Configuration Files

    Any skin file is not complete without first
finishing up the configuration files.  These
configuration files control such things as the
background and foreground colors of the Winamp
visualizations, or areas that are designated areas to
be displayed to the end user.  There are three text
files that allow you to change these various aspects of
Winamp.  The first of the three that we will cover is
called VisColor.txt.



Configuration File | VisColor.txt

    VisColor.txt is the file that sets the colors for
the Visualization panel.  It contains 24 lines.  Each
line is an RGB value followed by a comment.  (See RGB
for more Info).  Here is a brief explanation of the
lines:

Row 0 is the background color of the visualization
    area.
Row 1 is the color of the dots that appear in the
    visualization area
Rows 2 through 17 affect the colors of the Spectrum
    Analyzer.
  Row 2 is the peak value, the highest part of the
    graphical bar that is visible.  This means that
    when you hit a high frequency, the top of the bar
    becomes the color specified.  As you move from row
    to row, you can color each level of the
    frequency spectrum a different color to signify the
    peak levels of the frequencies in the file you are
    playing at that moment.
  Rows 18 to 22 pertain to the oscilloscope colors.
    They function in the same fashion as the Spectrum
    Analyzer.
  Row 18 controls the colors that is displayed at the
    troughs and the row 22 is the color that is
    displayed at the crest.  Each row between 18 and 22
    sets a different level of the whole wave.
  Row 23 gives the color used to mark the last peak
    value.

  Let's take a look at what this all means, here are
some screenshots with example images to help you get a
clearer perspective.

The result with row 0 set to 0,0,0 and row 1 set to
255,255,255.



Configuration File | Pledit.txt

    Pledit.txt gives the font colors and font face for
the Playlist Editor track listing as well as the
MiniBrowser URL display, located at the bottom of the
MiniBrowser.

Here are some sample settings for pledit.txt is:

[Text]
Normal=#FF8924
Current=#FFFF00
NormalBG=#1A120A
SelectedBG=#944E11
MbFG=#FF8924
MbBG=#1A120A
Font=Comic Sans MS

The funny values are Hexadecimal RBG values (see Hex
RGB).  Each row has a different setting:

Normal - Color of the regular text (Playlist).
Current - Color of the current track text (Playlist).
NormalBG - Background for normal text (Playlist).
SelectedBG - Background for the selected text
       (Playlist)
MbFG - Text color in the MiniBrowser status bar.
       (MiniBrowser)
MbBG - Text background in the MiniBrowser status bar.
       (MiniBrowser)
Font - Font face that's used in both windows



Configuration File | Region.txt

    So you want a skin with areas that are simply put,
transparent?  Well, this is a highly tricky task.  The
file you need is called region.txt and the way to do it
is a lot like playing connect-the-dots.

Region.txt provides a set of names such as Normal,
WindowShade and so fourth.  These set points define how
many points make up each window.  Another set defines
how to draw the picture over Winamp.

Region.txt has 4 regions (the sets).  They are
delimited with the following tags:

[Normal]
[WindowShade]
[Equalizer]
[EqualizerWS]

Each of these provides a list that constist of two
parts.  The first gives the number of points that make
up a region.  The second is a list of the points used
to make those regions.

The lines are:

NumPoints=
PointList=
The NumPoints list must be on a single line with comma
separated numbers.

Example: NumPoints = 4, 4

Each number, x, says to read the next x points of the
list and plot the region they define.  The points list
is comma seperated pairs of x,y co-ordinates. For
example:

[Normal]
NumPoints = 4, 4
PointList = 0,1, 275,1, 275,14, 0,14,    3,15, 272,15,
    272,113, 3,113
Defines two rectangular regions to be drawn.  For more
information read the comments in the region.txt file in
the base skin.  You will find a little more explanation
in this file.  The only item missing is the EqualizerWS
group which is new and will be defined at a later time.
"Normal" defines the regions drawn for the main window,
WindowShade is the regions drawn in the windowshade
mode.  Equalizer and EqualizerWS are the same as above.
Use the examples above to work out the other points.



Configuration File | RGB

    RGB stands for "Red, Green, Blue".  A certain
combination of each of these colors at various
percentages can make millions of different colors.  For
example, combining 100% Blue and 100% Green will make
the brightest achievable Yellow.  Using this model, RGB
has become a method of defining color.

Since a computer displays light using pixels which are
really three lights one Red one Green and one Blue
(well close enough description for our purposes), we
can define a color as the amount of red, green and
blue.  The ranges we use to help put into perceptive
for each of the colors on a computer, we use 0 all the
way to 255.  Basically, that means, there are 256
different shades of each of those primary three colors,
and any combination of those three shades will result
in a color.  For example, 128, 128, and 128 would make
a gray in about the middle of the spectrum.  Here are
the different values of each of those colors.

     Red     Green    Blue          Color

     255        0        0          Pure Red
       0      255        0          Pure Green
       0        0      255          Pure Blue
       0        0        0          Black
     255      255      255          White
     100      150       38          Interesting Green
      46       23       92          Dark Purple



Configuration File | Hexadecimal

    Hexadecimal RGB numbers are exactly the same as
RGB, except the value is represented in Hexadecimal
notation.  Digit position has less meaning (no hundreds
tens and units).  And each digit can be 0-9 then A-F.
To convert from Hex to Decimal use Windows Calculator
in Scientific mode.
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