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OG Xbox Forums => Official UnleashX Forum => Dashboard Forums => Skins and Tools => Topic started by: ZiaTioN on December 27, 2004, 06:51:00 PM

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ZiaTioN on December 27, 2004, 06:51:00 PM

Can anyone tell me where the skins for this dash reside? I looked in settings and it shows "Skins" as the file path and in the configuration xml file it says "Action=Skins" but gives no indication as to where they are located at. Are they compiled into the dash itself? If so how would you add more skins?

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: senator on December 27, 2004, 06:55:00 PM

Probably c: skins
If thats how it's set up..
You would need to ftp to box and transfer them...
I think you can even download the from web sites via the dashboard...

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: WONDERBOY15 on December 27, 2004, 06:58:00 PM

You have to go into the folder that contains UnleashX and add your own Skins folder.  When you download a skin you have to extract the files and then place them into a new folder.  Then FTP that folder into the new "Skins" folder that you created in the UnleashX folder.  That's what I did and it worked well.  Any problems, just give me a holler.

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ZiaTioN on December 27, 2004, 06:59:00 PM

Yeah I currently run about 6 different dashboards from the same xbox and all other dshboards are pretty cut and dry as to their skins location (usually in a folder called "skins" that resides in the same folder as the .xbe file). However Unleash does not have this convienence. I do have a "skins folder in C but this is for nexGen because the developers of that dash hard coded file path for their skins to the root directory instead of the same directory as the .xbe file (big flaw in my book). So that skins folder does not apply to UnleashX, I even double checked and the skins that UnleashX is reporting are not in that folder.

Any other ideas?

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ZiaTioN on December 27, 2004, 07:05:00 PM

QUOTE(WONDERBOY15 @ Dec 28 2004, 02:58 AM)

You have to go into the folder that contains UnleashX and add your own Skins folder.  When you download a skin you have to extract the files and then place them into a new folder.  Then FTP that folder into the new "Skins" folder that you created in the UnleashX folder.  That's what I did and it worked well.  Any problems, just give me a holler.

This is fine as long as I manually download skins to my pc and then up them to the xbox but how about downloading them directly from the dash which is supported (or suppose to be). I try to download from the dash and I can connect to the skins server and preview all in the list but when I try to hit "start" and download one it says it is downloading and then another window pops up and says "downloaded 0 skins". What is up with that? As of now there are like 10 skins that show up in the list of skins that came with the dash. These have to be located somewhere right? I like the default one but I want to edit it. This is why I am looking for these default skins.

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: WONDERBOY15 on December 27, 2004, 07:19:00 PM

Can't help you on the skins server through UnleashX, I'm old-fashioned I do everything manually.  It doesn't take 30 seconds to do it manually, so I would just be happy with what you can get.

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ZiaTioN on December 27, 2004, 07:32:00 PM

QUOTE(WONDERBOY15 @ Dec 28 2004, 03:19 AM)

Can't help you on the skins server through UnleashX, I'm old-fashioned I do everything manually.  It doesn't take 30 seconds to do it manually, so I would just be happy with what you can get.

Not when other dashes perform this flawlessly and actually have a pretty obvious skins folder in which there skins reside in. I really like this dash (definately my second favorite if not my first, real close with Avalaunch) and I do not want something like this to force me to remove it from my system. I do not think it is an issue with the functionality but maybe the configuration (meaning my fault).

And so far still no one has told me where these default skins are located. Has no one ever tried to edit or find these? The location of the skins directory and the inability to download skins directly are two seperate issues and I would really just like to find these skins locations first. I think I can get the system to download skins later (possibly).

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ozwalker on December 28, 2004, 04:06:00 AM

I've also struggled to find the location that downloaded skins are saved to. I do not have a skins folder that I created. However, I've downloaded a half dozen skins via unleashx and cannot find them. I did a search using flashfxp on C, E and F drives but couldn't find anything searching for the skin name. I then did a search for the word skin and found a directory under e:\UDATA, but I wasn't sure if this was the correct directory or if it just contains info about where unleashx gets it's skins etc.

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: jonathan2007 on December 28, 2004, 07:05:00 AM

I am pretty sure that the default skins that come with UnleashX are located in the UnleashX xbe file so you cannot edit them but don't quote me on that.    Other than that all skins are located in C\Skins.

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ZiaTioN on December 28, 2004, 03:11:00 PM

QUOTE(jonathan2007 @ Dec 28 2004, 03:36 PM)

I am pretty sure that the default skins that come with UnleashX are located in the UnleashX xbe file so you cannot edit them but don't quote me on that.  ;)  Other than that all skins are located in C\Skins.

I think you are correct on the fact that the default skins are compiled into the .xbe file but you are wrong in saying "all skins are located in C:\Skins". If you were to read my original post you would see that I run multiple different dashes on the same system therefore most of the other dashboards have local (local to their subdir at least) skins folders in each one of their dash directories. I also have a "Skin" and a "skins" dir in my root (C:) directory. One for my makeshift bootloader and the other for neXgen due to it's need to have certain files in the root directory to even launch. Other than that I have skins dirs in:

C:\Dashboards\Evox
C:\Dashboards\UnleashX  <-- created this myself
C:\Dashboards\Avalaunch\media

So as you can see it really depends on how the user has their system setup. Oh and to fix the lost downloaded skin problem you can create a "skins" directory in your UnleashX dir (be it root or any other subdir) and then launch UnleashX (if it is not already launched due to being your primary dash) and go to settings and change the skins dir path to point to this newly created skins dir. From now on all downloaded skins will be saved in that directory and also read from that directory when listing them.

