MSStyles=clones, clones and more clones?

-or- where is the originality?

Published on December 16, 2004 By BlueDev In OS Customization

This is a geek rant. Yes, by writing this I am totally revealing to the world that not only do I care about the subject, but that I think enough about the topic to decide to write a rant about it. So, yes, this is a geek rant, by a geek, and will probably only be relevant to other geeks. Geeks freaking rule.

It isn't any surprise that I enjoy customizing my computer. I love downloading and trying to goodies, widgets, icons, cursors and most of all visual styles. And lately I have enjoyed working on my own a bit. My fascination with OS customization really started when I stumbled across Windowblinds (back when it was early version 3.something, so I am still pretty new to the whole scene). Being able to change how my OS looks is very appealing to me, and to be honest I can't imagine just using plain old Windows or even being limited to one of the Luna themes XP came with. They just bore me.

But at the same time I don't like to limit myself to just using Windowblinds skins. As I mentioned previously I like to use Skin Studio to convert themes that are in MSStyle format to use with Windowblinds. I am not a fan of using a hacked uxtheme.dll myself, so I opt to convert. Then I can add even more goodies to my visual styles. But my use of visual styles is becoming less and less frequent.

I like to stop by Neowin on a semi-regular basis. I peruse their Completed Visual Styles section to see what is coming out. But it seems that lately all that is coming out is the same old thing. Sure, they change a color here and there, perhaps change the buttons from a box to a circle, maybe just make them lines. But they are clones and clones and clones. Someone comes up with a great idea (like Stefanka's Inspirat visual style) and you get 30 other monkeys who change a color here, make it lighter/darker, and then release it and let the MSStyle lovers over at Neowin heap the praise on them.

Guess what robots. I can do all that with the same skin in Windowblinds. And I can do even more without much effort with Skin Studio.

And when an original Windowblinds visual style comes around there the robots all jump on it with brilliant comments such as "fugly". I think the collective IQ of the whole bunch is probably lower than the measly points this article will earn. They deride the visual style for being too bulky, too busy, to big. If it isn't completely minimalistic, and limited to about 3 colors they rip it to shreds. To illustrate my point let me offer mormegil's elegant, colorful, festive Christmas Time skin. When the news regarding this Christmas suite was posted over at Neowin it instantly met with comment after comment about how it was fugly, bloated, hideous, and so on. One person even had the audacity to say that "Somebody needs to take a couple design courses!" Yet, just look at the page over at Wincustomize. It has well over 250,000 downloads. Over 250,000! And it has an average rating of 5/5 stars. But because it isn't another minimalistic Luna clone it gets shredded. The myopia displayed on that thread alone made me see red.

I love minimalistic styles myself. But not every stinking day. I like some changes, some creativity, some unique looks to my skin. I have seen visual styles that I honestly couldn't have told you what the difference was between them without doing a close, side by side comparison. Yet each one gets praise heaped upon it for being so slick, so sleek, so smooth.

I just want to see some originality. I know there are great artists making some stylish and even stunning visual styles out there. But the second you see one of their works released, be prepared to see 50 clones of the same thing. Me, I am just getting tired of seeing the same visual style, time after time. Perhaps it is the community, perhaps it is the inherent power of Windowblinds over the MSStyle format, but I just don't seem to see nearly the same degree of cloning going on with the Windowblinds skins. So thanks to all of you out there trying to break new ground, to make something a little different that will look great on my screen.

The robots? Let them stew in their own pot of mundane similarity.

Comments (Page 4)

BlueDev

on Dec 17, 2004

TasT: Excellent thoughts. I really appreciate the addition to the discussion.

MarkMcQ

on Dec 17, 2004

The reason for the lack of originality in skinning now is ego. Yes, it's always present when some form of artistic creativity is involved, but there's very few skinners out there who can even comprehend the concept of not HAVING to upload every skin. The majority are all about making whatever's popular to reap the attention and comments.
Can't even begin to count the number of "I added 'whatever' to this for 'so and so'" comments when a skin is uploaded/updated.
The more forum-driven mentalities out there are the worst, msstyles and Shapeshifter being the worst.(Although it does happen with WB too) It's all about the betas and the alphas and the previews and the "here's a tiny pic of something I'm working on, comment on it and tell me how awesome I am and thus giving me validation yadda yadda".

Madine

on Dec 17, 2004

I don't understand all the negativity. I don't go to websites for software I don't like and post about how bad it is. I have tried some skins I don't like, but I didn't post about what an awful skin it is.

Also, I don't understand people who say, "But CompanyX does it this way" as though CompanyX is the be-all and end-all of all knowledge.

