MapleSim :: Adding and Making Custom Skins

BannedStory Skins

BannedStory can have customized skins applied to it. A skin can give a whole new appereance to the interface of BannedStory. They are just a collection of PNG images with an xml file, just like the items BannedStory uses. This page will guide you in the details about creating custom skins.

The skin

Skins (the images and the xml file) must always be placed inside a folder named skin. That "skin" folder must be inside the dat folder that you will find in the installation folder of BannedStory. BannedStory will automatically load the skin in that folder, if it exists in that specific location. To remove a skin from BannedStory, simply rename or delete the "skin" folder, the default skin will be used instead.

The images

As mentioned earlier, the images of a skin are PNG images. You can name them anyway you want, as long as you write that exact same name (with the *.png extension) in the xml file.

Images used in the skin must be divided in 9 areas using 1 pixel thick lines of magenta (hex color ff00ff), any other color will not work. It doesn't matter what are the dimensions of your image, since BannedStory will automatically re-scale it according to the 9 areas you draw with the lines. All areas, except the corners, are re-scaled.

But note that not all images must be divided by the magenta lines. Take for example the AMP BannedStory skin: images used in the radio buttons, check boxes and tab arrows don't need those divisions, since they don't need to be re-scaled.

The data

The data file is an xml file that must be named always data.xml. BannedStory uses this xml file to load the images you create for the skin, and to control the appereance of certain elements in the interface. If you see the contents of the data.xml file of the AMP BannedStory skin, you will notice a list of all the elements that can me modified in the interface (you can open the xml file with any text editor):

For this example, I'll be using XMLPad, which is an xml file editor.

When you open the data.xml file, you will see a lot of text wrapped around the characters < and >. These elements wrapped in those characters are called nodes. They are used to group other nodes. Each group is identified by a name, but there could be more than one element with the same name. The name is the text you will se right after the first < character. You mark the beginning of a group by wrapping the name with the < and > characters, and the end by wrapping again the name with the same characters, but this time you need to write the / character just before the name of the group.

Remember that you need to do this to make one node have more nodes inside of it (thus, making a group). If you want to make a single element (not a group) you just need to write the / character just before the closing > of that node.

So, when you see at the data.xml file of the AMP BannedStory skin, you'll notice that the first group from top to bottom is named "skin". Inside of skin you will see other groups (comboBox, scrollBar, button, etc). And inside of each group you will notice single element nodes. These single element nodes are the ones that control the apereance of the interface elements of BannedStory. They are related to the group they belong, that's why they need to be divided in groups.

You will see what each of those nodes can control in the text that appears just after the word "variable" in each of the nodes. You must not modify that text, otherwise that node will cease to work. The only text you need to modify is the one that appears right after the word "image" or "value". If it is an image node, you need to write the name of the image you made (with the file extension) in that part. If it is a value node, you need to write a number. If that number needs to be an hexadecimal value (for colors) you have to start that number with 0x (zero and a x). For example, if I want to write the hexadecimal value of red, I would wirte 0xff0000. If that number needs to be an alpha value, it has to be a decimal number between 0 and 1.

If the value you wrote is incorrect or empty, BannedStory will load the default configuration of that node.

Reference Manual

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