This post has been edited by ZiaTioN: Dec 28 2004, 11:16 PM

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: Jezz_X on December 28, 2004, 04:35:00 PM

The default skin (blue MS Dash one) and the skins by me (Jezz_X) and Kthulu that appear at the bottem of the skin list are xml only skins (No Graphics) and are compiled straight into the xbe source code so you cant edit them

However I do have my original skin.xml files if you really ant them

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ozwalker on December 28, 2004, 08:52:00 PM

QUOTE(ZiaTioN @ Dec 29 2004, 06:11 AM)

to fix the lost downloaded skin problem you can create a "skins" directory in your UnleashX dir (be it root or any other subdir) and then launch UnleashX (if it is not already launched due to being your primary dash) and go to settings and change the skins dir path to point to this newly created skins dir. From now on all downloaded skins will be saved in that directory and also read from that directory when listing them.

Thanks! That fixed my problem right up... I can now find the skins that I download via UX. Much appreciated.

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ZiaTioN on December 29, 2004, 01:43:00 AM

QUOTE(Jezz_X @ Dec 29 2004, 12:35 AM)

The default skin (blue MS Dash one) and the skins by me (Jezz_X) and Kthulu that appear at the bottem of the skin list are xml only skins (No Graphics) and are compiled straight into the xbe source code so you cant edit them

However I do have my original skin.xml files if you really ant them

The thing is I really like the default blue one but I really want to get rid of the HDD size text in the top left corner. It gets in the way and covers the graphic sometimes. Maybe you could edit this and recompile a custom dash for me? LOL.. Or instruct me on how to do so. =P

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: jonathan2007 on December 29, 2004, 06:51:00 AM

QUOTE(ZiaTioN @ Dec 29 2004, 03:43 AM)

The thing is I really like the default blue one but I really want to get rid of the HDD size text in the top left corner. It gets in the way and covers the graphic sometimes. Maybe you could edit this and recompile a custom dash for me? LOL.. Or instruct me on how to do so. =P

Haha  :lol:  Recompile the dash for you. Silly boy. First of all I'm sure he doesn't have the source code. Only James has that. Second of all why would he go to all that work just for you. What he will probably do for you is PM you the skin.xml after he has taken out the Hdd size. Then you can put the skin.xml in a folder (under your skins folder of course) called something besides what the original skin was called so you will have 2 copies. I believe that will work. Perhaps Jezz could inform us if this would work?  :beer:

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ZiaTioN on December 29, 2004, 11:34:00 AM

QUOTE(jonathan2007 @ Dec 29 2004, 02:51 PM)

Haha  :lol:  Recompile the dash for you. Silly boy. First of all I'm sure he doesn't have the source code. Only James has that. Second of all why would he go to all that work just for you. What he will probably do for you is PM you the skin.xml after he has taken out the Hdd size. Then you can put the skin.xml in a folder (under your skins folder of course) called something besides what the original skin was called so you will have 2 copies. I believe that will work. Perhaps Jezz could inform us if this would work?  :beer:

Hehe, First off I think you missed the joke. Second off, if you have the source, openXDK or the MS XDK, and half a brain you could recompile the .xbe in very little time so I disagree with the "all that work" statement. Even though it was a joke it probably would not take James more than 2 minutes from start to finish to accomplish this. I take it you are not a programmer? Hell if James wants to he could send me the source and I will do it (another joke).

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: love_tropicana on December 29, 2004, 11:36:00 AM

I don't like jokes that aren't funny.. So stop typing jokes that isn't funny.. It's NOT funny.

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: ZiaTioN on December 30, 2004, 01:43:00 AM

Not limiting at all. I do not beleive I ever used those words. I was interested in finding the included skins which I suspected to be compiled into the .xbe and it appears I was on the right track. There is a problem with a default install of the dash though. You say that the default path is \Skins\ which is relative to the .xbe (good thing) but the default install does not have a Skins dir in the same dir as the .xbe so if you do not create one yourself you get weird indications such as has been described in this thread. Things like the dash saying it downloaded the skin successfully but never shows up in the skins list and other things such as the dash giving strange error indications. You should do either one of two things, create a "Skins" directory in the default installs so when people unrar the files this directory is already there or code in an error check to tell the user that a "Skins" directory does not exist if they try to download skins without creating one. Or even better yet have the dash create a Skins dir upon the first successfull download of a skin. I guess that would be one of three things but you get the idea.

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: Barbados on January 06, 2005, 12:03:00 AM

how can u change the directory the dashboard looks for skins???
im still having trouble finding the location of the skins. ive got a folder in c:, and to change them u go system, settings them system and i choose the skin i put in c:/skins, save settings but nothing happens. the skins menu in just the system menu work but i cant find where that folder is to put new skins in there... sorry if that is very confusing... :S :S

hey sorry guys jus worked it out as soon as i posted that^^^
it was so very obvious.. ahh well

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: jonathan2007 on January 06, 2005, 05:05:00 AM

QUOTE(unleashx @ Dec 30 2004, 12:07 AM)

Skins are located in \Skins\, by default. That is relative to the location of the xbe. If it's in C, it'd be C:\Skins...etc. And that IS the default. You can change the location where the dash should look for skins, it can be on a different partition.

Title: Skins Location?
Post by: jonathan2007 on January 06, 2005, 05:42:00 AM