Digital Age - A WindowBlinds skin by TheGreenReaper (Laurence Parry)

Thanks for trying this skin! It would really mean a _lot_ to me if you could spare the time to comment on it - feel free to mail me at greenreaper@hotmail.com with criticism, advice, etc. Flames to /dev/null (unless they contain amusingly bad spelling, in which case I might just post them to news.windowblinds :-)

This skin is designed with both readability and memory usage in mind. It is also a bit small on 1024x768 screens [your mileage may vary] - this is unfortunate, but as I only have a 15 inch screen it is also a low priority at the moment - if you wish to make it bigger, be my guest (but see below about distribution)

Please read at least the next few sections - they _are_ important :-)

Recommended WindowBlinds settings with Digital Age:

Add bitmaps to dialog & MDI backgrounds - Off (but see below)
Add bitmaps to explorer backgrounds - On
	Show inactive state - Off
	Stretch to fit - Off
	Transparency - Off
Use a custom colour for explorer text - Off or On, but it needs to be light
Use bitmap backgrounds specified by skin - On

This skin contains a custom colour scheme. It is recommended that you enable this option in WindowBlinds, as otherwise things may look odd (to say the least). Also, you can set back.bmp for all three background bitmaps - just don't tick "Add to dialog & MDI backgrounds", because it then skins the outsides of open/save as boxes, which looks fairly cool but unreadable :-)

*CAUTION* - If you do use the colour scheme, I HIGHLY recommend you merge DigitalAge\iefix.reg into the Registry (just double click on it in Explorer). This is necessary beacuse some website designers assume that text will always be black, then specify that the background should be white. Not good with a skin with white text . . . but this .reg file will change your IE settings so that things should be readable once more. All it does is change colours - to do it yourself, goto Internet Options/Colors [that US spelling!] and mess around with things to your heart's content. If you use Netscape . . . err . . . tell me how and you will get mentioned here :-)

The buttons are (from the left): Application Menu, Close, Rollup/down, Always on Top, Minimise, Restore/Maximise, Close. Right clicking on the title/borders will minimise the window.

Options:

If you prefer a non-animated skin (or have a slow computer - don't feel bad, I have one too :-), simply swap DigitalAge.uis with DigitalAge.una - anything else, break out good 'ol Notepad . . .

NB - The .bmp files in this skin are RLE compressed, in order to cut the size down (a lot). This compression produces little image degredation (well, I can't notice any), and is fully supported by current versions of WindowBlinds, but _not_ by BuilderBlinds (as of version 0.14.31.73) - you may get a "Stream Read Error" if you try opening Digital Age with it. To view these files, simply open them in Paint or Paint Shop Pro. If you wish to alter the skin (for your personal use only), just resave the bitmaps in RGB format and BuilderBlinds will work.

I hope you have as much enjoyment using Digital Age as I did making it (except for the fiddly synchronization bit with the titlebars: that wasn't _all_ that enjoyable . . . and the scrollbars . . .) - if not, drop me an email at greenreaper@hotmail.com and tell me why.

If you _do_ like Digital Age (yay!), please vote for it in the BetaNews WindowBlinds skin competition (Digital Age is/will be a Universal skin)

Note: Although it is fine with me if you want to change things for your own personal/family use (and if you want to share these alterations with me to include in future versions, that is great too - if they are good [and can fit in], I'll put them in and you could get put in the credits section :-), redistributing derivative works based on this skin without prior permission is strictly forbidden. Basically, anything goes on the internet and I want to know about it first. Thanks!

This skin is dedicated to the music of Willow [the film], Planescape:Torment and all the nice people at Stardock who made the making of this skin possible (Kris in particular knows what I mean :-)

Enjoy!

Warning: Objects in these windows may appear greener than they really are. Only rolling is permissible - do not fold, crease, spindle or mutilate these windows. This document contains 96% of the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) of :-) - in case of over-exposure, consult DrWatson.

Version History:

0.90	Alpha release
0.95	Beta release to news.windowblinds.binaries - Thanks to Allen Bond, Terry May, scratch, Matthijs Vermeulen (MadIce), Alobar, d, desumu and Toadsky for their feedback!
0.97	Second beta release (dark green background, many changes, subtle and otherwise)
1.00	Released on Stardock, Skinz and Betanews