Old-new Brushed skin - some changes !

[szc]

OK, people to make this explanation much more simple, just go here:

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=10322.msg87831#msg87831

That's one of posts made by my friend a61... With that sugesstion brought to life, I was inrigued and I started to play with bringing his idea to life... well, I succeeded I must say ! I'm so happy, hehe 

Some of you will ask, why all those changes ? Well... avast! is upgrading their code as we all know when we take into consideration that we have program updates quite offten. That's great, wonderful... so, I also upgraded one of my skins, and made it little bit more useful...

Now, those little blue drop down buttons (down-arrows) on the right hand side of the interface, are completely alive and they have same function as those standard buttons (icons on the left side of the skin) Resident Scanner, Local Disks and Removable Media. Who needs double commands ? Well, as we all know there are some other programs, even some made by Microsoft, that uses double commands... why not we ? Anyway, if someone find him/herself annoyed by those arrows, they still can use icons... so everybody happy, right ! IMHO, this way everything looks much more real and everything on the screen has it's function... by design, but also very useful...

Thanks everybody for reading this, I appreciate it... I just wanted to show that I care about avast! user's opinion. I made it happen !

I already sent this skin version to Ondrej (Vlk), and we just have to wait untill he uploads it to download section. It would be great, just to put small note next to skin preview, that this is brushed skin version 2.

Cheers !

[szc]

You will notice following things, but believe me, nothing is wrong and everything works exactly as it should work. It works exactly the same way as it used to work with all other skins and all other buttons/icons. Well, I better start with that little explanation... huuuuh...

First of all, When you click at LOCAL DISKS arrow (blue dropdown), you dropdown menu will slide down. When you click it again, normal behaviour is that menu will slide up, in other words, close itself... OK...

When you click at REMOVABLE MEDIA arrow, both dropdown menues will slide down. When you click it again, both menues will close itself. That's normal, because both menue are talking about removable media, right ?

OK, all panels are closed now... Let's mention another situation - if you press LOCAL DISK arrow, dropdown menu will slide down. Do NOT close it, leave it open... now press, REMOVABLE MEDIA again. Removable Media dropdown menu will slide down too. Now we have both menues open and visible on the screen, right ? If you try just to close first one (top one) LOCAL DISKS, you won't be able to do that... actually, you can change the status of what you want to be scanned (take a look at display area, Scan Local Drives is changing from ON to OFF), but you won't be able to close that dropdown menu... why ? It's completely normal. Because REMOVABLE MEDIA is last one that was activated.

If you press REMOVABLE MEDIA arrow, you'll close both dropdown menues, unless you pressed LOCAL DISKS in the mean time and set Scan Local Drives to ON (take a look at display area again). If that is set to ON, then only REMOVABLE MEDIA dropdown menu will close itself. Again, why ? Because you activated LOCAL DISKS scanning. Logicaly.

OK, I covered those two dropdown menues. What about third one, RESIDENT SCANNER ? OK, that one works pretty much independetly from those two I explained up there... you can make that dropdown menu show itself if you press on that little blue dropdown button (Mac styled arrow), but you can not close the menu same way. Why ? I don't know, but it's been always like that... since avast! was born, hehe    Anyway... that menue reacts to user actions in a little bit different way. Menu will be open as long as you hover with your mouse pointer over that menu. As soon as you move your mouse little bit further from the menu, that will invike closing of RESIDENT SCANNER drop down menu.

So, nothing is wrong, everything works perfectly, I just felt I should give a little (haha, this one is good... a little  ) explanation why and how everything works. Remember people, this is not just when it comes to this skin. It's with all skins no matter who made them, and it's been always like that, even with default icon commands which can be found in every and each skin.

Thanks for reading this, I just hope it will be useful and helpful to some.

Regards!
Sasha

[lee16]

Why isn't there a drop down bar and arrow for Folder Selection Sasha? 

--lee

[szc]

Simply, because it never was there. What would we do with that dropdown button, when there is no dropdown menu or panel or window. When you press FOLDER SELECTION button, we all know that you get a huge window on the screen. It's not possible to make it as simple drop down menu, just because of it's enormous size...

EDIT: Sorry, my mistake. I put that red-yellow arrow (first screenshot) next to FOLDER SELECTION just by mistake... so that probably confused you... Folder selection button never had drop down menu as a result of pressing it. It was always like this, you press Folder Selection button, and you get a completely new window on the screen.

As far as screenshot goes, I fixed it now... see screenshot again. Only those three arrows should be there pointing to default buttons.

[lee16]

Ahh, i see, thanks for clearing that up for me Sasha 

--lee

[RejZoR]

Skin is nice,but i would make seperate About button for credits. They just don't look good on main panel (with other words,it looks ugly )

[szc]

What Credit words ? You mean those where "dedicated to CoJo" is placed ? Well, It woudln't be dedication if it's not visible. Anyway, this skin will never be part of avast! default package, so it's just one of many additional skins.

I dedicated it to CoJo, so I want it to be highly visible...

[RejZoR]

Then trywith less words. It's way too much text.

[szc]

Well, that's by design... anyway, skin is already in Vlk's mailbox, so I don't want to bug him with non-life-important things like this. Skin is clean, working without even one single problem, graphic is polished as much as it could be... even those "dedication" wordings are nicely blended into background with transparency value set to 60%

I, personaly, don't see where is the problem.

EDIT: I am really interested now to see what other forum members think... let's go people, I wanna hear your opinions...

[lee16]

Sasha, out of curiosity, would it be possible to make a skin with changeable attributes, so people could change their skin within reason.

--lee

[Hopismum]

Watch what you ask for     

Here goes:

My thoughts when looking at it are that with as much wording as there is on the bottom its making the left center part look very plain...  hopefully you know where I mean.     It kinda makes it abit busy down there...    so everythings down the right side, and along the bottom.      I think he may be right, and maybe you could lose a little of the wording... or find a way to fit it in elsewhere.    I realize you want this dedication,   and understand it  ...  and agree with you that it should be there and where its SEEN...    but somethings just a little amiss...       sorry           you asked 

edit:  see attached example of what Im talking about.. where it looks plain

[lee16]

Well no, i think it looks fine as it is, not looking plain or over worded at all, i just like to ask questions. 

--lee

[DavidR]

Personally I don't see a problem with the dedication wording, I think that if the length is abreviated too much it will lose its meaning.

However, I can see RejZor's point that with the line for the creater, followed by the dedication to CoJo might seem large. However, there is no way I would consider it ugly.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, people who like it will download it and try it, those that don't like it will either not download it or change it if they don't like it.

[Hopismum]

David.. I agree.. to a point..  what you say makes sense 

Sasha..    did this quickly so its not perfect       Maybe something like this?

edit:   could add the  "forum members will always love you""     under the dedication..     I read Davids post AFTER doing this and have to agree with him on that

[szc]

Well, I don't know Connie... the screenshot of display area you took from is the display area in that specific state. If you take a look at this screenshot, you'll see that dosplay area contains much more information on the screen, and it doesn't look that plain.

After all, I made some very complicated skins before, and all I've got from users, was: "...can't you make something more simple, something more plain... this looks so gamey and like joke..."

Well, the problem is, can't please everybody... I am alone, and there are at least 10000 other avast! users, at least those registered... it could be very difficult...

I can try to make that dedication note little bit shorter, but then, it means I have to send this skin to Vlk again. I know he is not going to be very happy about that, but also, I would like to hear directly from him, what he thinks about everything. If he says: "...there will be no problems, you can send new version...", I'll do that right away...

Can someone point his direction to this thread and this question please ?

Cheers !