Unsolved How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?
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I still have a fondness for the very old buttonbars to be found at http://www.powerarchiver.com/skins/toolbar/.
Up until (I think) PA2017 it was possible to use them with the more recent skins, but I haven’t yet been able to work out a way, or the right combination, to do so with PA2018.
It’s not exactly the end of the world if the old bars can no longer be used, but I’m curious to know if they still can.
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Hi,
It is a shame that we apparently cannot. I liked my old setup. I really do not like the modern toolbar that all the PA 2018 skins have. The 2018 skins are very “samey”, i.e. they are all very similar to each other.
Cheers
DrTeeth
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@drteeth said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
Hi,
It is a shame that we apparently cannot. I liked my old setup. I really do not like the modern toolbar that all the PA 2018 skins have. The 2018 skins are very “samey”, i.e. they are all very similar to each other.
Cheers
DrTeeth
So what was the old setup?
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IIRC, the old setup had pictures on the buttons and not line drawings. I used the “fastest” toolbar. I think it was the default one.
I really hate the line drawings that all the 2018 skins have. We need pickkies!
Cheers
DrTeeth
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@pa_fan said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
I still have a fondness for the very old buttonbars to be found at http://www.powerarchiver.com/skins/toolbar/.
Up until (I think) PA2017 it was possible to use them with the more recent skins, but I haven’t yet been able to work out a way, or the right combination, to do so with PA2018.
It’s not exactly the end of the world if the old bars can no longer be used, but I’m curious to know if they still can.
i think we can make this happen for next major release that will start working on soon. I will write it up. Problem was change of the toolbars + old icons dont have that many options. But we can make it work… thanks.
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@drteeth said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
IIRC, the old setup had pictures on the buttons and not line drawings. I used the “fastest” toolbar. I think it was the default one.
I really hate the line drawings that all the 2018 skins have. We need pickkies!
Cheers
DrTeeth
see gif animation below, you can change to 3 different toolbar icon sets right now:
so not just win10 like ones… better? Just wait for gif to show up above (takes like 5s).
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@drteeth said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
I’m very happy!
Thanks
DrT
so screenshot of what you ended up using? Always helps to see, for us :)
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@pa_fan said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
I still have a fondness for the very old buttonbars to be found at http://www.powerarchiver.com/skins/toolbar/.
Up until (I think) PA2017 it was possible to use them with the more recent skins, but I haven’t yet been able to work out a way, or the right combination, to do so with PA2018.
It’s not exactly the end of the world if the old bars can no longer be used, but I’m curious to know if they still can.
I have added now this to the list for major next release… lets see how it looks there. Thanks!
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@drteeth said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
Here is the screenshot of the office icons in my toolbar.
Cheers
DrT
You are 2nd experienced user who did not know of this in past 2 weeks… I wonder if we should give preference to different toolbar icon sets to different skins, so that way users see that they can change these.
For instance dark skins look better with Win10 icons, while lighter ones look better with Office icons.
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The problem is the settings are confusing. You have view > toolbar options, view > select skin > icon set, view > select skin > file icon set and what seems to be skins/toolbars at the top of the select skins menu and some at the bottom.
It looks like that there are at least 3 places where one can change the toolbar icons and they are all interconnected. The ideal situation would be that all skins can have their toolbars changed and there are separate dialogues for each. If a skin cannot have its toolbar changed, then any change toolbar options should be greyed out.
Cheers
DrT
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@drteeth said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
The problem is the settings are confusing. You have view > toolbar options, view > select skin > icon set, view > select skin > file icon set and what seems to be skins/toolbars at the top of the select skins menu and some at the bottom.
It looks like that there are at least 3 places where one can change the toolbar icons and they are all interconnected. The ideal situation would be that all skins can have their toolbars changed and there are separate dialogues for each. If a skin cannot have its toolbar changed, then any change toolbar options should be greyed out.
Cheers
DrT
It is not that complicated, there is only a single space where you can change toolbar icons - it is one labeled with toolbar icons :-).
Toolbar options is for options for the toolbar, not related to the skins or icons. File icon set is for the future addition of file format icons. So there is only a icon set option to change options, and then any of the skins will work with it.
But it seems that the problem is to convey that each skin can have any of the toolbar icon sets applied.
We will try to predefined them as lighter skins with office icon set and darker with win10. That should give people better idea to look around for more?
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@spwolf It’ll be interesting to see how or if this could be made to work.
Nosing around the PA Programs folder, it seems that the skins are .skinres or .vsf files with an accompanying .ini file; or, in the case of the Office 2016 Light and Dark, all three in one folder.
Some, like Paradiso, are .psf2, dating back to last December (on my machine).
