About Skins
A skin is a customized user interface to Windows Media Player for Palm-size PC, Pocket PC and Handheld PC. You can create your own buttons to start and stop the media content, add sliders to change volume and position in the content, and provide the user with text information such as the name of a song. Best of all, you can add your own artwork or use clip art to create a unique look.
The basic steps in creating a skin are:
- Analyze what you want your user to do. What functions do you want to provide? You can do this in your head or on paper, but the important thing is to be aware of what you want the user of your skin to be able to do. You will want to examine what can be done to control the media, such as starting, stopping, and so on. You will probably want to go beyond the minimum functionality of PlayPause, Stop, Prev, Next, and Volume.
- Design your user interface. Decide which buttons, text and marquis boxes, and trackbars you want to provide to the user so that they can control the functions you chose in step 1. You may want to sketch out your ideas to see how they fit on the image size you will be working with.
- Create the art you want to show the user. This will consist of several images that show the background images, other images you may want to display, and mapping images if you use region buttons.
- Write the skin definition file that will link together the media functions, user interface, and images. You must follow certain rules for entering the text data into the file, but you can look at the default skin and use text templates to help align the information.
You do not need to follow these steps in the order given, but a good design will come from being aware of all the possibilities and taking care of all the details.
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