Working with Skins

With QCD, you can change the way the player appears on your desktop. When you first open QCD, what you see (the player) is actually the default base QCD skin . To understand more about how skins work, it helps to understand some of the basics:

A skin is a file that changes the appearance of your QCD player. If you want, you can group multiple skins together ù when you group skins together, you end up with a skin family .

In turn, you can apply a skin family to QCD. Once you've applied the skin family to QCD, each skin kid (or skin family member) acts as a mode for the skin family. A skin mode is the skin you actually see ù it's a reflection of the currently selected skin. This feature allows you to group skins that are commonly used or have a common theme, and switch between them quickly and seamlessly.

You can switch the skin mode size at any time. Each family can have up to 9 different modes, and you can name the modes any way you like! For example, the mode names Kong (full display), Retro (display is somewhat smaller), and Runt (takes up the least amount of space on your desktop) are specific to the default QCD family skin.

You can also preview and download new skins. When you preview skins, you view a sample screenshot of the skin, and if you like it, all you have to do is click Install. After installing the skin, it can be found back in the 'skin browser' section under the Family or Kids tab, depending on the type of skin you downloaded.

To work with skins, you use the Skin Browser area of the QCD Preferences window.

There are several ways to open the Skin Browser:

Here are some things you can do with skins:

To:

Do this:

Change between skin modes

  • On the base skin, click the Next Mode or Last Mode button.  (These are #10 and #11 on the the base skin.)

    or

  • Type Alt-S.  This is a convenient shortcut. Especially if don't see the mode buttons on the currently loaded skin.  

Download and install new skins

  1. Open the Skin Browser as described above.

  2. Go to the Download Skins page.

  3. Click Get Latest Skin List to download the latest list of available skins from the QCD web site.

    Tip: At the bottom of the window, QCD will tell you how many new skins have been made available (if any) since the last time you looked.

  4. Choose the skin family or individual skin (kid) you want from the list.

    Tip: Use the Preview button to preview skins before downloading them.

  5. Click Install to download the skin and install it in the Skin browser.

Load a skin

  1. Open the Skin Browser as described above.

  2. Go to the Skin Browser page. This shows all the skins and skin families you currently have installed.

  3. Click on the skin or skin family you want. This loads it into QCD.

  4. (Optional) Click the Modes button to cycle through to the mode you want.

Refresh a skin

  • Anywhere on the skin, press F5.

Group skins into families

  1. Open the Skin Browser as described above.

  2. Click the Kids tab, select the kid files you want to group, and then click the Make a Family button.

This lets you use several skins as different modes of the same skin family (so you can switch between them by typing Alt-S).

Delete a skin

  1. Open the Skin Browser as described above.

  2. Go to the Skin Browser page.

  3. Click on the skin you want to delete. This will load it into QCD.

  4. Click Delete to delete the skin.

  5. Select another skin.

Note: You cannot delete the default QCD skin.

Have QCD load skins randomly

  1. Open the Skin Browser.

  2. Go to the Skin & Font Options page.

  3. Check the box labeled Random skin on startup to have QCD load a different skin each time you launch it.

  4. Check the box labeled Random skin per track to have QCD change skins each track.

  5. Check the box labeled Select from the current family only if you only want QCD to switch between modes in the current skin family.

Change the font used with skins (for international support)

  1. Open the Skin Browser.

  2. Go to the Skin & Font Options page.

  3. Check the box labeled Use this font on skins.

  4. Check the font name and character set to use.

Note: This is useful if you listen to CDs or tracks that have artists or tiles with Japanese, Chinese, or other non-western characters. Skins contain built-in character sets that may not be able to display these names.