My one, awkward, Winamp Skin
Between Webamp, archiving Winamp Skins a the Internet Archive and the Winamp Skin Museum, I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about Winamp and Winamp Skins as an adult. This is partially inspired by the impact Winamp skins had on me as a teen.
I was quite fascinated with Winamp skins as a teen. I was in awe of the artists who created them, and spent a good deal of time learning how they were made. However I never had much of an aptitude for design. So, I only ever made one skin. In retrospect I think I was mostly interested in how to make them. That said, I do remember having a visceral sense of exhilaration that lasted several day the first moment my skin loaded I was able to interaction with an application that I had, in a very minor way, created.
So, the skin I made is mostly just a demonstration. I was trying to drill down into all the details of what each pixel did more than having any real design goal. For your schadenfreude enjoyment, I present TealAmp:
TealAmp at the Winamp Skin Museum
Poking into the skin I found the readme file which is a pretty funny read all these years later:
===============================================
=TEAL SIDE WINAMP SKIN Ver 0.7 29-9-99=
===============================================
by Jordan Eldredge Jordan@cartsys.com
CONTENT
-------
- This skin does NOT include a mini browser
because I despise the idea that a music program
should have a browser when we all already have
one.
INSTALATION
-----------
1. Place this zip file in the Winamp skin file
(Usually 'C:\program files\winamp\skins\)
2. Open Winamp and press Alt-S this should open
a box with a number of skins listed in it. Click
on 'TEALamp*'.
3. Close the box.
TOOLS
-----
This skin was designed to be easy to use. It was
made using Paint Shop Pro 5.5 and a slow imagination.
WHATS NEW
---------
V 0.6
-Play list visulizer.
-Compressed BMPs (Phew)
-New repeat/shuffel buttons.
-New about button.
V 0.7
-Fixed playlist top righthand corner over
crop.
-Fixed Volume and Ballance arrows.
-Found out that the number on the EQ are
buttons and fixed accordingly.
-Shrunk PL & EQ Buttons to not smoosh together.
-Shrunk On & Auto buttons on EQ as not to smoosh.
-Cut edge out of main window.
-EQ bar volume leangthend.
-Buttons (close, minimize, resize) fixed.
-Fixed minimized playlist arrow problem
-Removed Region.txt
-Fixed equalizer mispelling.
-FINALLY FIXED THE DASH BEFOR THE NUMBERS PROBLEM!
NOTES TO SKIN AUTHORS
---------------------
Though I am just a novice but I have noticed things in winamp
that even some of the best skin makers did not take into acount.
-The last two title bars in Titlebar.bmp are the title bars
(selected and unselected) that are used when the easter egg is
activated. (Type the word 'nullsoft' slowly typing esc after
each 'l' brings up the OPEN menue.)
-The three numbers in the EQ (+120db, +0db, -120db) are buttons
that put all the bars at the top, middle, and bottom,
(respectivly)
CONTACT
-------
E-mails are welcome and requested. I like to talk
to people of any experience about skins. also you
can e-mail me you're skin. -
E-mail: Jordan@cartsys.com
ICQ: 52088284
--
Jordan@Cartsys.com
"Anything that can go wrong will g� p��-ѫ
I also recall that my favorite Winamp skin was TopazAmp.