Merry Orthodox Cristmas!

If you didn't know, i've been rewriting Revolutions Pack 8 from scratch, and now,
the time has come and i'm presenting UberSkin, the ultimate skinning engine.

THE ONLY skinning engine capable of native taskbar skinning now with Windows 98, ME and even 95 shell support!
The LameSkin which is no longer lame!
Does not patches, not includes, not requires system files from other OSes
Yeah, no more pain and suffering. Now even eidenk can't blame me.
=compatible with all official and unofficial updates!

Still does not consumes process to run
Smoothly integrates into system
Clean install and uninstall
Can't mess up registry. One single exe and no worries.
Compatible with all applications
Unlike Revolutions Pack 7, UberSkin does not have problems with apps using Unicows, Nero and other tools.
Miserable resource impact
UberSkin consumes several times less resources than LameSkin (considering LameSkin already using less than commercial skinners). It won't ever use more than hundred KBs of physical memory.

+ Completely Free.

System requirements:
Windows 98, 98SE or Windows ME. It won't work under Windows 95, however, it would work with 98Lite.
Recommended updates: IE6, Unofficial Service Packs, 98SE2ME. If you don't use IE (98Lite), then comctl32 and user/user32 should be updated.
And yeah: NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ANY REVOLUTIONS PACK VERSION. They simply can't communicate.

Download:
http://tihiy.ahanix.org/uberskin.exe
Version: 8.3.13 Release [English, Russian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, French, Italian Release]
Changes:
8.1.1: Fixed Crazy Browser / Maxthon address bar issue.
8.1.2: Fixed beeps and 16-bit apps causing major crashes.
8.1.3: Fixed regressions; added protection for shell hang after mass file operation.
8.1.4: Minor taskbar/tray fixes, ability to show desktop icon labels transparent
8.1.5: LOT of fixes. Minor improvements.
8.1.6: Fixed SecuROM issue!
8.1.7: Fixed very minor issues.
8.1.8: Critical issues.
8.1.9: Fixed windows custom shapes.
8.1.10: Nothing interesting.
8.1.11: Finishing fixes;
8.1.12: Rewrited some things to avoid Drugwash' Miranda crash.
8.2.0: Major additions?
8.2.1: Translations.
8.2.5: Important fix.
8.2.8: Important changes.
8.3.0: USalvation.
8.3.1: Office XP fix.
8.3.2: eMule fix.
8.3.5: various minor fixes.
8.3.6: fixes for fixes.
8.3.8: final version, lol.
8.3.10: nothing to lol about.
err where is 11&12?
8.3.13: fixed KTM && Paint Shop.


Installing: click uberskin.exe
Removing: click uberskin.exe
Remember. If you system appears to be messed up, you can always go into Safe Mode and uninstall UberSkin from there, since it is not active in Safe Mode. If somehow your system can't enter it, ask your friend who knows DOS to delete rp8.dll from \windows\system.

Note: some skins use Trebuchet MS font. If you don't have it, you can download it.

Download now!

So, how do I apply skins?
Go to Display properties, appearance tab. There are several skins installed by default, for example, Windows XP.
Can I change system sizes, colors and all that? Skin resets as soon as i change it.
That's right. You need to save it under same name before applying.
Can I create my skins?
Yeah, you can. There are already dozen or so skins created by MFSN community members over this board.
You can refer to documentation: http://tihiy.ahanix.org/uber
So UberSkin is just that LameSkin? Isn't there any very new features?
There are some features in UberSkin which are new:
- Enhanced toolbar skinning
- Enhanced progress bar skinning
- Quick Launch skinning
- Asyncronous skin loading
- Trackbar skinning
There are more planned in short time.
Where's RP8?
It is in production, and UberSkin is "RP8 Tier 0". So far it will be a platform for testing new engine.
Which languages does it support?
Any (multi-byte character sets systems may have slight troubles!). Provide your translation if you want.

information about additional functionality
UberSkin modules provides some hidden, extended functionality for OS and user.
- Resource salvation: UberSkin is able to improve USER local heap capacity a bit.
- SendMessageCallback fix: limits asynchronous communication in order to fix resource absorption which can hang the system during mass file operations;
- Appearance font charset control: fonts are applied with system charset, in order to not confuse the user.
Shell functionality:
- Explorer taskbar locking. Similar to XP+ one;
- Transparent desktop icons labels. You can enable this function with registry setting:


UberSkin Add-On: Kernel Task Manager!
* Included by default into 8.3.10 and above
This addon provides extended functionality for Ctrl-Alt-Del dialog. It allows you to run programs as well as provides other important functionality like RP7 dialog.


