... as many of you out there have probably found out, the native logon studio skin creator is lacking in many aspects.
Here, I will share what I have learned from trial and error, what each bmp is for, and how to edit the uifile.txt manually. This is not so much a tutorial how to create a skin, as it is a tutorial how to bring your skin to the next level, beyond just a wallpaper background and a few other images. Hopefully this will be helpful for all of you out there who are trying to get a certain image to be transparent, etc in logonstudio, and if I am wrong in any aspect, or if anyone has anything to add, feel free to post here.
1. bmp images:
100: main background image
102: password pane
103: 'go' button normal
104: 'go' button pressed
105: password hint button normal
106: password hint button pressed
107: shut down button (one state only)
108: undock
109: scroll arrow down (the scrollbar images don't seem to skin, they are skinned with windowblinds, or windows native skin)
110: scroll arrow up
111: scroll button
112: user account background
113: user picture background unselected
114: default user pic?? (just leave it default)
119: user picture background selected
121: shut down button hot (doesnt seem to be skined)
122: undock button hot (doesnt seem to be skinned)
123: logo (displayed above the 'to begin click on user name' section)
124: vert spearator
125: top horz. separator
126: bottom horz. separator
127: alternate logo?
200: top pannel
201: bottom panel
preview.jpg: preview image
If you are creating a skin from scratch, you can start it off using the logon studio editor, but to fix up transparency issues, etc, you need to edit the UIFILE.txt. DO NOT TRY EDITING THE THEME.INI FILE, IT DOESNT DO ANYTHING! (well, a couple of strings, but not much)
here are a couple of the basic things you will see in uifile.txt (more to be added later)
background: argb(x,x,x,x)
defines a background color, argb- AlphaRedGreenBlue
background: gradient(argb(x,x,x,x), argb(x,x,x,x),y)
gradient, the two argb define begin and end color, y defines which direction the gradient is (im not sure how that last number works... usually its 0)
element denotes a section, button a button
You will see that there are several sections in the uifile.txt, each of has a name (i.e. toppanelss, etc) which are pretty much self-explanatory
background: rcbmp(xxx,x,#FF00FF,0,0,1,0)
first number is the name of the bmp file, second is the way it will be displayed (0 - tile, 1 - fixed size, 6-stretched) and the last few arguments I still havnt figured out (perhaps one of you mite kno?), although i suspect the last four have to do with width, and height of the image.
padding: rect(30rp, 25rp, 30rp, 25rp)
defines the margin on each side, top, bottom, left, right i believe
foreground: rgb(0,0,0)
fontsize: 14 pt
fontface: "tahoma"
cursor: hand
forground: in this case defines the color (rgb) of the text
fontsize: size of the font
fontface: name of the font used (be careful of what fonts you use, if you dont use one of xp's native fonts, it will not show up until after you have already logged on and the logged off)
cursor: tells which cursor to display when mouse is over the button
contentalign: wrapleft
alignment of text, a few which I have seen are wrapleft (right), topright(left), middlecenter, etc.
fontweight: bold
fontstyle: italic
-just a few other parameters when defining fonts
scrollbar [vertical]
{
layoutpos: nineright
background: rgb(48,70,179)
}
layoutpos: just defines how many user acounts before a scrollbar is used (i think)
borderthickness: rect(3,3,3,3)
-another margin-defining parameter i think padding is outside the image, borderthickness is within the image
animation: alpha | log | fast
alpha: 255
-defines a transparency animation (usually on mouse over of accounts), type | type | speed
alpha: xxx defines final alpha blend value
Thats all for now, I will add on more later, and once again, if anything here is wrong, feel free to correct me, and also feel free to add your own information