I've recently created a few logons (4 in total), 3 of them even contain a "splash" (transparently/translucent area positioned on top of the bkgrnd image/wallpaper).
They look I guess but I'm wanting to skin the rest of the logon elements as well.
I rec'd alot of help and the logon template itself from Boss0190 (you can visit his site here, he has a ton of quality splash logons http://boss0190.wincustomize.com/)
and you can see the discussion here https://forums.wincustomize.com/?forumid=40&aid=140686&p=1#1098557
Those interested can find Boss0190's logon template that he offers freely is here http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/32414672/?qo=116&q=by%3Aboss019&qh=sort%3Atime+-in%3Ascraps
It really is a good base for starting a logon with a splash. You can use LogonStudio (XP version, not vista) and your graphic editing program of choice to create excellent looking logons. However, if you want to create a logon with the "splash" effect (mentioned above), you can only use LogonStudio to apply the logon, you can't edit it with LogonStudio. Basically it requires editing the contents of a folder which contain a number .bmp images, a uifile and a theme file.
The only thing that gets edited in the "theme" file is the name of the logon, logon author, author email address & any special notes you want to include in the notes section. I haven't edited anything else in this file. It lists descriptions for most of the .bmp image files used in the logon.
bmp_100.bmp is your logon bkgrnd image/wallpaper
bmp_128.bmp is your "splash" element, (a 32bit alpha blended bitmap which I believe is a 24bit image along with 8bit alpha channel for transparency)
The original post on how to create a "splash" for your logons is available here http://greatsphynx.wincustomize.com/Articles.aspx?AID=82822
I will also include the splash tutorial here as well since it's nice to reference everything all in one spot (maybe this post can grow with a bunch of tips from other users)
Creating a Bitmap_128 Tutorial created on Aug 4, 2005 8:27 PM by PhilipDJ check out his site at http://greatsphynx.wincustomize.com/
This tutorial is made to help understand how transparency and per pixel alpha blending is applied in bitmap_128 using Adobe Photoshop. To illustrate this, we will be using the bitmap_128 used in the Windows Vista Logon version 1.2 which can be downloaded here Link . Remember that in alpha channels or layers, black means transparent and white means solid. Any color between white and black would be semi-transparency of different levels.
1. First, create a new document with sufficient dimensions to hold all logon elements to be contained in the center panel. The commonly used dimension is 612 x 501. The background could either be white or any color or even transparent depending on your discretion.
2. Create a new layer and name it "Glass". Press U to activate the shape tool . Choose the round rectangle tool and set it to 20px radius . Set your foreground to white and then draw your shape to the size you like onto the document.
3. Ctrl+click on the thumbnail of your "Glass" layer on the layers tab to make a selection exactly like the shape you just created. Go to the channels tab and create a new channel (its default name will be Alpha 1) .
4. To create a subtle shadow effect around your glass, set your foreground color to #636363. Press ctrl+alt+d to open feather selection window, set feather to 3 and press enter.
5. On your "Alpha 1" channel, press alt+backspace to fill the selection with the foreground color. Press ctrl+d to deselect.
6. to create that semi-transparent outline of the glass, go back to the layers tab and ctrl+click on the thumbnail of your "Glass" layer to select it. Return to channels tab, set your foreground this time to #c8c8c8. Press alt+backspace to fill the selection with the foreground color.
7. With your selection still on, go the Select menu, click modify, choose contract and set it to 1. Press ok.
8. Set your foreground color to #484848 and your background color to #282828. Press G to activate your gradient tool. Set gradient filling to Reflected Gradient and apply it on the image like here. Press ctrl+d to deselect.
That basically covers the main steps in creating transparent, per-pixel blended, glass-like bitmap_128. If you want to add more objects into the image, you can do so. Just go back to the layers tab and add your stuff there. But make sure that in your alpha channel, you specify whether these will have solid colors or semi-transparencies.
- editing your UIFILE in your logon folder, I found that changing the vertical flow layout to
0,2,2,2) layoutpos=client >
centers the logon splash element quite nicely in the middle of the screen. Does anyone know what the values 0,2,2,2 correspond to. Instead of trial & error, I'd love to know that 0 means left or right or X,Y, etc. If you know what I'm talking about please reply to this post.
OK..... back to the reason why I began, this post.
Using the template from Boss0190 and a pre-made splash (bmp_128.bmp) that I created using Photoshop and the tutorial shown above, I can pretty much churn out an unlimited number of logons which look ok but they're not as functional as they could be. I have started skinning the go & hint buttons and the up/down scroll arrow buttons and the scrollbar as well. This is especially helpful if you have several users on one machine and want to scroll through the list. Currently in my existing logons, they look really good if you have only 2 users on a machine (and chances are that alot of people will probably only have that many) but there also going to be alot of machines out there that have several user accounts setup on them. Skinning the scroll arrow buttons & scrollbar allows you to view the list which is helpful. Also what's helpful is having the go & hint buttons (both states: default & mouse over) skinned as well. It's easy enough to hit enter after selecting your user account and entering your password but what if you want to click on the go button or click on the hint button to view the password hint. Those functions still exist even if you don't skin those buttons (in fact if you hold your mouse cursor over the areas where those buttons would be, those function still work) but instead of clicking on nothing, I would rather have an image to click on.
Go & Hint buttons (both states: default & mouse over)
ButtonGo=Bitmap_103.bmp
ButtonGoSelected=Bitmap_104.bmp
ButtonHelp=Bitmap_105.bmp
ButtonHelpSelected=Bitmap_106.bmp
Scroll arrow up/down & scrollbar buttons:
ScrollButtonDown=Bitmap_109.bmp
ScrollButtonUp=Bitmap_110.bmp
ScrollBody=Bitmap_111.bmp
I can "successfully" skin these buttons, that's not the problem. My problem arises when applying the logon, these images stretch from their original size and they look a little bloated/fuzzy around the edges because they're being stretched. My question is why are they stretching (I'm assuming this will happen to the rest of the buttons that I skin) and what I can do to fix them.
I'll keep adding to this post as I get more info/find more tips on skinning logons.
Boss & any other logon experts, if you're out there and happen to read this post and have some time, please lend some more of your expertise if you can. I know you don't want to do it for us and you want us to learn (and I didn't want to bother you with a torrent of emails on this), I'll keep plugging away at it until then.