Pimp My MoonShell :) - customizing guide

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Welcome to my little skinning guide. You can find here descriptions of files and elements needed to customize your MoonShell.
There may be some errors. If you find any of those, need help or closer decriptions, you can pm me or write in this topic. I'm gonna correct them if needed.

If something changes in a new release of MoonShell, I'll try to upgrade my guide as soon as I can.
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Current guide version is compatible with MoonShell 1.71
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This is the first section, just a short list. You can find here names, sizes and small descriptions for the files which can be used to pimp your MoonShell.

Bitmaps
\moonshl\skin\desktop.bmp [256x192] desktop background
\moonshl\skin\c_file.bmp [256x192] file browser window background
\moonshl\skin\client.bmp [256x192] normal window backround
\moonshl\skin\c_text [256x192] text viewer background
\moonshl\skin\titlea.bmp [256x16] active window header
\moonshl\skin\titled.bmp [256x16] inactive window header
\moonshl\skin\fbarcur.bmp [256x12] selected file highlight
\moonshl\skin\fbarplay.bmp [256x12] opened file highlight
\moonshl\skin\prgbara.bmp [256x16] full progress bar
\moonshl\skin\prgbard.bmp [256x16] empty progress bar
\moonshl\skin\sb_part.bmp [8x8] scroll bar endings (upper 4 pixel rows are for top and lower 4 are for bottom)
\moonshl\skin\sb_body.bmp [8x8] scroll bar middle part
\moonshl\skin\sb_bg.bmp [8x8] scroll bar area background
\moonshl\skin\closebtn.bmp [14x14] close button (to make it transparent, use full green (00FF00) color)
\moonshl\skin\sysicon.bmp [16x16] sytem menu icon

Sounds
\moonshl\startup.mp3 [] starup sound
\moonshl\shutdown.mp3 [] shutdown sound

Configuration Files
\moonshl\moonshl.ini [] player settings
\moonshl\skin\skin.ini [] skin settings
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Here comes the second part, which describes skin.ini, used to define some skin parts. All colors should be in RRGGBB hex format and sizes should be in pixels. Use -1 value for bitmaps or default settings.

;file: /moonshl/skin/skin.ini - appearance settings

[SkinInfo]

Title= skin name (text)
Author= skin author (text)
LastUpdate= last update date (text)

[Boot]

hiddenAboutWindow= About Window visiblity (0 = show, 1 = hide)
hiddenHelpWindow= Help Window visiblity (0 = show, 1 = hide)

[ColorCoordination]

;COLORS

;Desktop
DesktopBG= desktop color

;Active Header
TitleA_Bright= left and top part of header frame color
TitleA_Dark= right and bottom part of header frame color
TitleA_BG= header color
TitleA_Text= header text color
TitleA_TextShadow= shadow of header text color

;Inctive Header
TitleD_Bright= left and top part of header frame color
TitleD_Dark= right and bottom part of header frame color
TitleD_BG= header color
TitleD_Text= header text color

;Scroll Bar
ScrollBar= scroll bar color (this is the main body color, edges will be a bit darker)

;Window Frame
FrameBright= left and top part of window frame color
FrameDark= right and bottom part of window frame color

;Window
ClientBG= window background color
ClientText= window text color

;File Browser
FileSelectBG= file browser window background color and selected filename color
FileSelectText= file browser text color
FileSelectCursor= selected file highlight color
FileSelectPlay= opened file highlight color

;Text Viewer
TextViewBG= background color
TextViewText= text color

;Progress Bar
ProgressEnd= full progress bar color
ProgressLast= empty progress bar color

;WINDOWS POSITIONS AND SIZES

;About Window
[OverrideWindowRect_About]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;Help Window
[OverrideWindowRect_Help]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;Media Player Window
[OverrideWindowRect_PlayControl]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;File Browser Window
[OverrideWindowRect_FileSelect]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;Clock Window
[OverrideWindowRect_DateTime]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;Image Viewer Window
[OverrideWindowRect_PicView]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;Text Viewer Window
[OverrideWindowRect_TextView]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;Work Progress Window
[OverrideWindowRect_Progress]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;Playback Mode Window
[OverrideWindowRect_SetNext]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;File Information Window
[OverrideWindowRect_FileInfo]
x= horizontal position
y= vertical position
w= width
h= height
DisabledCloseButton= close button availability (0 = enable, 1 = disable)

;eof: /moonshl/skin/skin.ini
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There's a new feature in 1.71: animated splash screens. It allows to show an animation at startup. Here's a description how to make your own using a proper tool (MakeSplash.exe) from MoonShell's site:

First, you need a background (256x384 to cover both screens or smaller to cover them partially). The next step is making some frames for the animation. They can be up to 256x384. If they are smaller, then only a part of the splash scren will be animated – the rest (bottom part) will be static, so if you want to animate only the upper screen, there's no need to make them larger than 256x192. If you want to make some pixels transparent (for example to make loading log on the upper screen visible), you can use full green (00FF00) color. If you've got all the frames ready, make sure they names are in the format "splashXXX.bmp", where XXX is a number of an animation frame (background should be splash000.bmp).
Now you need an ini file so you can set some parameters for the animation. It looks as follows:

;file: splash.ini

[ConvertSetting]
SourceFileMask= name of the animation frames (default is splash???.bmp, but you can also use custom names; question mark represents varying numbers, for non-animated splash screens you don't need them.)
SourceFPS= number of frames played per second
WaitForTerminate= loading MoonShell and playing animation simultaneously (0 = on, 1 = off)
AlreadyAllDraw= allways playing the whole animation (0 = off, 1 = on)
UseDither24to15bit= dithering in conversion to smaller color palette (0 = off, 1 = on)

;eof: splash.ini

Put all those files in one folder and open splash.ini with MakeSplash.exe. It will generate splash.ani. To enable animation put the ani file into /moonshl/ on your memory card.

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And now a little about moonshl.ini, plugin settings and custom clocks.

Previous version of this guide contained description of global.ini (now it's moonshl.ini) because it wasn't well documented by the author of MoonShell. However, it changed some time ago and now moonshl.ini contains detailed descriptions of its content so I think it's unnecessary to keep this part of the guide. I'll only mention that this file contains mainly settings which don't directyly affect skins.

As you probably noticed if you were messing with customization, there is a plugin folder. It contains plugins and their ini files, so you can change some settings, e.g. enable progressive jpegs (which aren't supported by default) or add more plugins (*.msp) and executables (*.mse) if you've got any.

There's also a possiblity of making a custom clock. Provious versions (from 1.2) contained instructions for making a clock but now I removed them for the same reason as moonshl.ini. The way to make a clock is simple: open MoonShell_OrWhereverYouKeepSetupFiles\misc\ClockPlugin_CustomKit\CustomKit.exe and you should see a small window of program for clock plugins. It's pretty easy to use. Just load images which you need, set some parameters and when you're satisfied with your work, choose "File > Save MSP as" from menu... and voila! The only thing left is to copy clk_customkit.msp and clk_customkit.ini (they may vary, depending on how have you named it) to /moonshl/plugin/ on your memory card.
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I hope it helps somehow.
GIDZzz