I am still alive! I have been very busy (not exactly) during these past weeks: I’ve had the graphics artist’s equivalent of writer’s block. So far, with my shiny new Toshiba laptop I got for Christmas with Vista, I’ve uncovered some pretty useful image resources I can use. This is the first of many more creations to come thanks to those resources.

Soon to be on CmYK is VistAero, a pretty self-explanatory skin for CD Art Display. It is a fullscreen skin for the latest 2.0 beta that, at the time of writing, only comes in 1440×900 and 1280×800 resolutions, as they are the resolutions of my PC and laptop, respectively. I will add more resolutions and I may also add different backgrounds, too!

I’m considering changing the site design, as I can almost smell some sort of legal action. I might just make a new header that’s “the same, but different”. You can’t copyright a colour scheme

ryxdp

Yep, STF3 has been released! This new version, as has been shown in the preview, incorporates major layout changes, a new options panel thanks to Basilis, and more. You can check it out here.

The site has gotten a bit of an update as well, with a brand new logo, my Messenger status in the top right, and some minor design changes here and there. I’m still not finished with the status area, particularly the text formatting when I’m listening to music (it should be blue and underlined, like links on the site, just to complete the whole “Windows Live” feel to it).

Windows Live Messenger 2009 is entering RC (Release Candidate) stage soon, and I have to say, from what I’ve seen of it so far, it is, for the most part, pretty cool. It has its ups and downs, as any piece of software, of course, and with it still (at the time of writing) being in Beta, that is to be expected. I may not do much skinning for 9 when the final is released, as there is just so much more to do, but I’ll have a play around with the UIFiles and see what it can do. In the meantime, I’ll try and see if I can get started on that Windows Classic skin I mentioned earlier… It’s promising!

ryxdp

I’ve decided to skip version 2.5 and head straight for v3 as I’ve had much more time than I expected, so here it is! It’s almost ready for action codewise, but I have yet to design proper icons for it, which I will be moving onto soon. I’ve uploaded screenshots of the new contact list and chat window, along with the updated colorize popup!

EDIT: Images removed; I think people would like their bandwidth

I will probably have v3 submitted to the Plus! Skins database by the 28th, which also happens to be my birthday!

Enjoy!

ryxdp

Just a little update on my skinning progress here. SevenTwoFour hasn’t been touched much since the start of November, but I’m going to fix it up soon, don’t worry. It’ll still be done by the end of the month, hopefully.

I’ve started a new project based on the Windows Classic theme. Probably will not move forward with this, or else I’ll just offer the Windows Standard variation alone.

I’ve just recovered from a major system-wide software update, and I am still editing various configurations once in a while, but I’m mostly done now, which gives me more time for skinning!

ryxdp

If you’ve been using the latest beta version of Windows Live Messenger lately, I have some good news: Messenger Plus! is now fully compatible with it! Although I don’t like releasing anything that’s not “final”, the growing popularity of this new Messenger made it clear something had to be done on my side. For that reason, Messenger Plus! Live 4.79 has been added to the Download section and the Change Log has been updated accordingly.

Keep in mind that this is beta material so no support will be given for it. Some of the improvements (display pictures in notification popups for instance) are global to all Messenger versions so if you like what’s fresh and new, this beta is for you.

[Source: Messenger Plus! Live - News]

I am in fact using WLM9 at the moment, and it seems promising, though it could be a little less cluttered. I have employed A-Patch to take care of this, however. It’s a tad hard to navigate around the place, but I could get used to it in time. A few things still need a bit of attention, such as images/text/etc. not aligning properly and so on, but these are not major issues, and I have not encountered any so far, which is brilliant.

I will be downgrading again to 8.5 to finish work on SevenTwoFour and my other skins, and staying there until 9 is final.

ryxdp

Yep, CD Art Display 2b5 users can now have a matching skin to go with the original WLM skin.

The reason I chose the beta version of CAD over the stable 1.0 release is that I found the beta to be really stable already, and elements such as text glows and pretty much skinning in general were impressively refined. CD Art Display is an awesome bit of software that is incredibly versatile.

You can find 724 for CAD here.

On another note, SevenTwoFour itself is coming up to its third incarnation. Version 2.5, as I have said previously, could be seen as just a bridge between versions 2 and 3. I have yet to have a few things done for 2.5, mostly boring stuff such as cleaning up the code, especially the SkinInfo. It should be out by the end of November, at the very latest.

ryxdp

Yes, a new version of 724 is in the works! This halfway point between 2 and 3 will include fading watermarks, an updated options panel and some general optimisational tweaks here and there. The major bugs will probably not be fixed in this version, but I may able to find time to get the Color Picker dialogs how I want them. All in due time!

ryxdp

Finally I am rid of Freewebs for good…WordPress is much more powerful and flexible (but the theming part was a slight nightmare, and IE doesn’t like the sidebar for some reason. Get Firefox).

I’ve really got nothing to say at the moment, but I will be announcing and updating all my skins here on CmYK from now on. I’ll be putting up a redirect page on Freewebs for a short while (maybe a month and a half) and then I’ll shut it down.

Adios amigos!

ryxdp