The Office icons folder is understandable, as every item (all 82 of them) is a separate .ico file.
On the other hand, every one of the old buttonbars e.g. damas, kde, little_one and all the others, is a single .bmp file containing all the button icons (or at least those that were relevant when those .bmp buttonbar files were produced). If PA now requires separate .ico files for each button, then presumably the old .bmp files would have to be broken down into separate images to be .ico(-nised).
As I understand it, the old .bmp files were made by many different contributors, and I can’t somehow see much interest in rewriting them in another way; certainly not all the 137 or so in my download folder, some of which didn’t work too well anyway.
If the old .bmp files can be used as they are, they are missing many of the buttons for functions in later releases of PA. If you don’t use some of the recent features (or do so from dropdown menus), and therefore don’t need the matching toolbar icons, then that might suffice. I could probably manage thus.
In my view, the old buttonbars, whilst excellent for customising and cheering up past releases of PA to suit personal tastes, have nothing much to do with the superb current functionality of PA 2018. If enabling their use, with the “missing buttons” caveat, were a simple matter, then fair enough. If not, then it’s like buying digital cameras, operating systems and other tech. The old model had features A, B and C. The new has C, D and E, but A and B (usually the ones I found the most useful) have disappeared. That’s progress, I guess.
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@pa_fan said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
@spwolf It’ll be interesting to see how or if this could be made to work.
Nosing around the PA Programs folder, it seems that the skins are .skinres or .vsf files with an accompanying .ini file; or, in the case of the Office 2016 Light and Dark, all three in one folder.
Some, like Paradiso, are .psf2, dating back to last December (on my machine).
The Office icons folder is understandable, as every item (all 82 of them) is a separate .ico file.
On the other hand, every one of the old buttonbars e.g. damas, kde, little_one and all the others, is a single .bmp file containing all the button icons (or at least those that were relevant when those .bmp buttonbar files were produced). If PA now requires separate .ico files for each button, then presumably the old .bmp files would have to be broken down into separate images to be .ico(-nised).
As I understand it, the old .bmp files were made by many different contributors, and I can’t somehow see much interest in rewriting them in another way; certainly not all the 137 or so in my download folder, some of which didn’t work too well anyway.
If the old .bmp files can be used as they are, they are missing many of the buttons for functions in later releases of PA. If you don’t use some of the recent features (or do so from dropdown menus), and therefore don’t need the matching toolbar icons, then that might suffice. I could probably manage thus.
In my view, the old buttonbars, whilst excellent for customising and cheering up past releases of PA to suit personal tastes, have nothing much to do with the superb current functionality of PA 2018. If enabling their use, with the “missing buttons” caveat, were a simple matter, then fair enough. If not, then it’s like buying digital cameras, operating systems and other tech. The old model had features A, B and C. The new has C, D and E, but A and B (usually the ones I found the most useful) have disappeared. That’s progress, I guess.
Technologically, we can make it support image maps like those of previous skins, it does not have to be in ico file.
I think problem was initially that new base toolbar does not work well with some transparency methods. Main point is speed and not looks, so it has something left to be desired in that department.
But we will look at it again when doing next major release…
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It is not that complicated, there is only a single space where you can change toolbar icons - it is one labeled with toolbar icons :-).
It is for the end-user, especially as there seems to be an interaction between all the settings.
Cheers
DrTeeth
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@drteeth said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
It is not that complicated, there is only a single space where you can change toolbar icons - it is one labeled with toolbar icons :-).
It is for the end-user, especially as there seems to be an interaction between all the settings.
Cheers
DrTeeth
we will try to make it easier to understand.
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for instance, when it comes to changing toolbar icons, we can add an option on right click on toolbar, to show more toolbar options, including icon set…
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@spwolf said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
for instance, when it comes to changing toolbar icons, we can add an option on right click on toolbar, to show more toolbar options, including icon set…
You’re cooking with gas now mate. Great idea!
I did not play around much with changing the toolbar icons as I was going around in circles and got more than a little frustrated, especially as changing a skin would set the toolbar icons to default. Cannot these two things made to be completely separate?
Cheers
DrT
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@drteeth said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
@spwolf said in How to (or can we) use old buttonbars with 2018 skins?:
for instance, when it comes to changing toolbar icons, we can add an option on right click on toolbar, to show more toolbar options, including icon set…
You’re cooking with gas now mate. Great idea!
I did not play around much with changing the toolbar icons as I was going around in circles and got more than a little frustrated, especially as changing a skin would set the toolbar icons to default. Cannot these two things made to be completely separate?
Cheers
DrT
Yeah, it asks you in last versions if you want to reset or not. But we will make defaults different in the future in any case, so it makes more sense.
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Great! Thanks for your understanding.
Cheers
DrT
