Here's some instructions to help those not familiar with Duckbar. It is for modifying image resources, and does not address any other of the many Duckbar features. In an earlier post, Panu explained that Duckbar is not for novice users, it is an expert tool. I agree,
though in my opinion, editing graphics resources can probably be successfully accomplished by a less than expert user. Keep in mind that finding and editing images within Sonar is a time consuming and tedious task. It should go a lot smoother if you follow the instructions below. I wrote them up quickly, doing them as I wrote, so they should be pretty complete. Have fun!
Pete
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Set Up Duckbar and Extract Sonar’s Resources 1. Download and install Duckbar from sonarmods dot com.
2. Launch Duckbar (make sure Sonar is not running).
3 From the menu bar select Customize>Extract Graphic Resources and select the folder to save Sonar’s graphics in (making a new folder is suggested because hundreds of png images will be extracted into there). Note: 99% of the relevant graphics will reside in PNG folder extracted. You probably will not be wanting to change any BMP resources – many of them are no longer used.
4. Open the folder containing the extraction, and view by large icons.
5. Choose a graphic you wish to modify. Note: some graphics will be immediately recognizable, others may be puzzling. All are assigned a number.
Multi-State Resource INFO: Graphics such as buttons have
all their possible states within
one png graphic. Typically the graphic will have 5, 7, or 8 similar versions of the button in one row. Using a 7-button graphic as an example, they are assigned as follows (going left to right = 1-7). I’ve listed them nonconsecutively for
functional clarity.
Button 1 (leftmost) = OFF state
Button 3 = Hover over OFF state
Button 2 = Pressed while in OFF state (releasing invokes the ON state)
Button 4 = ON state
Button 6 = Hover over ON state
Button 5 = Press while in ON state (releasing invokes the OFF state)
Button 7 = State without project loaded
Graphic Modification To modify the graphic there is a quick and easy way to change hue and contrast of the whole graphic within Duckbar, or if you desire extensive changes or independent modification of individual button states, an external graphic editor must be used.
Method Within Duckbar Duckbar allows quick and easy modification of PNG resources using standard graphics modifiers such as hue, contrast, saturation ... etc. This is probably the quickest and easiest way to modify an image, but it will modify the
whole image, and for instance, not button states contained within one image individually.
1. From the menu bar, select Customize>Skyfilter – Batch edit interface colors.
2. From the Skylight Graphics Filter window’s menu bar, select File>Load PNG and BMP images, and navigate to the PNG file you wish to modify in your extracted folder and open it.
3. The file will now be loaded into the batch editor, and will be seen at the bottom of the Skylight Graphics Filter window.
4. Note that you can load many png’s into the editor, and then edit them one at a time by clicking them in the file list.
5. Click on the desired file, and it will show up on the right side of the window.
6. The “Preview” window will show you how the modification looks, while the “In SONAR” window will show you what the original graphic looks like.
7. Use the sliders on the left of the window to modify the graphic. Note that they all are interdependent on one another, so don’t be afraid to iteratively adjust the sliders. The Reset buttons allow you to set the sliders back to original positions if you want to start all over.
8. Once you’re satisfied with the mod (or multiple mods if you have more than one file showing in the list), select File>Export to SONAR (from the Skylight Graphics Filter menu bar) to save your mod in Sonar’s graphic resource file (TTSImage.dll for Mercury). You can also save the mod(s) to a png files if you like (File>Export to Disk). It is highly recommended to have one folder with all your modified PNG's and nothing else in it. This facilitates "restoring" your mods to Sonar painlessly and quickly after each monthly update overwrites them.
9. Once exported to Sonar, you can open Sonar to see what your mod looks like in context. Note that Sonar cannot be running when you launch Duckbar, but Sonar can be launched while Duckbar is running.
10. If you did launch Sonar for a peek, close it before working in Duckbar again, as Duckbar will not have access to the graphics resources if Sonar is using them.
11. Repeat for all desired graphics resources.
External Graphics Editor Method This method is much more flexible, and may be required for more complex modifications including creating a custom image from scratch or downlading images from the web. If doing this keep in mind the image size must be the same as the original Sonar image, and for multi-state images, each state must be allocated the same pixel positions within the image. When the modifications are complete in the external graphics editor, save each modified graphic as a png. The filenames (numbering)
must remain exactly the same.
1. From the Duckbar menu bar, select Customize>Skyfilter – Batch edit interface colors.
2. From the Skylight Graphics Filter window’s menu bar, select File>Load PNG and BMP images, and navigate to the folder containing your modified png files and open them (you can SHIFT+Click or CTRL+Click to open more than one at once, or CTRL+A to open all in one shot).
3. The files will now be loaded into the batch editor, and will be seen at the bottom of the Skylight Graphics Filter window.
4. Select (highlight) all the files you just put into the Skylight Graphics Filter and select File>Export to SONAR (from the Skylight Graphics Filter menu bar) to save your mod in Sonar’s graphic resource file (TTSImage.dll for Mercury).
5. Once exported to Sonar, you can open Sonar to see what your mod looks like in context. Note that Sonar cannot be running when you launch Duckbar, but Sonar can be launched while Duckbar is running.
6. If you did launch Sonar for a peek, close it before making additional modifications, as Duckbar will not have access to the graphics resources if Sonar is using them.
Restoring Your Mods After a Sonar Update Sonar monthly updates will overwrite the TTSImage.dll file with your mods, reverting the graphics back to stock images. You can easily restore the graphics to the mods you made. This is accomplished by loading all your mods (which you put in one folder with nothing else in it, right?) into Duckbar and exporting to Sonar. The process is described in the section
External Graphics Editor Method. This is a quick and easy 60 second task. Just follow the procedure external graphics procedure, remember to select all (CTRL+A) the graphics files, and export to Sonar.
Another method would be to create an archive copy of TTSImage.dll, and every month exchanging it for the TTSImage.dll that was installed by the monthly update. The downside to that method is that as Sonar develops features and associated new graphics, those new graphics will not be part of your archived TTSImage.dll, in which case you’d have to use the first method.