Installation:
Copy ktm8.dll into \windows\system. Reboot is not required.
Uninstallation:
Delete ktm8.dll from \windows\system. Reboot is not required.

You can disable double Ctrl-Alt-Del salute if you like so, with this registry setting:

I can summarize my response in three words: THIS IS GREAT!

Seems very stable and resource friendly, no troubles yet. There are a few glitches. Some dropdown boxes have a wrong sized background. Animated tray icons (zonealarm) don't look ok. But the rest is beautifull.

Thank you Tihiy!

NICE WORK TIHIY

The 98FE Startbutton problem is fixed!!!!
CAN'T WAIT UNTIL RP8

uhhhhhhh... WOW!!!!!

Haven't been able to try yet, but it looks AMAZING!

Pretty nice

Is there any specific reason to lock the taskbar toolbars?

Issue1: doesn't work well in combination with True LaunchBar and custom taskbar/icon sizes.
My custom-height taskbar:
Resizes to bad height, artefacts in taskbar "window" borders area, missing icons in systray:


This one looks funny:

Well, at least it all gets fixed when i revert back to a non-skinned theme

Issue2: some windows might need to be closed & reopened after the theme is changed times, notice the top part in following pics:


P.S. could you add some code to make names of desktop icons transparent ?

Tihiy its so great!!!
Man i'ts so simple, so clean, and so fast.. I can open a lot of processes and I never see the magenta color on the skin borders!
I have some little things to ask..

- Enhanced toolbar skinning
- Enhanced progress bar skinning

What is the changes?

If you need to refresh your memory.. You can look at this, this is some of the none-skinned windows parts.

Hmmm .....

Impressive ..... most impressive !

My dream has come true ...



I'm pleased to report that RP8 IS WORKING with Windows 95 osr2.1 ..... My test bed setup was Win95 osr2.1 with updated user32.dll-1387. IE5.5 is installed. I don't remember off-hand what other changes I've made ... This system have been patched earlier with older RP6 explorer and a few other dll stuff. (I'll test again on a fresh setup later ...)

Screenshots :

Wooaa ... ZuneXP skin on windows 95 ... Now even volume control is skinned.


.... Just to show that RP8 is indeed working on windows 95 and this is not some polished stuff ...

Tihiy, my utmost gratitude for releasing RP8 !

Rgds

Oh, thank ya. Now i'm waiting for bugs.
Well, no. But! If your taskbar seems to be locked even after removing "Lock the Taskbar", then you probably must update your IE. I've seen those bugs before i've installed IE6.

Oh my. There was a load of bugs fixed with those LaunchBars... Free works almost ok; but i can't change TrueLaunchBar appearance at all. I'll try to look into those issues.
Yes, known regression.
I do have, so far TBD.
They were working properly only for Explorer in RP7.
You're evil one
Aaaaa what's with this Frankenstein... Nice to hear But icon size code was unable to kick in so your icons are blurry...

Hmmm .....

Ok, bug reports ...


Click to view attachment
If you look at the pic above:
(1) Minor thing I guess, but portion of original button appears behind the minimize button.
(2) Scroll bar button skin revert to original on focus


Click to view attachment
Did I mess up anything or this quicklaunch background skin doesn't work on win95 ?


Click to view attachment
Was testing it on some other apps and saw the above happened (CrazyBrowser 3.0beta2).



Perhaps its one of the dll updates (or could even be explorer.exe). Lock/unlock the Taskbar works here with ie5.5 ...


I am happy enough to overlook that minor issue. Probably when it gets on my nerves then I'll do something about it ...

Rgds

N/A for my installs. That's probably user.exe from Memphis doing those nasty things.
That's how it is; Quicklaunch images weren't provided for most skins in this release (only Windows XP).
Now that's nice. I'll try to reproduce.

Everyone: i'm interested in major bugs. There were two nasty bugs fixed during (very short) beta cycle: (1) 16-bit apps leading to BSOD. (2) Some applications (IE for example) were crashing in RP8.dll after long use on exit. Can you reproduce them?

Hi, Tihij

is it possible to use uberskin under Windows 2000 or do you plan to port it?
It would be a great addition to your marvelous Windows 2000 Revolutions Pack!!!

well, that was exactly what i wanted to know.
you know my pack for 2000 leans a great bit on your rpl2k.
so can you let us know?

Damian666

Tested UberSkin on 98se2me,mdcu250,nusb33e,mdie6cu17e,symantec 8.1.0825.
It works well! Thankyou Tihiy!

I can confirm this. Same addressbar here with Maxthon 1.6.3.

