Theme approach

nexter · **Posted:** Sat Jan 10, 2026 3:04 am

winstep wrote:

BassdudeNZ wrote:

Rambling? Really? Now you have pissed me off. SEEYA

Sorry the intention is not to piss you off but to make you understand that many times it's VERY hard to understand what the problem actually is. In your mind the problem is clear, but when you try to express it it's very hard to decipher, especially for someone who is not a native English speaker.

You can be upset or you can accept that this is true - up to you. It doesn't change the fact that I still DO NOT UNDERSTAND what the problem is. And I'm not stupid.

So, looking at your latest mockup, you seem to be using the same bitmap (wsDisk.png) for the horizontal and vertical orientations? You do know that you can use wsDisk.png for the horizontal disk meter and wsDiskV.png for the vertical disk meter right? And if that's not it, then you shouldn't have used the same WsDisk name for both orientations, since you correctly use WsDiskSectionH and WsDiskSectionV elsewhere in the mockup.

Other than that I truly do not understand what the problem is.. Each orientation can have individual bitmaps (except for any histogram, bar, multi, and gauge graphs) and also different settings (so it is like designing two different modules, one horizontal and one vertical).

In all fairness I have to say that I don't understand what the problem is either - it's all just too obtuse, sorry.

BassdudeNZ · **Joined:** Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:10 pm **Posts:** 473

@JORGE and @NEXTER

I cannot put this in clearer terms than below in numbers....

1. I can manipulate everything because I have tested every setting within the configuration file.

2. While you can certainly use padding variances to do several things from increasing or decreasing the size with padding there is one minor problem that prevents the module being skinned like other modules which is next.

3. While padding can be used and an image that is only theme related can certainly be inserted into any of the three containers being WsDisk, WsdiskSection and wsDiskSectionV; that image will not remain static. It will rotate.

4. #3 is only useful if the image that a skinner chooses to create, being a theme related image, that it works from any angle. This is rarely the scenario where an image works CCW, CW or flipped. This becomes very limiting.

That suffices. Any more is rambling.

BassdudeNZ · **Joined:** Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:10 pm **Posts:** 473

ALSO

It is always good practice to be creative and try new ideas.
That said, The most logical approach is not to be too creative because of expanding drives and size limitations.
Here are two I did for the Astrology theme. They work fine but do not look anything like intended and definitely do not look like this on the desktop when shrunk . Other than laptops, most people will not have only one disk drive so making the icon larger in the module itself is totally impractical.
Therefore, the smartest approach I have now found is basically to just match the colors of the theme and avoid being creative where it is easily lost when a tenth of its size.

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ring ex.jpg [ 17.16 KiB | Viewed 181 times ]

winstep · **Joined:** Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:30 pm **Posts:** 12829

BassdudeNZ wrote:

3. While padding can be used and an image that is only theme related can certainly be inserted into any of the three containers being WsDisk, WsdiskSection and wsDiskSectionV; that image will not remain static. It will rotate.

Look, let me see if I can make you understand why it is not possible for someone outside your mind to figure out what you mean:

"an image that is only theme related" <- What exactly is "an image that is only theme related" ?! To you it might make sense, personally I haven't the foggiest idea what you actually even mean by this.

"can certainly be inserted into any of the three containers being WsDisk, WsdiskSection and wsDiskSectionV".

READ THIS CAREFULLY: there are FOUR containers, NOT three: WsDisk, WsDiskV, WsDiskSection and WsDiskSectionV.

The module will only use a rotated image of WsDisk if you do NOT provide a WsDiskV bitmap. I already mentioned this in my previous post, but you failed to react or acknowledge it.

Is your failure to grasp this the reason why you are having this much trouble? Sincerely, I have no idea, and neither does Nexter, so please enlighten us. If this is frustrating for you, who actually know what you are trying to say, imagine for me.

winstep · **Joined:** Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:30 pm **Posts:** 12829

BassdudeNZ wrote:

Therefore, the smartest approach I have now found is basically to just match the colors of the theme and avoid being creative where it is easily lost when a tenth of its size.

Love those disk images.

While it is true - and a pity - that many of the icon details are lost at the normal icon sizes, it is also true that the user can, if he so wishes, scale up desktop modules up to 200%, plus increase the icon sizes of docks holding the disk meter icons, etc...

That is not something you as the skinner can control, but it does reveal the beauty of the details (and so does the Disk Information dialog, by the way, as the icon displayed there is pretty big).

BassdudeNZ · **Joined:** Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:10 pm **Posts:** 473

winstep wrote:

The module will only use a rotated image of WsDisk if you do NOT provide a WsDiskV bitmap. I already mentioned this in my previous post, but you failed to react or acknowledge it.

Is your failure to grasp this the reason why you are having this much trouble? Sincerely, I have no idea, and neither does Nexter, so please enlighten us. If this is frustrating for you, who actually know what you are trying to say, imagine for me.

