The Calenz Designer program bundled in the Calenz installation is specially tailored for creating new custom skins for Calenz. Run Calenz Designer from your Calenz folder and follow its quick help for instructions. Below are some technical details about skins in Calenz.
A skin file is basically a ZIP file containing 3 '.bmp' files for the windows in Calenz and a configuration file (.ini) to assign colours and visuals to Calenz. The ZIP file is renamed with an extension '.s' to identify it as a Calenz skin file. The transparent colour is taken as the colour from the pixel at the top left-hand corner of each of the bitmaps which is Lime in the Default skin. The visual colour for Default is Black.
If you want to rearrange the components(buttons, edit boxes, panels, etc...) or use bitmaps
for the buttons for advanced customization, I recommend that you use Calenz
Designer. This is because editing the configuration file 'backg.ini' for the
coordinates of the buttons is tedious.
Below are the details of what is inside a skin file and if you want to make Calenz skins without the Calenz Designer.
The main window: Default skin (400x400 pixels bitmap)
The event window: (400x300 pixels bitmap)
The about window: (300x200 pixels bitmap)
Design your skins and save the 3 files as 'backg.bmp'
for the main window, 'backg1.bmp' for the event window and 'backg2.bmp' for the
about window. Next, comes the colour configuration and visual control in 'backg.ini'.
Note that Calenz Designer will save the 3 bitmaps and backg.ini file for you in a zipped skin file.
Backg.ini
This is an example of 'backg.ini' from the Default skin. The colour values
are in the form of 'RRGGBB' where RR, GG and BB are the red, green and blue
components in hexadecimal (00 to FF) respectively. Edit the values manually or
you can choose colours from Calenz and save the colours into a Scheme file (.sch).
Open the '.sch' file as a text file and copy the [Main Screen], [Input Screen] and
[Aboutbox] sections into 'backg.ini'.
[Main Screen]
FunctionButtons=EEEEEE
NaviButtons=EEEEEE
TimeLabel=A3ADC6
DropDown=063A82
DropDownText=00A7FF
Calendar=063A82
CalendarText=00A7FF
CalendarHighlight=0057AA
CalendarMthsText=EEEEEE
@=EEEEEE
SysButtons=EEEEEE
GlowPanelText=EEEEEE
GlowColour1=063A82
GlowColour2=00A7FF
[Input Screen]
TitleLabel=A3ADC6
EventsLabel=EEEEEE
OKButton=EEEEEE
CancelButton=A3ADC6
Edit=063A82
EditText=00A7FF
Memo=063A82
MemoText=00A7FF
[AboutBox]
ProductName=EEEEEE
CopyRight=EEEEEE
[Visual]
VisFile=Default.v
VisColour=000000
Left=17
Top=13
Width=116
Height=114
Colour1=063A82
Colour2=EEEEEE
[MainWindowComponentsCoords]
Glowpanel=136,34,160,26,8,0
Calendar=107,131,189,111,8,0
Eventslistbox=134,84,165
Listbox=134,103,162,15,8
Backyrbtn=109,246,45,22,8,<<
Backmthbtn=155,246,45,22,8,<
Nextmthbtn=201,246,45,22,8,>
Nextyrbtn=246,246,45,22,8,>>
Todaybtn=109,296,91,22,8,Today's Event
Addeditbtn=109,271,91,22,8,Add/Edit Events
Deletebtn=201,271,90,22,8,Delete Events
Aboutbtn=136,61,40,15,8,About
Minimizebtn=227,61,36,15,8,Hide
Optionsbtn=177,61,49,15,8,Options
Exitbtn=264,61,31,15,8,Exit
Timelabel=203,300,88,14,8
Janbtn=52,129,30,15,8,Jan
Febbtn=52,145,30,15,8,Feb
Marbtn=52,161,30,15,8,Mar
Aprbtn=52,177,30,15,8,Apr
Maybtn=52,193,30,15,8,May
Junbtn=52,209,30,15,8,Jun
Julbtn=52,225,30,15,8,Jul
Augbtn=52,241,30,15,8,Aug
Sepbtn=52,257,30,15,8,Sep
Octbtn=52,273,30,15,8,Oct
Novbtn=52,289,30,15,8,Nov
Decbtn=52,305,30,15,8,Dec
[EventWindowComponentsCoords]
Titlelabel=92,79,32,16,8,Title:
Eventslabel=92,64,227,13,8
Titleedit=123,78,203,19,8
Memotextarea=89,114,232,77,8
Okbutton=89,192,115,21,8,OK
Cancelbutton=205,192,115,21,8,Cancel
Weeklyreminderbtn=55,118,18,18,8,W
Monthlyreminderbtn=55,136,18,18,8,M
Monthlybyweekreminderbtn=55,154,18,18,8,m
Yearlyreminderbtn=55,172,18,18,8,Y
Eventwindow=-299,71,265,18
[AboutWindowComponentsCoords]
Productnamelabel=40,72,120,16,10
Copyrightlabel=40,106,219,16,10
Aboutwindow=98,-115,98,-115
[OptionsWindowComponentsCoords]
Optionswindow=-194,123,307,83
Check the entries in [Main Screen], [Input Screen] and [Aboutbox] here for more details. The [Visual] section initializes the visual settings for the skin:
VisFile -> Name of visual file
VisColour -> Colour in backg.bmp for the display of visuals.
Left -> Top-Left x coordinate of visual area.
Top -> Top-Left y coordinate of visual area.
Width -> Width of visual area.
Height -> Height of visual area.
Colour1 -> Darker colour for paletted visuals
Colour2 -> Lighter colour for paletted visuals
The sections headings ending with 'Coords' define the coordinates of a component or window. For a component, the first 4 numbers define the left, top, width and height values. If there is a 5th value, it defines the font size. The 6th value defines the caption that appears on a button but is ignored if a bitmap is used for the button. The 7th value, if present, is the name of the bitmap used on a button. The coordinates for the 'Eventwindow', 'Aboutwindow' and 'Optionswindow' define 2 sets of left and top values. The first set is used when Calenz is to the right of the screen and the sub-window is displayed to the left and the second set is used if the main window is on the left of the screen and causes the sub-window to appear on the right.
Finalizing and saving the skin file (.s)
Zip up the 3 '.bmp' files and 'backg.bmp' and whatever '.bmp' files you have
defined for any buttons into a new zip file of a name of
your choice. Rename the zip file to from a '.zip' extension to a '.s' extension.
Copy the file to the 'skins' sub-directory of Calenz's installed
directory. Load the skin from the skins options
menu. Check that the coordinates of the area for the visual, if you have one, is
properly defined. Edit whichever files you feel that requires touching-up and
re-zip the files. There you have ... a custom skin!