My home is not a place, it is people.
Cordelia's Corner for the Complete Newb
Published on February 17, 2005 By Cordelia In Tutorials

Uh-oh, does this mean I’m no longer a newbie?

Not at all! In fact, the very fact that I would refer to it as “advanced” is proof positive that I am still a newbie and, let’s face, always will be.

Did you know you could skin your computer on a per application basis? Well, neither did I until someone pointed it out to me. Assuming you don’t have someone to point it out to you either, I will have to substitute. Here’s what you do:

Open WindowBlinds.

Format your hard drive. Just Kidding!!!

On the left hand side, under setting you will see one that says “Per Application”. After that I’m lost and I have to go get technical support from someone in the office. 

 



Click on “Add per application setting”. Navigate to your program files on the C drive. Now be careful here. Do not attempt to delete any of these applications or any other crazy thing that might pop into your head. You are only here to select an application.

 

 

Here’s an application that I use fairly often: MS Publisher. Ok, I’m not proud; I DO use it. I’m going to tell it to always use the AG by Pallet skin instead of whatever skin I’m running. Why? Because I feel like it. Why do we customize or skin anything? Because we FEEL like it, that’s why!


 

Click on "open" - it won't actually open the program; WindowBlinds will merely know that this is the program you want skinned differently than the rest. Below is the screen that comes up once you click "open". Note the application name at the top. Also, it currently is set to use the "default skin" - whatever skin you are running at the moment. Click on the button that says "Select skin" to change that.

 

 

Clicking on "Select skin" will take you to the skins you have on your computer. Simply pick the one you want and say "OK". You can see now that in the "Per Application Settings" dialog box it says that the new skin is "Ag".

 

 

Click on "Ok" in the "Per Application Settings" dialog box. Now you see that MS Publisher is specified as the only program I currently have set to a different skin than the default.

 

 

Now open the program that you had selected to have changed. Walla! Or, for you fancy types; “voila”! See? SEE? Somehow, through my creative genius, I was able to master the secrets of the universe and harness the power of the divine and change the skin for this ONE program!!

Alternatively, a trained monkey could learn how to do this. It’s pretty easy, but I prefer to see life through my own rose tinted glasses.
 

Have a different skin for each application and make your friends jealous!

Daily Hint for the Newb: Changing your socks daily prevents foot fungus.

Check out the other Newbie Tutorials here:  #1: Intro.#2: WindowBlinds, Part 1, #3: WindowBlinds, Part 2, #4: Screenshots, #5: IconPackager, #6: Wallpaper Basics; #7: Logon Studio; #8: CursorXP; #9: BootSkin; #10: RightClick   

Skin I'm running today: Vector Cell by 'b0se'


Comments
on Feb 17, 2005
Wow... I saw this per application stuff, but I never realised it was supposed to be used that way... I heard that, if you have some application that gets funny or malfunction when skinned with the rest of the desktop, you go there and make a setting for that app so it can work...

Very interesting... now I can create a whole sub-universe inside my desktop... =O
on Feb 17, 2005

Here's my desktop:

I cheat though.

I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and go to the process list. It has the actual names of running programs in there.

Then I just type those names in the per application thing. It doesn't care what the location is, it just matches the process name.

on Feb 17, 2005
Gahh! Cheater! Good trick, though. Thanks!
on Feb 18, 2005
What a great tip thankyou so much!
on Feb 18, 2005
I love your writing style Thanks for the articles!!
on Feb 20, 2005
Haha Frogboy, nice email count there. And thanks for the tip there Cordelia. I'd been wondering about that possibility for a long time. Now all's I need is tutorials for skinning (I'm sure there are ones around here, so don't link me. It's better to find them myself.)
on Feb 26, 2005
oh... I just thought about something. Can you do something, like, use the same skin for all the programs but use a different color per application? =O
on Mar 03, 2005
SagetHollen...interesting concept. I'll have to give it a shot and see!
on Mar 25, 2005
soooooo...why didnt this work for Incredimail???...i added ever single exe. in the folder......twas a wonderfull idea...yet naye....denied!!!(the bastards!!!)
on Apr 06, 2005
thats cuz its a weirdish app, like trillian for example, trillian is totally unskinnable via other apps.and ppl, WB is autodidactic, so try things out and see,its not gonna erase ur SYSTEM32 folder ,so just keep trying, u can always cum back on ur tracks