Missing separator

Published on March 22, 2004 By Sput In Skinning

I seem to hit this issue each time I make a skin, but this time I'm stumped because it was working very nicely....

The separator item on my pull down menus is invisible. Every other graphic in Menus/Pull down item image work fine, except the separator.

I have a different Pull Down Item (Top Item) graphic, but it was working with that to start with.

The only thing I knowingly changed that seemed related (and just before I noticed the separator had gone walkabout) is adding some details to the Pull Down Items Extras...but that shouldn't make the separator suddenly vanish should it?

Even if I make the separator frame in the Pull down item graphic a solid colour, I'm seeing nothing on any menus...help. How do I get it working again?

The pulldown items extra is a tga, the other menu graphics are bmps relying of magic pink. If I make the normal and separator graphics into solid colour then the menu has gaps in the solid colour showing the menu background image where the separator should be about half the height of the normal menu items.

...what's going on? How have I broken this? Particularly when it was all working fine for ages!

Comments (Page 1)

Koasati

on Mar 24, 2004

I know this is driving you crazy, but I don't have much of anything to suggest.. ...... but I can give you a ~bump~

Shameless Designs

on Mar 24, 2004

I somehow missed this thread earlier... Sorry Sput. Nothing comes to mind off the top of my head, but I'll do some research and get back to you. One thing occurred to me, but not sure it applies. On your tga for the pulldown items extra, do you have translucency enabled? I seem to recall having a similar problem that required me to disable translucency in a tga in order to see an overlapping or underlying bmp. I can't recall exactly now, but I'll dig through my skinners notebooks and check in Skin Studio and see what I can come up with.

Sput

on Mar 24, 2004

Goot pointer to something to try Shameless D...The change I made to the extras might have made it over lap the menu items in a different way. Yes, it is usuing translucency, though to be honest, I probably ought to switch to an 8 bit BMP and magic pink (except for the anti-alias with the x as it needs to work on different backgrounds...)

I'll try this route tonight though.

Ta Koasati - it might need someone to look at the file for me to see if I've done something stupid I guess - it's always hard to spot your own mistakes.

Koasati

on Mar 24, 2004

If you want me take a look, fire it over. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to WB/SS, but I'll be glad to take a shot.

Sput

on Mar 24, 2004

Koasati - hopefully, you have mail...I've tried everything and I'm still stumped.

Koasati

on Mar 24, 2004

I have tried everything I can think of, sometimes twice. At one point, I had a separator in "some" menus, but not all. ..... but they never showed again.
What version of SkinStudio are you using? Maybe SS broke something, I can't think of any other explaination.

Sput

on Mar 24, 2004

Koasati - I'm using SS v 4.1.0 Build 872.

I've also checked the code view to see if I can see anything odd, but with no avail. I've had problems with separators with every skin I've worked on so far (4)...eventually I've got the others working, but this one is most anoying as I HAD it working perfectly first time as I'd learned from the previous tried.

I'm glad it's not just me in a way, but at the same time it means I can't fix it *sigh*

Sput

on Mar 24, 2004

What I might try is starting a new skin and putting just the menu graphics in and seeing if that works...but I'm rather demoralised with fighting it at the moment....

Sput

on Mar 24, 2004

Oh...and thanks for looking! I should ahve said that first!

Sput

on Mar 24, 2004

Grrr...now I'm more confused as it all works in a new skin! I just created a new "empty" skin and used the File/Import Skin Components in SS (I had to copy the background graphic by hand for some reason)...and it all works then! The same settings, the same graphics.

That means there must be something in an entirely unrelated section of the skin causing a side effect....what a PAIN...

Sput

on Mar 24, 2004

What the,.....I've now transfered all the easily transfered bits and the menus still work...I'd carry on transfering bits by hand except that the transfer process has broken so many other bits...

I can't find any differences in the code in any areas relating to the menus though, so I'm DEFINATELY stumped now...

Sput

on Mar 25, 2004

This is beyond a joke now

I carried on re-creating the skin from copying the settings etc into an entirely new skin. I kept checking the menus each time I adjusted anything which I thought might remotely have an impact on the menus and it stayed working.

I then "finished" transfering the little things like quick launch background images, a couple of colour settings on various bits, and other entirely non-menu related items. As a last thought I checked the menu's and the separators have vanished AGAIN!

Whoever wrote this little gremlin into the software has certainly played a good trick on me now. 3 days worth of messing about in the little spare time I have to end up with no progress at all...nothing actually done on the skin in all that time.

Sput is not a happy bunny now...and kicking myself for not saving the folder as a backup when it was working about 20 minutes ago as I can't remember everything I changed last, and hence can't make the menus work again!

Sput

on Mar 25, 2004

Sput is thinking of sending this skin to support @ stardock.com to see if they can solve this...

Essencay

on Mar 26, 2004

Yeah...the separator is missing on my skin too...and I have no clue as to what I did to eliminate it. I was patiently lurking in hopes that you'd find out

Sput

on Mar 27, 2004

Essencay -I sent an e-mail to support about it as I think it's a bug...I've been busy the last few days so I'm only just about to check for a reply...I don't expect one this soon though.

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