[Guide] How to make a steam skin

[Ciuvaz]

[Full guide] Making a steam skin

Some notes about the full guide:

- 101 pages long. Main reasons why are: copy pasted the code for easy recognition (it might be hard at times to find what needs to be changed, so this really helps); lazy microsoft word formating

- tl;dr version included, but, let's face it, that's not the real guide

- make sure you have bookmarks menu open in your pdf viewer for ease of browsing/reading the document

- it's mainly all about changing the colors/font, while keeping the original steam skin features the same

- most files, other than steam.styles and gameoverlay.styles won't be found in your steam installation directory. They are cached in some .gcf file (I forgot which, lol). In any case, you can either download the default files provided above or download some random user made skin and copy those files. Then make the changes provided in the guide. OR you can find some gcf extractor to get access to those files...

General notes:

- I only focused on programming, as in, altering the code. The icons can be found in graphics folder and changed with any image editor

- Be wise and define each and every color in steam.styles. This way it's going to be very easy to change/find it later etc

- if you have at least a bit of knowledge about html/php/c++/css, making your own skin should be real easy (the whole inconvenience is caused by notepad, imo)

- running steam in offline mode will make you see the changes you've made faster, as steam itself restarts faster in this mode

- Rider theme skin can be found in this thread: http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=2119920

If something's unclear and if you have any questions, you can ask.

It might not be the best guide, but it's the 1st ever? Somebody had to do it :P

[Savage Alien]

Cool. I'm glad someone finally made a guide. Reminds me if the days when the UI was first changed and a bunch of us on the forums were digging into the code to change it hahaha

I'll read it when I get a chance later. First couple sections look good for beginners: )

Originally Posted by Ciuvaz

- most files, other than steam.styles and gameoverlay.styles won't be found in your steam installation directory. They are cached in some .gcf file (I forgot which, lol). In any case, you can either download the default files provided above or download some random user made skin and copy those files. Then make the changes provided in the guide. OR you can find some gcf extractor to get access to those files

.
That's not exactly true. There are files in the layout folder for the Library, Friends, and Overlay,etc. I looked at your guide and you mention them, so I don't know why you said this. YES it is true that there are a bunch in the "winui.gcf" file as well, like notifications and chat windows. Steam should make those files more easily accessible for us

[POOTDISPENSER]

Downloading the guide now, can't wait to make some skins of my own in the future

[Teronfel]

Very nice,thank you!

[Ciuvaz]

The guide might not be clear enough at times, but I think I can make things clearer for you, if you describe what you don't understand.

[SweetNothing]

Thanks for doing this, Ciuvaz! Emailed the thread to myself and also subscribed to it so I will always be able to find it.

[Scorcher24]

Originally Posted by SweetNothing

Thanks for doing this, Ciuvaz! Emailed the thread to myself and also subscribed to it so I will always be able to find it.

Oh the joy of synchronizing Bookmarks in Firefox with the cloud .

[cryptload]

good work

[Ciuvaz]

Originally Posted by Savage Alien

That's not exactly true. There are files in the layout folder for the Library, Friends, and Overlay,etc. I looked at your guide and you mention them, so I don't know why you said this. YES it is true that there are a bunch in the "winui.gcf" file as well, like notifications and chat windows.

Hmmm.

Maybe I was blind, I dont know, but I didnt find all the files that I've needed, while I was making skin(s).

Not gonna argue with this one, cuz I have simply extracted everything that I've needed from that winui.gcf.

Originally Posted by Savage Alien

Steam should make those files more easily accessible for us

Very true. Also, the VGUI editor (dev mode) could be way better than it is atm...

[Fuzion88]

Could you upload to scribd or something? Would be helpful too

[POOTDISPENSER]

I say this needs to be stickied.

[GTX2GvO]

Originally Posted by POOTDISPENSER

I say this needs to be stickied.

I was about to say the same.

Also to those who want to subscribe to this thread without posting in it.

Press Thread Tools at the top and select subscribe.

[Ciuvaz]

Originally Posted by Fuzion88

Could you upload to scribd or something? Would be helpful too

What's so bad about mediafire?

[Fuzion88]

Originally Posted by Ciuvaz

What's so bad about mediafire?

Nothing, just taking precautions. Some PDFs can be malicious, not that yours is. Personally i'd like to be able to bookmark it on scribd and read it anytime. It's no big deal though. Nice job on the guide.. I've fiddled with steam before, this will make things more complete

[Stegarootbeer]

I started making my skin and ran into this issue:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8063698/piston%20hole.jpg
This is after i edited piston.tga and put the space core in its place.