WinCustomize Forums
Hi All,
These days I am seeing less and less and less of new WindowBlinds (Master skin or otherwise). Most are now-a-days updates of old master skins and there are only 2 or 3 good skinners left...Are we looking at close to the end of WindowBlinds era?
Nope.
What almost always happens at each new OS release is people getting their heads around it [the OS] and/or the need to update existing releases to suit the new OS...;)
Wonder why it takes so long? Windows 10 is over a year old already!
Is there an issue with Wincustomize site? Yesterday I saw a new blind come up but was not displaying screenshot and had a broken download link. It is missing today...
Also any chance of new skins from Stardock itself?
https://www.wincustomize.com/users/2219163/Stardock%20Design
There are a few new skins for Windows 10 included with WindowBlinds 10.
And yes, there have been a few site glitches lately. They are being looked into.
WindowBlinds 10 isn't quite that old though. Skinners couldn't update skins for Win 10 until WindowBlinds 10 was released, naturally.
But it's in constant state of 'flux' even without the early release betas...and the Anniversary Update is [as the title suggests] a whole year more recent than the original Win 10 ...;)
Also more and more apps cannot be skinned anymore.
Eg: Firefox, Thunderbird, Mailbird, All MS Office Applications, All Adobe Applications, Webstorm, iTunes, Microsoft Visual Studio apps, SQL Server Apps, SnagIT (screenshots and video recording), Wondershare Video Converter and so on.
Almost 80% of the apps I use are no longer skinned/skinnable
Love Windowblinds and have been using it for over 10 years...pity....
Because Wb has to follow the MS default skinning route which nowadays more and more software have its own skinning scheme instead. It would be insurmountable that try to alter/adapt all considering this is one man's work. I do wish WB can be more superior than MS style theme in premium way,alas it fell short when even come to skin the native windows parts.
It takes a long time to grasp how a new o/s needs to be skinned. Creating graphics is the easy part - learning what the o/s requires isn't.
I will create something as soon as I know what I'm doing 
However, things are changing so rapidly I'm in a constant phase of feeling a bit lost. I suspect most 'part-time' skinners feel the same.
Yes, when I just search using the filter "Windows 10 ready" I get ZERO hits.
I've been using WB since the beginning (I think it was the beginning anyway) --when I was using XP (and loving it).
I would agree that with each new OS Version launch (and even often Service Packs as well as other updates) there is that window of time in which everyone is still getting to know their way around the nuances of the features that are often SO new that even Microsoft is not quite sure about the inner workings it would seem, hence the frequent updates and bug fixes one sees through the first year or more.
If Windowblinds continues to be a viable product in terms of revenues, I'm sure Stardock will keep on releasing new versions, but as much as I hate seeing good things end, I'm not very optimistic about the outlook for WB (at least not without Microsoft having a major shift in their way of thinking when it comes to themes and customizations).
There is--and has been for years--a very noticeable decline in the numbers of new skins you see here or other places and fact of the matter is, once you weed out those that aren't done well enough to meet the quality standards of people like me, then there aren't hardly any that remain...then you weed out the ones that don't make the grade for subjective reasons (we all have different tastes), well, then I don't see how it's any long justified to spend the money on new versions of the WB software.
In fact, so many of the applications in the Object Desktop suite are outdated and either incompatible or just plain redundant to current OS features that I for one see these as my own "last days" as a user of WindowBlinds.
Kinda sad, really, but like I said--it's a trend that Stardock is keenly aware of that's not at all a new snag in their business model. Regardless of how many "amateur skinners" that are working their collective butts off creating the skins we all love and have no problem paying 5 or 6 bucks to download, this is most undeniably a Stardock problem in that if they are going to make and then SELL a product like Windowblinds then they should have a creative staff of 2-20 artists working NONSTOP on new skins to be launched REGULARLY throughout the life-cycle of a version and those skins, those Stardock skins, should be freely available to all licensed users. Maybe then they would see what kinds of good customer bases one builds with strong product support.
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