First of all let me say that creating a Widget is really simple.
To create a widget, all you have to do is open the skin in SkinStudio
select the section you want to export and Select "Export
branch as Widget" from the File menu. The Exporting process
is described in the separate tutorial, so here we will concentrate
on the file format specification.
Basically a widget is a uis file but limited to a few sections concerning the feature we want to have encapsulated. A widget may be anything... A colour scheme, scrollbars, fully featured taskbar (with startbutton, taskbar buttons
and grips in it) or even as small as a single checkbox (which is a part of [Buttons] section). So the widget is actually quite powerful. Now let's see what you can do with the generated file or maybe let's pretend we're generating
the file from scratch.
The most important part of a widget is the following section:
[WidgetInfo]
For now this is the only section that differs gui widget from
a regular skin.
The only attribute required in the section for the widget to
work is:
WidgetName = My first widget
That is all that is really needed for the widget to work.
Ok, what would be the point of creating a widget if no-one knows
you created it? Surely you are proud of what you've done. You
could spray it on the walls all over your town... or just
put it in the following attributes:
AuthorName = Stardock Net, Inc.
AuthorEmail = myemail@stardock.com
AuthorNote = Designed by Adam. Modifications
by Kris and Brad (Frogboy).
AuthorURL = http://www.skinstudio.net
I don't think the above attributes need any further comments,
so now let's make your cool widget as tempting as it deserves
to be. To do this just place paint an image presenting it's features
(the image is maximum 300 pixels wide and 100 pixels high), save
the image in the widget folder and put its name in the following
attribute:
WidgetPreview = mighty_preview.bmp
Sure thing, you spent a lot of time creating it, so "why"
you think "should anyone take the credit when he just creates
a skin mostly based on my widget? Can I at least grab part of
the splendor of such a skin?". Of course! Every imported
widget generates a [WidgetInfo#] section in the skin it's imported
to. where # stands for a first available number. So the first
imported widget it will generate [WidgetInfo0] section in the
skin... and so on. So now every user can admire your work when
they open the skinBut wait... you think your work is worth more
than just a note? You don't want the skin authors to redistribute
your images and code? No problem. Add the following attributes
to the [WidgetInfo] section
RedistributionAllowed = 0
WidgetImportInfo = You are not allowed
to distribute the skin containing this widget.
Now this requires some more explanation. the "RedistributionAllowed"
attribute does not really block the publishing of such a skin...
but when the import is performed a skin author is informed that
you do not agree to the redistribution of their skin if it contains
your work. Available Values are "0" and "1"
(0 stands for NO, 1 is YES). If you add the "WidgetImportInfo"
to the widget a skin author will see your customized warning instead
of default SkinStudio warning. The info will be also shown if
the "RedistributionAllowed" is set to 1, but it will
only show as a friendly info, a tip for the author, while when
the "RedistributionAllowed" is set to 0 the author will
have the choice between importing your widget or not importing
it.
Ok, so you probably wonder now what is imported and how. As we said, a GUI widget is a part of a skin and as such it can contain any info that can be placed in a well formed skin. Of course, it does not have to be a complete skin.
First of all it should not contain the [TitlebarSkin] section (but if it does, the section will be ignored when imported). Importing the widget simply copies (by default) all the attributes in all sections (except the [TitlebarSkin]
and [WidgetInfo]) into the skin. The images are also copied based on SkinStudio's knowledge of the attributes format. The images should not contain the folder name relative to WB folder (like in the regular skin eg. maxwb\top.bmp)
but if it does, SkinStudio will strip it away (to make it easier for you to convert a skin into widget). Also each section can contain a widget-specific attribute:
WidgetAction = ...
The actions that can be performed for each sections are:
