Archive: skin poll
skin poll
hi. i search all over this forum to find a way to skin my instalation, but i find that the programmers of nsis think that the skin will make the installer biger and slower.
If you want nsis to have a option to be skined than post this poll.
Originally posted by kichik in another, related, topicI think that kickik's idea of having a plugin to customise the look of NSIS is better that making the installer bigger if you are not going to use the functionality anyway.
Then you need a plug-in that will draw buttons and progress bars itself (BS_OWNERDRAW for buttons).
NSIS uses a standard Windows interface. If the user has changed the Windows interface using a Windows XP skin or a third-party application, NSIS will of course use this skin (like other Windows applications).
I think skins are useful for frequently used applications, not for an installer. The whole point of skins is that a user can change the interface to his/her personal preference. Customizing the interface of an installer that you will use for a few minutes doesn't really make sense. Besides, users are very familiar with the wizard interface of most installers (like NSIS).
A fixed skin for your installer would only make it more difficult to use.
There are some situations in which I can imagine someone would want to have a fixed custom skin. For example, when creating an installer for a game with great graphics, you might want to use the same graphics for your installer.
Maybe someone wants to create a plug-in for skin support.
can't you skin by creating your own UI? even a resource-editor might be capable to do that.
You can indeed change the whole interface (like the Modern UI does), but you can't use non-standard Windows controls without writing a plug-in.
I definitely agree with Joost's idea -> if someone wants a skin
feature then he should do it with plugin. There's no need to add
another overhead into NSIS :(
Kypec
yea, i agree, a plugin would be the best thing
ok. can someone make a plugin for skin?
ok. can someone make a plugin for skin?
Creating a plug-in for something like this is not easy. It will require weeks of work.
If you need this feature, why not write a plug-in yourself or hire someone to do it for you?
i agree with Joost, doing this involves a lot of work to ensure that everything is correctly (handling of messages, etc) that would need a lot of man hours to ensure it works correctly whatever it is asked to do.
i'm not saying it's not possible, just a lot of work. i may be able to offer some help on things in a few weeks since i'm working on the skinning of controls to match in with the winamp style. if i can i'm happy to give people any code once i've got some if it will help with things
-daz
if you want i can offer that our programmers team to build a plugin can someone help them?
Due the nature of this plug-in, there is not much where NSIS knowledge could help. But if you do decide to go for it and have any questions regarding how NSIS is built, I would love to help. You might get faster response on the IRC channel.
I wouldn't use the skinning ability of NSIS (using a plugin) in order to maintain the general appearance of installers, but for some programs, this might me a neat idea.
If the plugin ever gets finished (or even begun with, for a start :)), then I might even use it as some introduction to my program.