Winamp Skin Zip Files

    The last step you need to do before unleashing your
Skin on the world is to convert it to the WSZ format.
How do I do that, you ask?  Just follow the following
steps:

1) With the Zip compression tool of your choice, zip
   YOUR skin folder (not the Winamp "Skins" folder)
   into a .ZIP file.
2) Rename the new file's extension from .ZIP to .WSZ.
3) Test it by removing your skin folder, then placing
   your .WSZ into the Winamp "Skins" folder.
4) Run Winamp, then press Alt-S to access the Skin
   browser.  If you see your skin, then everything
   worked correctly.
5) That's it!  Pat yourself on the back, then take the
   next step and submit it to Winamp.com.



WSZ History

   A Winamp skin is composed of 45 files.  Most of the
files that create a skin are .BMPs (a very common image
file type) and a few text files.  When skin support was
originally implemented, an artist would have to create
those skins and place them into a subdirectory of the
Winamp Skins folder (Usually located in
C:\Program Files\Winamp\Skins folder).

This all started becoming a mess due to the fact that
not all of the skin developers were creating subfolders
when compressing their skins into a ZIP file for
distribution.  When an end-user uncompresses the files
to the Winamp Skins folder, it would at times overwrite
other skins.  As a solution, we implemented the
functionality into Winamp to read the .ZIP files
directly.  What would happen is an end-user would
simply place the .ZIP file into their Winamp Skins
folder and when using the Skin Browser in Winamp
(ALT+S) the skin magically appeared and loaded if
selected.

This did clean up the mess, however, a new problem then
surfaced.  The .ZIP file format is a very widely used
compression type and Winamp was just one of the many
dozens of programs available to utilize it.  We wanted
users to be able to double click the Skin ZIP file and
have Winamp automatically install and load the skin.
How do we do that without associating Winamp as the
default program for handling skins?  Rename the file
extension.

We simply took all those compressed skins ending with
the .ZIP and renamed them to end with .WSZ (Winamp Skin
Zip).  This allowed us to stay with the standard Winamp
.ZIP files and not have to convert the thousands of
skins available for download on the Internet.  Any
skins that are submitted to our site, ending with .ZIP
or .WSZ, are automatically renamed to end with a .WSZ
before published.

Why do all this you ask?  The answer is simple.  We
wanted to make it so that Winamp would automatically
load the skin when a user clicked on a link to download
a skin from Internet Explorer as well as Netscape
Navigator.  We also wanted to make it so that if a user
actually had downloaded the .WSZ file, all they would
have to do is double click it to install it.

Exactly what happens at this point? Well, when a person
installs a .WSZ file what happens is Winamp just copies
the file to the Winamp Skins folder so that it can be
handled correctly.  You can also manually move the .WSZ
file into your skin directory and Winamp will recognize
it just as well.

-steve
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