Skinning an app in Visual C++
 

Seen a lot of questions around the web on how to program a skinable
app but no answers, except a few for VB programmers. So thought I'd post some beginner info to help newbie C++ programmers. It's enough to
get started.
If you circulate the attached zip around to friends then pretty soon
most people should know how to write skinnable apps.

Raygun

Hi raygun

Great work . But there are many Skin Engines for VC++ like Active Skin and Direct Skin. I don't think that real programmers bother themeselves with writing skin engines for their works.

By the way you can't call a simple shaped window , a Skin.

Regards
O M I D

You may find the following article of interest:

http://www.flipcode.com/articles/article_win32skins.shtml

I recommend you to check Shareaza source code.
Shareaza has great skinning support.
http://www.shareaza.com/
download binaries and source:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=110672

Dear OMIDLG

With regard to purchasing somebody's else's ready-made skin classes , yes real programmers do do this kind of stuff - or else
there would be nobody to peddle libraries such as those you mention. So
your statement about "real programmers" is self-contradictory.

With regard to the definition of skins, you can think of it this way:

the human body has a skeleton and muscles that give us a shape, so
similarly with the app the region stuff gives the shape to the app

But also the human body has a skin which gives an outer color, texture, etc, so similarily the bitmap file that the app blits
onto the window is like the body's skin.

But with skinned and skinnable apps users generally think of both the shape
and the bitmap when they think of the skin. I hope this answers your query. If you ignore the bitmap part you miss half the fun.