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Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2009-12-07 00:23 |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 5 |
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Hi people, 1st Hurray for Hamsphere! well done kelly what a cracking bit of comms code you have given us for free!!
SKIN DESIGNING - DESIGNERS Now alot of us like to MOD and Customize and Personalize our gadgets n radios these days and software come to think if it like Winamp2 and 3, So wouln't it be great if we could download a basic graphics template with all the seperate graphics and boundery perameters much like what is done with many new MP3 PMP Personal Medai Players, Like the popular iPod, iRiver and Cowon D2, and even operating system mods like Rockbox, but for now lets stick to Skinning or Skin Designing, Wouldnt it be great to have a Kenwood Looking Skin , a Yaesu Looking Skin, Icom, etc etc Look at how massive the skinning community is at www.winamp.com including the forums there, I have a massive collection of skins for winamp 2 and 3, that includes Kenwood styles Sony , Panasonic, Pioneer, Nad, Rotel, etc etc ability to be able to change white backgrounds to softer color schemes, black backgrounds with Green, Blue or Amber Text like LEDs. Its all possible and would help thrust the excellent Hamphere into the next phase of custom developement. So over to Kelly and the Coders I guess for their suggestions, thanks all M3XEM ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Currently running 2 x Cowon D2s with Cassini Skins for low light night use, www.iaudiophile.net - www.advancedmp3players.co.uk |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2009-12-07 00:42 |
Moderator Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 437 |
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hello Dominic.... This is weird. I was just up on Rig Pics looking at the Icoms and thinking, wouldn't it be cool if.... well, you know the rest. I have often wondered about the different skins for the various gadgets. Tell me, is it a difficult process?
I'll have to check out the WinAmp Forum. Years ago I had a little FM radio on my desktop from WinAmp. It was the coolest thing on the block at the time. I almost forgot about it. I have no idea how creating new skins works but I'd really like to find out. There are a lot of folks on here that are pretty technical and have lent Kelly a hand and I'm sure they would be interested as well. Looking forward to hearing back from you Dom. Thanks for the post and welcome to Hamsphere. 73 Jerry - N1TKO |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2009-12-07 01:23 |
Moderator Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 437 |
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Update.... Hello again Dominic.... Never mind!! hi hi
Just looked through the WinAmp developers Forum.... wow, that stuff is a little too technical for me. Crating a skin isn't as easy as making a hot dog.... dump the meat and whatever in this end and a hot dog comes out the other... No, its pretty involved. But, I sure do hope that someone on here gets interested enough to create a few different Radio skins for HS. It would be cool to change the virtual shack around every so often. Dom, thanks for the interesting post. I read your other post also about the phone apps, etc.... interesting but just a little too much for my old melon to absorb. Cheers Pal Jerry - N1TKO |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2009-12-07 12:11 |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 5 |
| Hi Jerry , all received, yes Winamp skinning can be very complex but what we need is something simple like Winamp 2 was! 2D flat graphics with 3D artwork to add the real touch, its one main panel and some knobs, it cant be too hard. Most .exe files for example "hs20015.exe" is just a .zip file you should be able to extract it into a folder, not to change any code but just to see the graphics folder, and copy each graphic into your own "HS_Artwork" folder, do the art work, zip it all back up as the .exe file it was, and its job done. As for the learning curve I agree it can get very complex with Winamp 3 so don't go down that road, but the simple layout of HS would be child's play to your dedicated skin designer, what I did was research forums dedicated to various Media Players software and Hardware this includes PC Themes they are just Skins really, so all we need to do is get a few experts in the field to get us going with some .zip files of all the separate graphics and as long as you stick to the exact sizes it should work fine, one skin designer I know called Cassini makes fantastic skins and they are always free, I will ask on the Iaudiophile.net forums. In my honest opinion Skinning is what made Winamp so big and the Visuals designers forums, the band scope could incorporate some great visual options, could have a submarine "style" band scope all sorts of ideas like Chrome Knobs and Photographed Meters "with signal needle removed" to create some great real looks, Imagine all the old school CBs and Amateur Radio gear you could re-create or have custom looks based on for EG: Cobra 148 LTD, Magnum Deltaforce, Harrier CBX, Yeasu FT2000, and Kenwood Radios the list is endless, even wooden effect, one great Winamp 2 skin was an old school radio, and an Old Style Nasa display skin with all the original dials it was brilliant, I even reckon I could convert some old winamp 2 skins over to HS! I will need to do some nerding and forum begging but I don't mind. In short we could end up with a small .zip pack of "Invisible Layer Templates" that would work in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop, which is basically like tracing paper shapes to draw over in simple terms HI, as for the phone App its out of my programing league but child's play to the guy that loves that sort of thing, so we must have a chat on a few different forums and slowly see what happens. thanks for the interest Jerry! I know I'm not alone on this subject, as with many Hams though I'm having a bit of a tough time with my health HI so its gonna be a slow but sure thing, once we have got a enough interest anyone should be able to read the instructions on the Forums and download the template pack. Once I make some skins people could simply download them assuring the version of HS was upto date, this happens on PMP players with Firmware when its updated, everybody wants there custom skin to work with the latest Code or Firmware, so you need a HS Extractor Tool (like winzip or winrar) which extracts all the code into folders, you then just paste the graphics in the Folders and use another small software Tool (like winzip or winrar) to pack it all up into an .exe file, and away you go, people do this all the time for the Cowon Media Players that basically make many other players look boring. Cheers Jerry chat soon. | |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2009-12-07 12:46 |
Admin Registered: 16 years ago Posts: 1,061 |
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To develop a skin for HamSphere is quite easy.