GreenReaper

on Dec 17, 2004

It all depends whether you're skinning for yourself or skinning for others - or both. I don't think one of the two is necessarily better than the other, and I respectfully but strongly disagree with the view that "skinning by yourself, for yourself" is the highest form of artwork. Art by itself may be nice, but most skins are designed to actually be used - if people can't or won't use your skin because they don't like how it works, or would like it better if it included something else, then I think you should consider changing it. I don't think there's anything wrong in wanting other people to want to use your skin, and if that means putting features in that they want then that's what you do, as long as it doesn't spoil the skin. The trick is to do that and remain original/true to the theme, but it's usually possible with a little effort.

Personally I think betas are a good idea, but maybe not on a public forum. I beta'd my snowflakes object on Stardock's IRC channel and they were much the better for it. If I'd released it and then had to update it, people would have had to get it again and I would have had to do the update thing, which I know annoys some people who think you're trying to get more downloads by staying at the head of the queue.

TasT

on Dec 17, 2004

The majority are all about making whatever's popular to reap the attention and comments.
Can't even begin to count the number of "I added 'whatever' to this for 'so and so'" comments when a skin is uploaded/updated.

I guess that's why I never could work with that crowd. Once I make a skin it's done unless someone has a request that I like or I decide to update the skin for myself or a problem is found.

Or, Maybe I'm Just and A$$?

image

on Dec 18, 2004

While it is true that windowblinds is clearly the better choice for windows customization, dont forget the fact that most of the people over in the msstyles community and at neowin are probably in their teens or in college; some of us really are working out of our parent's homes

. Many have pretty much grown immune to the whole piracy and 'getting something for nothing' idea, napster, kazaa, etc. and dont exactly have credits card numbers, online accounts, or money to spare for making desktops look nice...
Yes, there is wb shareware (which im running

), but it leaves several items unskinned (scrollbars,toolbars, progress anims, menus) which really takes away from otherwise excellent visual styles. Given the choice between running an incomplete program with annoying ads and a free hack that can do the same *basic* things as the complete prog, i think most would probably choose the latter. Not that big of a surprise then, that msstyles now appeals to a much wider variety of people compared to wb...
However, i do agree that the quality of msstyles and the whole msstyles community has gone downhill. Just reading the threads over the whole bant fiasco made me sick...woohoo, now hes back and everyone flocks around and lavishes him with praise when they were just flaming him a few months ago

...
As for the quality of the skins, im sure we could easily clean up the proliferation of 'bulky' wb's if there were more *constructive* criticism. The skins that have lower number of downloads oftentimes also often have a lower number of comments; why should this be? Personally, i want to see a day where all the skins on wc are the same caliber (but of unique styles of course) as those by adni18, morphium, tiggz ,^^gabriel, essorant, and other great skinners. Sorry bout the long rambling post, hope i made some sense?

GreenReaper

on Dec 18, 2004

I think perhaps this is because there is little incentive to comment on a skin that you do not like. If it's really bad you won't download it either. Perhaps if people - either users in general or skin authors - could give credit for "good comments", with an award for the top X commenters, we might see more people looking to give helpful comments? Just an idea.

BlueDev

on Dec 18, 2004

image: That was a good post, and I think you bring up some valid points. I can totally understand high school and young college kids would opt for the free alternative. That makes sense. Bashing WB because it isn't free though just seems to demonstrate a juvenile attitude. I have tried to never bash the idea of the uxtheme.dll hack because I think it is a great option for those who want that route.

Yeah, I quietly read the threads about MSStyles and such, and find the bickering sort of humorous. But for the sake of the community I hope they can grow out of it. GreenReaper brings up a good point. It is hard to have the motivation to download and make constructive comments on a skin that you really don't like. I think he has a great idea on how to motivate constructive criticism.

smoke-tetsu

on Dec 18, 2004

I make skins here for fun and to improve my desktop experience. Not out of obligation to strangers on the net.
Let me rephrase that.... In other words, when making a skin I have a certain layout in mind I truly consider the layout to be an integral part of the skin as a whole. In the past I have concidered changing my skins to please everyone but in the end it just created a huge amount of work to be done when a skin needs to be updated to the latest versions of the software and that burned me out on skinning.

As a matter of fact being able to have the buttons whereever the artist wants them is the major advantage and why I choose to use WB . Those who only want their buttons on the right might as well just use MS Styles. If releasing a skin (for free I might add) automatically obligates me to have to please everyone then I don't want to release any skins, ever. For example, I like to make my skins with the buttons on the left with certain features. I have also made skins that are like Enlightenment on linux which wildly vary in appearence. If I release my skins then the target audience is people who are like minded to me or who are looking for a change. If other people hate it there are thousands of alternatives for them to choose from.

