Also, if you do run into a problem and need to send it for help, to find out what's gone wrong, it's easier to zip up then entire skin, since then we can see the entire package and try to get it to work (no matter how far from completion you may be). Sending just one file, like buddy.xml may not help at all. it may be related to another file which buddy.xml calls etc. I used to zip up my skin and send it to other skinners when I got stuck too.

Common problem is the missing a 'quote' problem.

eg:


<left num="10" width=1"/>


instead of


<left num="10" width="1"/>


so check for missing quotes, as this error is easily made too, even I do it at times.

[Cubbie]

That's what makes Syntax Highlighting so useful, so you might want to consider a different editor than Notepad. ;) There are several that highlight XML, I for one use Proton (www.meybohm.de).

Marc

[Md]

Originally posted by Cubbie
That's what makes Syntax Highlighting so useful, so you might want to consider a different editor than Notepad. ;) There are several that highlight XML, I for one use Proton (www.meybohm.de).

Marc

I use TextPad it has syntax highlighting. I used to use notepad. Either way it's still a common thing :)

Thought I'd point it out anyways :D

[Cubbie]

Well, I didn't mean you, really.. I figured you'd use one of those. I also didn't mean to say, your tip was worthless. I just wanted to say, highlighting is pretty useful as a tip for new skinners and it helps avoiding some of those common mistakes. :)

[Md]

nah it's cool.

I think maybe the main problem is just simply that I understand the language, so I just look at it and know what I've done.

It would be nice if new skinners could do tutorials from their perspective, as a new skinner to trillian. :)

That may help others too :)

[Cubbie]

Good idea.. hm... but what else needs to be documented? Drawers maybe are one thing I think I haven't seen a tutorial on...
Since I can't even get a simple "Buddy typing" graphic to work, I'm not the right person do such a thing, though.. ;)

[Risen]

Use an editor that supports context highlighting, regular experessions for find/replace, block select mode, and multiple file workspaces. I find it makes the workflow go so much quicker. Textpad does all that.

But more importantly, use the image and text editing tools that you are most comfortable with.

[Md]

the buddyistyping 'graphic' is called a 'keyboard_icon' might wanna search around for it in some skins, not all skins use them. Basics2 does though.


Yeah drawers, there's still a bit I don't know about them, but quite frankly, I don't care about drawers since the addition of the phase button, however, if anyone writes up a tutorial for it, I'll upload it ;)

[Cubbie]

Ahaaa! Thanks a lot. :) It was actually typing_icon, but it got me on the right track. :)

[Md]

yeah, typing_icon sounds more logical to me too, but I'm so used to it being keyboard_icon now LOL :D

[etherlad]

Thanks for the pointers, guys.

I'm well acquainted with the missing-quote problem. I've writted massive HTML/PHP things before, come up with big errors, and it was all due to something tiny like that.

I'm hoping XML will end up being fairly easy in comparison. ;)

If anyone's familiar with Planescape (like <a href="http://www.planescape-torment.com/">Planescape: Torment</a>) I'm trying to do a skin based off that look. Rusty, corroded metal/rock kinda thing.