I made the HS2.0 very modular. It is basically a PlugIn. I have another skin developed by Bill in Florida. Unfoirtunately I havent yet completed it. Anyway, just let me know if you have any ideas on a new skin that you want to develop. regards Kelly |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2009-12-07 15:56 |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 5 |
| That's fantastic news Kelly thanks, I will try to come up with some graphics based on HS Screen prints and my own graphics that can be re-sized, or whatever I can find out as to sourcing the original graphics like the location they are in, I just haven't looked yet to be honest, then I can work on some ideas and send them to you for any final touches and compiling. cheers Kelly 73s M3XEM | |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2009-12-29 08:38 |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 122 |
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I think this subject is very interesting, it would be great to enjoy a similar design to the Icom IC-7800, Kenwood TS-2000E or Yaesu FT-2000E. I think the realistic appearance of design and simulation is the great advantage of hamsphere.
An attractive design, realistic attracts many users, I think it should be noted, this topic. I look forward to a new version of the current design of 2.0 May have an IC-7800 although it is virtual? jejejej Greetings to all, 73 Sergio 30HS142 |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2009-12-31 14:25 |
Admin Registered: 16 years ago Posts: 1,061 |
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Hello.
I have a comments regarding the "similar" design. Each rig manufacturer has its own "form" language. Such as Yaesu, Icom etc. I think it would be unwise to rip a rig's form completely and start using it on HamSphere. That could probably be copyright infringements. For the HS2.0 I have designed all my gadgets myself with a little help from my friend Eric who did the buttons. The HS2.0 is inspired by the Icom IC7600 but totally re-organized in order to stay away from copyright infringements. Does anyone out ther know anything about how close you can be to the real thing without getting sued. I know that quite a few Air-Sim panels are very very much alike the real thing. Cheers Kelly 5B4AIT |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2009-12-31 16:56 |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 122 |
| Kelly is right on the above, be careful with that topic. But I still maintain that although the design is totally new, must be as real as possible to the current line of transceivers. | |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2010-01-01 21:06 |
Admin Registered: 16 years ago Posts: 1,061 |
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Yeah, I wish someone could give a "solicitors" view on the above.
I mean, the form language of a rig is one thing. I guess one could basically rip the layout of the rig but stay away from copying the "slanted" corners or "futuristically" designed buttons and possibly get away with it, but I don't know. Anyway, I will during the spring present an API on how to make a skin for HamSphere. But considering the discussed above, there must be an official verification of the skin before it can go public. Today each "skin" is a Java class that interfaces with the HamSphere application. The Interface is a number of functions that have to be supported. So the skin is very much working like a plugin that could be swapped and replaced "on-the-fly", just like the WinAmps skin. 73 Kelly |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2010-01-02 08:51 |
Registered: 15 years ago Posts: 122 |
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Wait output Api announced for this spring.
A greeting Kelly |
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Re: Skin Designers Make Your Mark!
2012-11-17 04:23 |
Registered: 12 years ago Posts: 3 |
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is this still open.. i mean the skin designing for hamsphere? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /"\ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign . Windows: "Where do you want to go today?" X - NO HTML/RTF in e-mail . Linux: "Where do you want to go tomorrow?" / \ - NO Word docs in e-mail . BSD: "Are you guys coming or what?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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