If someone hired me to make a skin however then yes, there would be an obligation to please the ones who hired me or the customer. To me it's pretty much the same having every single skin the exact same layout just because someone tells you that it's the "correct" way to do it as releasing recolors of the same skin over and over.
Saying a certain layout is the correct way to do things when you are free to change it is like saying square is the only correct shape for a titlebar button and light grey is the only correct color scheme for an interface.

Another thought however, I myself have been using skins for years and I'm used to the idea of buttons being in different places in different skins and I quickly adapt. It's a good thing to be able to adapt to different things and to keep an open mind to different things. If people can't adapt to small things such as the titlebar buttons being on the left I can imagine them not being able to adapt to new environmental situations and going extinct.

Sorry if I come off sounding harsh and I'm not here to debate but I just want skinning to be fun and not just a job that you don't get paid for or merely a popularity contest for self verification.

In the good old days when skins weren't quite yet in the mainstream artists where free to do as they wish with their skins and they where praised for originality. Now people get complicated on you trying to force you to keep things in the "right place" and I'm like just because microsoft decided to put the buttons in that place that doesn't mean it's the only way to do things. If skinning is to be an art form then take for example, painting. If you also think there is only one correct way to paint you are dismissing all the talented artists who do things in a different style than your chosen "correct" painter.

That being said I'd rather stay out of it and keep my skins for a select few than have to deal with bickering. When not being paid for my efforts I don't have the time nor the energy to try to please everyone in the whole world. People are also free to mod skins for personal use, I have no problem with that.

Frogboy

on Dec 18, 2004

i think most would probably choose the latter. Not that big of a surprise then, that msstyles now appeals to a much wider variety of people compared to wb...

Actually that's not remotely true. The # of WindowBlinds users dwarfs the # of msstyles users. I think you are vastly overestimating the # of people willing to patch their system files, copying individual files into a particular Windows system directory for each skin all so that they can have a slightly different version of Luna (typically).

Whereas with WindowBlinds, it's a free download that they just install and can instantly run skins. People who get into it won't consider $20 significant. And those who don't care that much about it aren't going to think much about the missing scrollbars and such.

image

on Dec 19, 2004

About the whole popularity thing, to be honest i was making a general statement from my own browsing experience. i can see there are about 3200+ wb's just by looking at the sidebar here, but with msstyles, it's a bit like trying to track al qaeda what with the decentralized format and the number of remakes. Is it possible to give us some figures for a nice side-by-side comparison? Dont get me wrong, i love wb and have used it for well over a year now, so ive gotten used to the missing stuff. Guess its just a personal kinda thing too, not into buying stuff online =/...would you need a credit card or pay-pal or that kinda thing to buy? noobish question i kno hehe

GreenReaper

on Dec 19, 2004

smoke-tetsu: Nobody is going to force you to make your skins conform to what users expect. Just accept that the community has changed (it's no coincidence that "Joe User" is the name of one WC sister site), and many (most?) people here aren't here to appreciate artwork. They want something that they can use on their machines to make it look cool. Note the "they can use": people are lazy, having to adapt to something is hassle for them. So they don't. And they may complain about that in the comments and rate your skin down for it not being what they wanted, even though pleasing them wasn't your objective. People are like that.

I think the rating system here at WinCustomize encourages this. Considering the rating is meant to showcase skins that are geared to the site audience, perhaps this is acceptable, but I would personally prefer one that had separate components for things like originality, technical quality and how much the users liked using the skin. That way people would be encouraged to say "Well, I think the look is interesting, I just don't find it particularly easy to use". After all, you can't always do everything in a skin.

If you want it to be fun without the hassle of having to please everyone, then don't try to; just upload skins and don't change them based on user opinion/comments (unless it's something you agree would add to the skin's concept). You could say that specifically in the description or comments, or implicitly by not changing it. Just don't expect everyone to like your skin and appreciate its qualities if it's not what they were looking for!

scion2412

on Dec 19, 2004

Not only is there a complete lack of creativity in that community, it seems almost like standard operating procedure to completely rip off other artists without giving any mention of the original artists work at all. in this case, this person took all of the desgin credit. look for yourself, here's a link to a total ripoff of my Reinkiller skin http://www.themexp.org/preview.php?mid=78887&type=vs&view=date&page=&cat=&name=Rex+SqaD.zip

and the link for the real deal here on wincustomize
https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SkinID=4615&LibID=1&comments=1

GreenReaper

on Dec 19, 2004

Generously wrapped with adware, I see.

GreenReaper

on Dec 19, 2004

Well, I included a light version in Blackcomb, so there!

Carrots in skins . . . sounds like a new trend! CarrotXP!

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