SONAR Plus
Skin Editor is now available for download:
http://www.sonarplus.co.uk/pages/downloads.aspx Important The Skin Editor is not officially endorsed by, or supported by Cakewalk. Cakewalk may not support your copy of SONAR if you have modified it using the Skin Editor. I strongly recommend reading the following document before you install it. It contains important information, including installation instructions. SONAR Plus Skin Editor Beta 1 Read Me (PDF) Many thanks to Panu Pentikäinen for his assistance, and for hosting the
Skin Editor forum.
What does it do? If you've ever wanted to customize the appearance of (or 'skin') SONAR X1, now's your chance! If you want to make a small change to a single button, or change the appearance of the entire program, SONAR Plus Skin Editor is the tool to use.
Here's a ridiculous Control Bar skin I created to show what it can do:
Here are a couple of screenshots:
I've tried to keep it as user friendly as possible, so that just about anyone can use it. Here's a quick run through of how it works:
1. The first time you run the Skin Editor, it asks you which image editing application you want to edit skin images with. You can use anything that handles PNG and BMP images, and image transparency. It's so far been tested with Photoshop Elements, Adobe Fireworks, Photoshop 7.0, CS5 and GIMP. No problems are anticipated with other popular image editing applications.
Don't use Windows Paint (it doesn't handle image transparencies)! 2. When the Skin Editor opens, you see a list of 'skinnable' SONAR user interface items on the left. Browse to the image you want to change, select it, and then click the 'Edit' button on the toolbar.
3. The Skin Editor will open the image in your chosen image editing application. Make any changes you want, and then save (overwrite the existing file, don't save a new one).
4. Back in the Skin Editor, click the 'Apply' button in the toolbar. That's it! You've just skinned SONAR X1. Run X1 and you will see the changes straight away.
5. Don't like how it looks? Click the 'Restore' button at any time to restore SONAR to its default appearance. 6. You can save the skin for later by clicking the 'Save' button on the toolbar. Skins are saved with the file extension
.ssk. You can keep as many skin files as you like, and switch between them at any time.
7. To share a skin, post the
.ssk file on the
SONAR Plus Skin Editor forum.
Be creative, get sharing, and enjoy!