Well I apologise if you think I did not understand it and if I failed to acknowledge it then again, I think this is why I went to the separate static bitmap container. But I did not intentionally ignore you

That said and done. It is fine as is. I am sure you will have more ideas as time goes by.

as for the icon - I can enlarge it substantially. I did one to 120 pixels. The biggest issue for this is any user who does like to use multiple modules is because with correct padding, it makes 4 or more drives very large as a module. This is even with only one piece of text showing and everything including the graphs turned off. It takes a LOT of fiddling to get the images at 120 pixels not to cancel each other out and not to intrude over the read/write, even with the Y position further down and up respectively. The icon looks way better but the size becomes almost ridiculous.
It is looking like the max icon size for anyone with more than four drives will have to have its icon size no larger than 90 pixels. Even then, it may be ten pixels too much. I'll try it on my DAW and let you know with a piccy because it has well over ten drives.

BassdudeNZ · **Joined:** Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:10 pm **Posts:** 473

@JORGE

Here it is at 90 pixels in 2 views - using the defaults with only size adjustments and coloring.

It works. If a user only wants no more than five modules it won't matter if they have 26 drives. However, if they use all of them, it will be a bit crowded.

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90px hz.png [ 238.79 KiB | Viewed 170 times ]

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90px icon only.png [ 237.89 KiB | Viewed 170 times ]

ALSO - did you mention that we cannot change the default color, position and size of the disk letters? I may have missed that. Apologies if so.

BassdudeNZ · **Joined:** Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:10 pm **Posts:** 473

@JORGE

Ultra widescreen with 11 drives. 90 pixels is around the maximum icon size for now.
Is there a facility display the volume name? Just asking or if that is in the future?

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Picco14 · **Joined:** Sun Jul 15, 2012 12:31 pm **Posts:** 40

I've pretty much got it all figured out. Even though it's the most complex file compared to the other modules (RAM, CPU, Net...), I can do almost anything I want.

But I prefer the horizontal module; for the vertical module, you absolutely have to create a WsDiskV.png skin to maintain consistency and avoid flipping WsDisk.png.

I agree that Jorge has done an excellent job overall, but I don't need that much disk information, even though it's possible to remove some from the .wsd configuration file.
Also, I don't understand all the problems BassdudeNZ is having; maybe he's trying to do too much, I don't know.

In any case, I'm not encountering any particular problems except:

PS: Being able to change the color of the flashing LED, which always displays the original green.

winstep · **Joined:** Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:30 pm **Posts:** 12829

Picco14 wrote:

I don't need that much disk information, even though it's possible to remove some from the .wsd configuration file.

Exactly. You can 100% pick & choose what information to display and what not to display. Up to you as the theme author.

Picco14 wrote:

PS: Being able to change the color of the flashing LED, which always displays the original green.

wsDiskLED.,png
wsDiskLED75.png
wsDiskLED50.png

wsDiskLED0.png

The LED has 3 levels of brightness and WsDiskLED0 is LED off. From those four led bitmaps you may provide WsDiskLED.png only, and the application will automatically adjust the source bitmap's brightness to maintain the 3 required levels of brightness. If you also do not supply WsDiskLED0.png (LED off) the application will grayscale the WsDiskLed.png bitmap and darken it a bit to create a "LED off" image.

Picco14 · **Joined:** Sun Jul 15, 2012 12:31 pm **Posts:** 40

Thanks Jorge, it's perfect, I understood immediately, I followed your recommendations, and the LED is flashing blue as I wanted.
Thanks again.

winstep · **Joined:** Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:30 pm **Posts:** 12829

Glad to know, and that looks good.

Are you using WsDiskMulti (multi-frame image) or a bar graph for the used space graph? If the former, how many frames?

Picco14 · **Joined:** Sun Jul 15, 2012 12:31 pm **Posts:** 40

I'm using a bar graph to replace the original bar on an icon that represents the amount of disk space used. I haven't tested the multi-slice functionality yet, but I'll do so for about ten images. I don't know why, but I could be wrong, but I think the multi-slice functionality will work for reading or writing, a bit like RAM, CPU, or network usage.
What do you think?

Another thing, which isn't really important, is that the temperature of an NVMe hard drive in a specific enclosure connected via USB isn't being recognized.

Thanks...

BassdudeNZ · **Joined:** Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:10 pm **Posts:** 473

Picco14 wrote:

I've pretty much got it all figured out. Even though it's the most complex file compared to the other modules (RAM, CPU, Net...), I can do almost anything I want.

But I prefer the horizontal module; for the vertical module, you absolutely have to create a WsDiskV.png skin to maintain consistency and avoid flipping WsDisk.png.

I agree that Jorge has done an excellent job overall, but I don't need that much disk information, even though it's possible to remove some from the .wsd configuration file.
Also, I don't understand all the problems BassdudeNZ is having; maybe he's trying to do too much, I don't know.

In any case, I'm not encountering any particular problems except:

PS: Being able to change the color of the flashing LED, which always displays the original green.

What happens when you flip WsDisk.png? The Windows icon goes clockwise?
I am not going into the separate container for it idea again, that was lost in translation.
The Windows graphic flips? That was my experience.
Unfortunately you cannot control what any user will do so it will be rotated by someone, unless you never make the skin public.

Very clean Picco14 - I like it a lot.
I also noticed and you probably did the separate fonts for horizontal and vertical - Segoe UI for Horizontal and Arial for Vertical. Not an issue, but I raised an eyebrow.

BassdudeNZ · **Joined:** Thu Sep 08, 2016 10:10 pm **Posts:** 473

@JORGE
release it.

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