What happened ?
WinCustomize Forums
There was a time when people made their window blinds something like this:
Now however people are trying 2 make it look something like this:
NOT saying either is better, wrong or whatever, but...Just wondering. What happened ?
A discussion around this would be refreshing I think 
People got conservative.....
Individuality became a swear word.
In my opinion, the huge taskbars and gaudy skins were more novelty than anything. I think now people want clean and minimal skins that can be used on a daily basis.
Skin #1 is definitly my fave of those two.
The style of skin #2 has been used far too many times.
Innovate - dont imitate.
Quality over quantity.
Skin for yourself, and fock what everyone else says.
Truth of the matter....
Originally, skinning was ALL about being different ... so skins REALLY were different.
These days skins WANT to be 'better' than the default...so it's all about class and detail...;)
Either way, quantity is NO substitute for quality ....;)
That's the 'oldschool' view, Paul (and mine too)
These days, I feel like it's more like 'skinners want to be the best - it's all about trashing the rest'.
The forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.
Back then everything in Windows looked the same and you couldn't change much (if anything). Then these little skinning applications known only to a small elite started popping up (eFx, Chrome, WindowBlinds) and, because everything looked the same, *anything* that looked even slightly different was received with 'wows and ahhhhs'. And the more different, the better, skinners were pushing the envelope of what could be done. People would tolerate the flaws on those skins because the Wow factor made up for it.
Then Stardock made skinning mainstream, people got used to it (lost the novelty factor) and being different was not enough anymore. Now it must be usable too, and better than what you already have (Aero looks pretty good by itself, so you also have the 'good enough' factor justifying the obvious decline in interest regarding skinning and customization applications).
Just noticed I said the exact same thing you did, Jafo, but in other words. Sorry for the plagiarism, lol
[quote who="Island Dog" reply="2" id="2962280"]I think now people want clean and minimal skins that can be used on a daily basis.[/quote
Yup. Sometimes with the all to different ones, pieces wouldn't work quite well, or it would be difficult to read.
Personally, I really enjoy the latest and greatest that are coming up. I don't find them dull at all! And Classy is an appropriate adjective. 
Jorge....and you're so right, too ...;)
Being a two finger typist I was just a little more succinct ...;)
I've created both minimal and novelty skins -- sometimes I have a busy wallpaper and I want the skin to just accent it and sometimes I want the skin to the be focus and the wallpaper to just accent it. The one I'm working on right now is flashy.
I think the real change to minimal happened with the advent of Vista and continued strong with Windows 7 -- XP was just so freakin' loud and ugly people thought that's the way their operating system was suppose to look. When Microsoft went minimal, so did skinners.
Plus Skinners that made extraordinary graphics and/or skins were hired by Stardock and are rarely seen anymore or they just quitted skinning. See Hippy, MikeB, Treetog, Johanne, Mormegil (man I miss his skins and icons, Apogee ist still genius), Thredz, Tech13, Dangeruss and the list goes on..
I miss every single person you mentioned there, Carl, but specially the two first, Mark and Mike.
Mark (hippy(goth)) more or less taught me how to skin WB over 7 years ago, plus his work was (and still is) a massive inspiration (even though I'm an "ex"-skinner)
Mark, Mike and Renato (treetog) are the cremé de la cremé of by-gone-skinning/skinners, the hardcore hard core of the original skinners, wether they will stand by it or not.
The only limit is your own imagination. Ya got to push outside the box and i got the perfect example. Look at my Hardwood smx for RedneckDude's WB, the first version. Looks like a piece of furniture. Even got a feature. Now look at version two, Hardwood II smx WIP. Not as easy as it looks. I like being different.
Another reason I belive we don't see that kind of quality anymore is that (to me) a Windowblinds skin just doesn't cut it anymore. Too many pieces are not able to be skinned and thus NOTHING looks 100% complete. MS has ruined Windowblinds skinning. There are some good blinds around and what can be skinned is done fairly well but I still think the small details aren't there like they used to be. I feel that quality has taken a back seat to quantity with quite a few talented people.
DX is also borked on Win7 x64. A lot of the built in tools (performance meters for example) don't work and version 4 is even worse. I fear DX has become a has been.
Iconpackager - Has hosed my system 1 too many times. Haven't used it since the last time it did it to me a couple years ago. (Blank icon issues especially if you uninstall the program).
Wallpapers - some good stuff out there but WAY too much abstract swirlyballspirograph stuff. Remember the good ol days of Nuvem and Apocalypse67? etc.
The only thing I've found to be reliable is Winstep and I'm waiting on the skinning tools for that before I have a go at it.
Uvah.. does smx work 100% on Windows7? Also, that is a FINE example of quality craftsmanship there.
Thank you Phoon. Means a lot coming from you.
SMX works beautifully on Win7. Never a problem since i started using it. IMO...Sysmetrix is underutilized.
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