1src Forums - SkinDIA! for T3 and T5 released!

pruss

10-29-2004, 11:58 AM

I've updated SkinT3! to work on the T5, and renamed it to SkinDIA!. This is a full-featured loader/manager for DIA area skins. You can now load T3 skins on the T5 (and theoretically T5 skins on the T3, except there are no T5 skins out yet as far as I know). This is an 8-day trial, after which you can no longer load new skins. But even after the trial expires, you still get to do some neat stuff for free, like make program icons show up in color in the DIA line or change the DIA clock text color.

http://www.zlthemes.com/ProductDetailListing.php?PID=67

pruss

10-29-2004, 11:16 PM

Alex, you are a genius! What were the major changes required for T5 compatibility?

Very few and none major, hence the version number only changed from 1.30 to 1.32. First, I now ignore the ovly resource in StatusBarResources, and always fill it in from ROM. (One could imagine a skin that this breaks, namely a skin that replaces the localized resources, but I don't know of any right now.) Second, I set the version number of StatusBarResources to 3. Third, I fix a simple bug that was causing crashes on the T5. The bug SHOULD have caused crashes on the T3, but miraculously did not.

Sad note: The bug (or poor programming practice) in the T3 OS which caused crashes in the clock popup with a custom skin before SkinT3! fixed them is still there in the T5 (or at least the T5 simulator). The same workarounds do the job again. I was hoping the workarounds wouldn't be necessary for the T5.

The one nasty thing is that if you just hotsync a standard self-installing T3 skin (16-bit (SkinT3!) skins and F3T3AgendaBG skins don't have this problem) to a T5's program memory, it either won't show up and you'll need SkinDIA! to make it show up, or it will crash the T5. So to make sure that you don't get a crash, all standard T3 skins need to be copied to the internal drive instead of program memory OR need to be processed by the FixUpT3Skin.exe program on the desktop.

Note to skin developers: When making skins to be loaded with SkinDIA!, there is no need to create T5-specific skins. Just make T3-specific ones, and SkinDIA! will load them just fine. I don't think (though I could be wrong--and even if I am wrong, SkinDIA! should still work properly) the T3 adds any new DIA skin resources.