I try Hook99 (freeware) / transparent icons & icons text - OK => no comflict. View apply on Czech Windows 98 SE:



Thx Tihiy!!!

Thanks for the tip, i already have a few programs which do this. However i don't want to run a separate program for that.

Running only Transparent (section Desktop) with Hook! Section Taskbar no active (conflict)

Just noticed something. If I enable "LockToolbars" in the taskbar context menu, then disable it, toolbars stay locked (no resize handles). To unlock them "Lock Toolbars" have to be disabled upon boot.

HTH

Surely some update issue, since i've seen that before installing SP 2.1 and IE6.0. Can you install them or do you already have?
Or isn't 98SE you're running?

I'm running Win98SE with SP 2.1, IE 6 (BROWSELC.DLL and BROWSEUI.DLL both v5.50), 98SE2ME shell update and a random mix of patches and customisations. Pretty old (4+ years) install, screwed & fixed many times

btw. if nobody else reported this issue, then don't worry about it.

Now that I have seen this,When is Rp8 Coming Out?I can't wait!!!

What new features?
I don't use Rp anymore but when RP8 comes out I will use it everyday!!!

ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT

ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT

Tihiy,

May I know what does the clicks/beeps (messagebeep?) on minimize/maximize means ? Any particular condition you're looking for in uberskin? Only happens on certain specific apps (including some of my old binaries). Most apps doesn't do that.

Rgds

Only for CZECH Windows 98 (ME) with tweak font charset (1250), rename string (Lock the> Zamknout) and czech install info:
UberSkin CZ

Tihiy - thx!

This needs a bump!

Hmmm .....

Many thanks for the update (uberskin 8.1.1) ... CrazyBrowser & Maxthon address listbox works fine now ...


Yep. It was user.exe ... now using one without those minor issues. Working fine now. Only the icon size issue. Using a dll to get 32bit clr systray with fixed icon size for now. The ones in UI maybe later ...


Hmmm ..... how long a time does it take to see this possible crash ? Will I see rp8.dll in the error box ? So far, no crashes were directly linked to rp8.dll ... I have encountered some rundll32 errors with control panel applets but I'll make several more tests to conclude if it really is related (though I don't think so) ...

I've made tests on new setups of win95, win98fe and win98se. No issues on both win98 versions. Win95 requires several official updates plus the "unofficial" user module as 3 of the required api are not available. I've checked and dbl checked all win95 user.exe official updates that I know of and each one seems to leave-out at least 2 of the api ... not much concern there I guess ...

I've also tested it on one of my "slowest" p2 system and the skins refreshes are super fast compared to rp7. Must be the new menubartemp thing. Really amazes me at times on how you manage to cook this to work perfect.

Thanks again.

Rgds

I'm back.

Do you still experience weird beeps? Yes, you must see usual program crash box. It appeared after several minutes/apps usually. Maybe those beeps means crashes on closing?
That's nice to hear... But what you mean by 'skins refreshes'? Selecting and loading another skin? If so, how much seconds it takes/took? There is 'resource optimizer' thing that was in RP7, not in UberSkin, but will be. Maybe it is the cause?

I've spent some time today to skin trackbars:

And it is finished.
However, i'm planning to rewrite UberSkin once again to reduce GDI usage down to minimal value. Instead of bitmap optimizer, i'll move them into local memory. Also i will rewrite StretchBlt to fix display trashing, since it prevents real alpha blending... If it will be performance-wise.

Oh holy mother
There's no noticeable perfomance hit, so i'm going to rewrite everything again.
Kill me please

LOL, no... just torture you with feature requests
Would it be possible to add some uxtheme.dll simulation? You know, some apps seems to check for this functionality and don't work at all if it's not available.

Fine work, no issues except the ones i already mentioned .

Stunning! I have a slow system - painfully so - yet there is absolutely no noticable impact whatsoever when running this. It's only the best skinning program ever conceived. Excellent work!

About the only features I'd whine about would be allowing more alpha or a tag for such (when it comes to flattening images to their fake backgrounds laziness takes hold) and skin more stuff! -but you're probably expecting that anyway ;*)

I'm porting over an XP skin at the moment called BlackMesa. The developer made the source images available, you see. When it's done I'll be sure to post it with proper credit, not that lame 'some guy' line above.


Oh! Just two questions: is MENU an unimplemented feature and what do those QL- features in the header of certain skins actually apply? Neither is listed in the documentation and just removing them seems to do nothing.

Most items support 32-bit images... It is optimized for laziness. Trackbar and toolbar will gain 'real' alpha blending for next version.

Menu was in RP4, and is gone for now. QLCutoff values are new for UberSkin. They're specifying how much pixels should be cut off from quick launch buttons image, just for laziness.

