What are “Skins”.
Synthedit Skins are a means of changing the appearance of your control panel view, and defining the behaviour of some of the controls.
From the default dark blue skin:-
To this one:-
Skins are a collection of graphics files and text files. These folders and file are at the default path of C:\Users\Public\Documents\SynthEdit Projects once again do not edit or change this, except to add new folders which must always have a unique name. Shown below is the contents of the Default folder.
Important note: Do not change, edit or delete the default skin. Really don’t change it, not ever.
Add a new folder to the skins directory, the folder name is your new skin’s name. Once again, this folder must have a unique name.
Copy and paste images.
Copy any of the skin bitmaps you want to change to your new directory. Each bitmap has a text file with the same name. It describes the skin. Once you have made your copy then feel free to edit it as you like using a bitmap (paint) editor.
Size matters:
Keep your new skin images the same size as the originals, this will allow you to change the skin without having to re-arrange the controls again. You will almost certainly need to restart SynthEdit to see the changes you have made.
Mask files:
The mask file is optional, it contains transparency information. A simpler way to use transparency is the keyword ‘transparent_pixel x,y’ in the text file. This tells synthedit which pixel contains the ‘transparent’ color.
Fonts:
Font face, size and color are controlled by the file global.txt.
Image options:
Type:-
Slider:- the image has two parts: a background image and a sliding part that moves along a straight path.
Knob/Animated:- An image containing a series of frames arranged in a vertical stack (aka ‘filmstrip’).
Button:- Similar to a knob, but only two frames; on and off.
Bargraph:- the image contains two stacks of ‘lights’ (all-off and all-on). The metadata describes how to animate the lights.
Knob/Animated
frame_size:- the size of each frame of a filmstrip image. in pixels. Applies to buttons, knobs and animated images. Example:- frame_size 32, 32
padding:- The number of extra blank pixels to insert around an image. Used to visually center a knob or button which is asymmetrical. Example; padding 13, 7, 13, 4
handle_rect:- The position of the handle in a slider image. The handle is the part that moves. Example;- handle_rect 4, 41, 28, 55
handle_range:- The range of motion of the handle in a slider image. The handle moves from the top to the bottom of the image. The range is specified in pixels. Example;- handle_range 1, 26
orientation:– vertical or horizontal – the direction of motion of the handle in a slider image. Example;- orientation vertical
segment:- Used for Bargraph images. The vertical position of the first segment, followed which is by the height of each subsequent segment, specified in pixels. Example;- segment 1, 6
segment_count:- for bargraph images. The number of segments in the image in a Bargraph image.
tiled t/f:- indicates that an image should repeat like wallpaper to fill the available space.
Example;- tiled t
mouse_response:- how the image reacts to the mouse.
h – horizontal
v – vertical
c – click
r – rotary
s – stepped
line_end_length:- for panel group images.
transparent_pixel:- deprecated. For bmp images without a mask file, this is the color that is treated as transparent. The color is specified as a pixel position in the image.
mouse_response:
vertical
click
rotary
horizontal
stepped
reverse_vertical
More about skins…
Skins Part 2
Skins Part 3
