User:GreenReaper

From WinCustomize Wiki

Hi there! I'm GreenReaper, your local wiki-norn! Feel free to ask me questions about the site. :-)

I've worked as a developer in Stardock's R&D department since mid-2005. I'm the lead programmer for DirectSkin code samples, among various other things, and I'm usually one of the first to try out the new skinning software that we make. Prior to that, I was a beta tester for their products, starting with WindowBlinds way back in 1998.

I can usually get WindowBlinds to do what I want, though nowadays I tend to do more DesktopX scripting than skinning.

You can also find me editing at Wikipedia, and at the largest wiki that I founded, WikiFur. I am also largely responsible for the Creatures Wiki and GalCiv Wiki.

[edit] Writing

You may be interested in my tutorials on Making Great Skins and WindowBlinds skin optimization.

I also wrote most of the text for the original version of what would become the Stardock Knowledgebase.

You can see some of my more recent articles at WinCustomize.

[edit] Visual creations

I'm not much of an artist, but I do know how to turn art into a good skin. As such, I usually work with artists to help them execute their vision, or get permission to use their art from another project. Sometimes I ask for help from one to put a shiny face on a cool script or program.

[edit] Digital Age

This was my first skin, and it shows. As MadIce once said, it's also very green. The animation is pretty nifty, though!

Did you know? Digital Age broke an early version of DirectSkin which only accounted for up to 25 frames of animation - it has 29.

[edit] Docking Station

A set of one WindowBlinds skin and various LogonStudio logon screens (the Astro is my favourite) intended to extend the user interface of a game to the entire system. Art was sourced (with permission) from Docking Station, a part of the Creatures series of games. The logons were custom-designed in notepad, and came with several user icons.

[edit] Blackcomb

This WindowBlinds skin was developed as a port of the msstyle original by Michael K Ter Louw, with artistic additions from AJCrowley. It was included with the WindowBlinds 4.x and early 5.x distributions, mostly because it was virtually complete in terms of features and really small (blue gradients compresses well!). I also did a ObjectBar port by popular demand.

Did you know? Blackcomb required WindowBlinds 4.2 because the butterfly was so tall, it didn't work on earlier versions of WindowBlinds.

[edit] Animated snowflakes

This isn't a skin, but it's still pretty cool: Animated snowflakes in DesktopX! The snowman and user interface was done by PixelPirate.