Hmmm .....


Yep, still having beeps on minimize/maximize for certain apps (CrazyBrowser, Cacheman, FDM). If sound events enabled, it will ding (default sound event) thru audio speaker. If sound events disabled, it will click thru pc speakers. Only happens if uberskin applied (tested on win95, win98fe & win98se). I remember seeing MessageBeep linked in uberskin ... but no crashes occurs, only the beeps/clicks ...


Sorry, I meant to say that on the p2 with uberskin the taskbar is being drawn/redrawn (update?) in a blink upon windows bootup (especially) and after applying new skin. Opening/closing windows is noticeably smoother too ...

On the same p2 (p2-400 on i810gfx), rp7 draws taskbar section by section (startbutton + systray then taskbar + quicklaunch) and the process is more noticeable when many startup programs are still loading in the background. It was installed with rp7 july/sept release ... perhaps later release fixes these things ...


No can do ..... No one can do rp8 better than you ... but I'll shoot you with loads of paintballs if uberskin degrades ...

Rgds

Hello Tihiy...
I wanted to thank you for UberSkin...
It's the first Window's skinning app that I've ever decided to use long term...

Some bug reports:

DVD Decrypter and Imgburn will not shutdown properly while UberSkin is in use...
They both just stay open after attempting to exit them...

PassingBy's bug "(messagebeep) on minimize/maximize" is also present on my system...
It also happens when closing some programs...
I do not get any error dialogs when the beeps occur...

The Icon closest to the clock, in the System Tray, is slightly cut off... (1st pic)

TclockEX (An enhancement of the standard Windows taskbar clock) is not skinned... (1st pic)
It may not be possible to skin it ...

The "taskbar seems to be locked even after removing "Lock the Taskbar"" bug is present on my system...
I have IE 6 SP1 installed, fully updated... including MDGX's latest patches...
I am using the 5.5 SP2 browse*.dll files to prevent explorer lockups... which may be the problem...

UberSkin doesn't make coffee... or provide doughnuts while in use... can this be fixed...?

Thanks again for this wonderful app...

Oh, the decides that are so painful...
Because i don't want to double UberSkin insides, i must choose to rewrite or not to rewrite:
DIBs vs DDBs. I've seen significant performance gains only on my Windows XP, and since i don't have real drivers to test with (VMWare, VESA and Scitech do not count), i'm asking YOU to help me quick!

There is a dumb performance tester attached which performs 32-bit (or 24-bit, or 8-bit) image BitBlt/StretchBlt test. Please run it. It will show 3 numbers. If they are significantly different, post them here and stop.
If not, there are also other conditions you can stress it with:
1) Convert bmp file into 24- or 8-bit one using any tool like MSPaint.
2) /stretch switch to test stretch instead of blit.
Rerun test.
I'm very interested to see any results. Do not forget to write your video card model.

What do you mean by "post them here and stop"...?

Nvidia GeForce2 MX 400 video card...

-6? Can you try to run it again?

Hmmm .....

Quick test with i810gfx

Cloverfield as is:
Click to view attachment

Cloverfield /stretch :
Click to view attachment

Rgds

Hmmm .....

After a while, another series of test runs on the same i810gfx:

The top row run clovertest as is. The bottom row run clovertest /stretch:
Click to view attachment
BTW, are the numbers accurate ?

Rgds

Hmmm .....

Finally, my first crash directly related to uberskin .... Solitaire (16bit app) will crash immediately after selecting options.

While we're here, there's another bug related to uberskin. Character map (16bit app) is unable to select any character after changing to any font.

Rgds

I've confirmed all bugs.
And seems that rewrite won't happen (current method is 3rd number, new method is 2nd number, less -> better).

radeon 9600 pro:

8070.00000000698
8080
1869.99999999826

HTH

Well, it's a bit after the fact, but for what it's worth...

Pentium Pro 200MZ
64MB RAM
Matrox MGA Millenium

org
8240
8230
8070

org /stretch
28120
29720
2800

24bit
7910
8230
8070

24bit /stretch
28180
29600
2800

8bit
10220
10380
8070

8bit /stretch
24280
24270
2800

I don't know if it has already been mentioned yet but one thing that isn't skinned are the tabs in dialog boxes.

Yeah, two major things left, i think: menus [very hard x2] and tabs [boring hard].
I hope to have 'bugfixed' version tomorrow and 'new' version in a week, but i'm listening to your demand every second.

Well, menus aren't even skinned in XP so I wouldn't consider this as a major issue.

Yeah, but even just trying to make menus have different color is very hard. However, making them 'flat' is simple. I'll consider this option for new version.