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 Post subject: Wanda
PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:37 pm 
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Hi all--

How can I edit the colors of the Wanda icon?...Or even replace Wanda with my own fish?
I can't find the animated gif anywhere.
Thanks.

-s


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 12:58 pm 
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The Wanda bitmaps are embeded in the application itself, sorry. Check the Wanda skinning section on the WorkShelf User Guide for a way to replace the fish bitmap.

As for the ability to colorize the fish itself, the ability is not there yet, but it's quite easy to add so expect to see that in a future version.

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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sat May 05, 2012 12:13 pm 
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After colorizing can Wanda be saved so that she has a different color for each theme? In other words, can a different color be associated with different themes?


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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sat May 05, 2012 12:15 pm 
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Nope, sorry. Wanda colorization is a per-user setting, not per-theme.

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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sat May 05, 2012 9:45 pm 
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Thx :roll:


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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 3:21 am 
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where is the workshelf user guide, and the wanda skinning section? I cannot seem to find either. A link would make my day.

Thank you


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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 11:21 am 
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jdrake wrote:
where is the workshelf user guide, and the wanda skinning section? I cannot seem to find either. A link would make my day.


That's because you're replying to a thread that started over 7 years ago (2009) and a lot of things changed since then. :)

If all you want is to customize the fish animation, you can already do so easily, basically the same way you do with any other dock or Shelf item - provided you have the PNG sprite animation sheet for it.

There are three ways to do it:

1. Open WorkShelf Preferences, go to the Modules tab, select the Wanda module, make sure the style is set to 'Animated fish', click Change Icon, browse to where your Wanda animated PNG file is (Wanda Animations work just like any other animated icons supported by WorkShelf).

2. Assuming you have Wanda swimming in the dock (or Shelf), right click on it, select Dock Entry Properties, then Change Icon.

3. Again assuming you have Wanda swimming in the dock or Shelf, open the folder where the new Wanda animation PNG file is, then drag that PNG file and drop it over the Wanda icon in the dock/Shelf (you can use this method to quickly customize other dock icons too, by the way - just make sure the file you are dropping is either a .ICO, .PNG or .TIF file).

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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:20 pm 
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Ahh, I suppose that makes sense. I can get a non-animated fish to work fine. I realize that my issue is in getting a working png sprite animation. i will do my homework and get it going. I couldn't figure out if it was supported in the same way, since the animations that I had did not work at all.

Thank you.


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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 3:18 pm 
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I do realize that maybe we are talking about 2 different things, I don't have wanda on the shelf or anything, I just wanted to have it swim around my desktop. are there different requirements for that than for a shelf icon?


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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:46 pm 
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jdrake wrote:
I do realize that maybe we are talking about 2 different things, I don't have wanda on the shelf or anything, I just wanted to have it swim around my desktop. are there different requirements for that than for a shelf icon?


Wanda, like all other modules, has two styles: one is a static 'fortune cookie' image, the other is an animated fish.

Desktop modules are normally static as well (i.e.; the module itself always stays on the same screen location) but Wanda is special: if you enable the 'Make Wanda swim on the desktop' setting in the Wanda Settings dialog, it will use whatever is the current fish animation and move it across your Windows desktop.

As per the previous post, the only way to customize this Wanda fish animation if you don't have a Wanda module in one of your docks or the Shelf is via 'Change Icon' dialog in the Modules tab in Preferences. You just need to make sure that you have 'Animated Fish' selected as the style in the Change Icon dialog (since the other 'Fortune Cookie' style option is for you to customize the static fortune cookie icon).

Alternate Wanda fish animations work just like any other animated icon: a very wide PNG image with each animation frame horizontally in sequence. Like the other animated icons, it's critical that the width of each frame is the same as the height, i.e.; frames must be square. If they are not, the PNG strip will not be recognized as an animated icon.

So if, for instance, you have a 10 frame animation, each frame being 256x256 pixels, the PNG file will be 2560 pixels wide by 256 pixel high.

Provided the above guidelines for what is considered (and identified as) an animated icon are followed, nothing stops you from customizing Wanda as something other than a fish (I just made it look like a rotating ball here, when testing that using *any* animated icon for Wanda is indeed working). :)

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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 7:45 pm 
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OK, that makes sense to me. I will work on it and see what I come up with. I appreciate your help with such a frivolous thing!


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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:12 am 
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It's not that frivolous - I love Wanda too, and others do to. I *strongly* suggest you give THIS TOPIC a read (and follow the links there). :)

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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 10:43 am 
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Thanks, I had seen that one as well.

I work for the North Fork John Day Watershed council (http://www.nfjdwc.org) where I work on watershed restoration and fish habitat restoration. I work with various endangered species, like chinook salmon, steelhead, and bull trout. my goal is to get those species of fish to swim around my work desktop. We will see how this goes.

Thank you.


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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 2:52 pm 
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This did not work as expected on my end. Is there something simple that I am doing incorrectly? I am hoping you will have a little time to look at it and let me know what I can do to fix it.

the gif is just an example of what it should look like. (please forgive the poor animation, I am still working at smoothing things out and making it look right. I am also hoping that having it small enough on the screen will make it better to look at. :)


https://www.dropbox.com/s/jnbby8nhogga52y/bulltrout%20-%20spritesheet.png?dl=0

Image

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fkvkw9ga66idkeb/bulltrout%20-%20p.gif?dl=0

Image

I really appreciate your time and any help you can offer. This is just a fun project for me, so please don't waste huge amounts of time on it.

Thank you,

Justin


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 Post subject: Re: Wanda
PostPosted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 3:31 pm 
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jdrake wrote:
This did not work as expected on my end. Is there something simple that I am doing incorrectly? I am hoping you will have a little time to look at it and let me know what I can do to fix it.


As I wrote above:

winstep wrote:
Alternate Wanda fish animations work just like any other animated icon: a very wide PNG image with each animation frame horizontally in sequence. Like the other animated icons, it's critical that the width of each frame is the same as the height, i.e.; frames must be square. If they are not, the PNG strip will not be recognized as an animated icon.

So if, for instance, you have a 10 frame animation, each frame being 256x256 pixels, the PNG file will be 2560 pixels wide by 256 pixel high.


Your fish animation has 17 frames. Each frame is 60 pixels high. As such, the width of that PNG file should be 17 frames * 60 pixels wide (i.e.; 1020 pixels wide), to meet the requirement that each frame must be square in order for the PNG file to be recognized as an animated icon.

Instead, it's 1024 pixels wide - you made one or more mistakes when 'gluing' those frames together.

Also, in one of my posts above I told you to pay attention to the links in the other topic, for a reason. :wink:

If you go to THIS PAGE HERE, you will find 32 very realistic PNG animations for different fish types.

Even though you cannot use the PNG files directly because they too do not meet the 'square frame' requirements, you can quickly fix this by increasing the canvas height of the original PNG files in Photoshop.

Unfortunately I cannot do anything with those animations myself because they originally belong to Stardock's Desktop Aquarium (no longer being sold) and Brad ignored my repeated requests for permission to use them as alternate Wanda skins.

Since the animations are 'out there' regardless, nothing stops you from changing and using them for your own *personal* use.

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