Steam skins FAQ\TIPS\ETC

[vakuum]

Steam check after files in the <skin name> folder, if the file can't be found it will use the default one.

In you <steam skin> folder you can have these folders:

servers\
.tga images for the game browser.

resource\
Here you have the TrackerScheme.res where you change font, color, borders, etc..
Default images for steam.

steam\
Here you have the steam logos, and images.

steam\cached\
Here you have the files that steam use to "show" their form's
ps: like SteamRootDialog.res is the file where the "main steam window" is stored..
If you want to edit the apperance of steam, start here ;-)

steam\games\
Here you have the icon's for you games

Actually the folder Steam\steam\ Steam\resource\ and Steam\servers\
can be copy'd to Steam\skins\<skin name\ so you get:
Steam\skins\<skin name\steam\
Steam\skins\<skin name\resource\
Steam\skins\<skin name\servers\ (ps: this one only have a dll in the default steam.. no images)


USEFULL INFO
Images: images must be 24bit .tga files.
If you store a file <skin name>\resource\logo.tga you will only need to user "resource\logo" in the file you have added the logo.

CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + B make the steam editor come up.
This one is usefull to get the image's and other things in place..
Currently you have to copy the values from the editor and place them manually in your files cause else you will only get an error.

DO NOT use the [X] in the steam editor, this will close the editor but the form will still be editable (and not possible to use the buttons)

.res files (in steam\cached\)

Steam "write" the form as it is written. this means that if you add a image in the end of the file, it will be on the "top" if it's overlapping any other images or things in the res file.
This can be handled by giving every "thing" in the form a zpos option.
zpos is default "0" if not used, higher value = in front.

if one image1 has "zpos" "5" and image2 has "zpos" "10", then image2 will be infront of image1.


COLOR VALUES:
The trackerscheme.res file has four numbers in the color value.
The first 3 are RGB or (Red Green Blue) the last one i do not realy know.
I'm trying to get info from the steam guys with a "bug" that could be fixed with the last number.. so for now, don't care about it

Here you can see the "bug" with the text on a skin i'm working on.

John Cook said this chould be fixable, but I did't get it to work yet..

That was all I had to write for now, I will update this and add more later.
Hope this was a good help for some people

 

[Login_Here]

I have another tip.
Watch out for light colors, i tried makging a skin with a light greenish color and it looked like crap...
It looked so messy that you almost couldnt see the buttons and all...
But it might just have been because of the fact that i used colors that were almost the same.


Happy skinning

 

[vakuum]

Change engine (in-game font)
The font you have when you chat in-game is called "enginefont"
In the trackerscheme.res you can change this to whatever you want to.

There are 7 options.. i have just used size 14 on the 1-3 ann 6-7.
I did use size 16 on 4-5..

in-game skin is the same as in windows...

 

[OCybrManO]

You can have transparency in your images if you use 32-bit tga images.

Images with transparency can not use compression (I'm not sure why... regular images can use it), so don't use them a lot if you want the download to be small.

Remember: After you are finished with your skin remove all files in the skin's folder that were not altered from the default settings... it will save lots of space (especially if you take out all the old images) when you go to upload your skin somewhere.

 

[vakuum]

OCybrManO:
do you know if it's possible to get rid of the top toolbar with the [_] [X] ?
or does that one have to be there?

 

[OCybrManO]

You can get rid of it in the SteamRootDialog.res file... just change the value of the highlighted part to 0:

	"SteamRootDialog"
	{
		"ControlName"		"Frame"
		"fieldName"		"SteamRootDialog"
		"xpos"		"452"
		"ypos"		"32"
		"wide"		"594"
		"tall"		"162"
		"autoResize"		"0"
		"pinCorner"		"0"
		"visible"		"1"
		"enabled"		"1"
		"tabPosition"		"0"
		[color=yellow]"settitlebarvisible"	"1"[/color]
	}

 

[vakuum]

ok.. that what's i thougt to.. but i can't login to test it now..

My skin needs this to work:
Image as a button
No titlebar.
Custom titlebar so the form is dragable..

 

[ilh]

What was the old font for DoD? I hate the font that Steam gave it.

 

[boblemoche0]

do you know if we can do a "close" image... like the close button but with an image........... like can u add a command to an image (for a little corner x...) see attachement...

in the skin id like the white x to do the same as the close button...