Skinning MX4 to look (sort of) like my MX3 :-)


7twenty

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So going on from the SDK thread, i've decided to continue over in this thread.

Basically i'm trying to get MX4 looking and working as far as I can, like my current MX3 install as I think it has a nicer look about it with the avatar on the top left, rather than a small menu button on the right. Tried moving it to the left, but I like the big av better.

Basically it's the Avatar menu on the top left, navbar, quicklaunch only showing "fav's on toolbar" addon, then address bar. Nice and clean.

I'm not overly familiar with CSS/Java/HTML, but understand some of the basics. Alot though is just trial and error. Hopefully a change is evident in what it does.

So far i've managed to get everything working pretty much perfectly (thanks to tony.), the only thing left is the Avatar menu. It's only showing in the top corner, although not over both the nav & tabbars.

I'm sure there's just a setting that needs to be changed to make it stretch to the correct size, I just haven't found it yet.

After that I've got another mod in mind, but for now it's one thing at a time.

And man is the new skin setup annoying, so much extracting/packing just for tiny little changes.:@ And you can't even run the unpacker as a command line, or as part of a batch file like the older ones, which would have made things 100x easier!!

Will add pics later.

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have got to this pretty quickly - the avatar graphic looks wrong - not looked into that - maybe something in the css - not sure if the code is original or from JarC

will post it in a minute

post-2400682-14315106961654_thumb.png

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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I think I found what I need. The code for "not on the sidebar" looks to have been removed. Should work once that gets added back. Hopefully.

EDIT: got it, still needs some tweaking when the sidebar is enabled, but doesn't bother me as it's rarely, if ever used.

EDIT: getting there slowly. Now just to add the domain highlighting and removing the tab bulking/counter thingamajig.

post-1279399-1431510698074_thumb.png

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So of course there had to be something that would cause me issues.

Seems the favourites panel is now closing after selecting a link. Unlike the MX2/3 versions where you could open multiple links consecutively and it would stay open until you clicked away from it. Thankfully the Fav's on toolbar extension came to be for MX3, and all was well.

So now for some strange reason, even the sidebar fav's panel closes after a link is selected. So i'm in a worse predicament than I was when I had to use the Sidebar in MX3, except now even that isn't an option.

Hopefully there is an option in code somewhere that can change it back to the way it was in MX3.

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if you had a working skin for 3 did you not just try a full port into ui.dat - thats where i started - it 95% worked - ok it did not have the new menu but thats just a matter of keeping the new code - the main problem was icons that were no longer there and stuff in quicktools - its not all in the 'main' dir but its all in ui.dat

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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Never thought of that, as I wanted to use the MX4 graphics style, but that could have been done just changing the images folders. But have tried it since and I just get a blank box.

Also after doing some testing swapping various combinations of MX3 & 4 page & UI.dat files, the ONLY time it works as it did in MX3 is when it's actually run under MX3.

So it seems that it's coded like that elsewhere rather than being a UI element that's been changed. So it wouldn't have been helped by transferring a working skin over.

Now the question is why, what's changed, where & can it be reverted?!? I've created a new thread about it, but i'm almost 100% certain the answer will be "it's by design. I have recorded your feedback and forwarded it,as a request, to the product manager for more consideration during the future updates".

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it depends how you are doing it and what you ported over - when building a skin in 3 it was only necessary to have the css or htm files that had changed in the skin dir - any 'standard' files were called from the skin code in the ui.dat file

so its not just a matter of taking your own original skin and moving that to the ui.dat file unless it was complete - plus it must all go in the 'main' dir - so dont delete that and simply move your files into a new 'main' dir - overwrite all your files and leave any 'standard' files there

the other dirs to work on are 'base' - 'icons' and 'images in the dialog dir

its all in ui.dat - you can alter some stuff in page.dat but thats stuff like the sidebar and quick access

apologies if you know all of that - not wanting to teach egg sucking

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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Yeah, well aware of the MX3 skin setup. So much easier to mod.

I did move over all the modded files to the original UI.dat. Might have to play around and see if there is something wrong.

you can alter some stuff in page.dat but thats stuff like the sidebar and quick access

That's the reason I started looking in page.dat. I figured it might be a javascript/html change in there instead of the UI.dat. Not being at all familiar Javascript, and the fact it doesn't show correctly spaced, makes it harder to check the code changes.

But based on what I noted above, it doesn't seem to be related to either. So now need to look at what else may affect it.

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Had another look at copying over the original MX3 skin. Still doesn't work. Packed it as usual, even checked in MX3 to see if there was an issue with the packer, or some file not transferring over, but it works fine in MX3, just won't work in MX4.

Either way, doubt that would've helped.

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most odd - have you tried the dll swap method - that would tell you if it works - in my experience it that works then it should be possible to add it to ui.dat - if you want to send it will have a look

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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just clear my thoughts - they are both ui.dat files - i just rename them to ui.dat and replace?? - are they complete - they seem small - maybe you are using a different pack tool - my ui.dat files are about 3x as big after compression

by doing that one works - the other gives a white screen

can you post your original skin file that you had in MX3

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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as said above unless i am missing something the MX4 file works - have altered it in a couple of areas - you may or may not like them

moved tabbar up to fill gap and left to make side straight

post-2400682-14315107144935_thumb.png

ui.zip

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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tony. replied at 2013-5-15 04:42 back.gif

just clear my thoughts - they are both ui.dat files - i just rename them to ui.dat and replace?? - a ...

Sorry about that, was going to add that info, then got sidetracked.

Rename to .dat. The uploader doesn't allow .dat files to be uploaded, so i changed them to MXskin.

Yes, they're complete. As stated above, they both work in their respective browsers. MX4 one also works in MX3, with some major issues, but the MX3 one won't work in MX4.

Using MXpacker 1.0.0.7.

Attached is the files only from the MX3 mod that i've been using. Maybe you might have more luck in combining them with the original MX3/4 ui.dat seeing as it won't work for me.

what am i missing -

The sidebar favourites panel you are using is the pinned version. I don't want that. I want the floating version that stays till clicked away from the favourites panel.

Try it in MX3 and then MX4 and you will see the difference.

MX3 modded files only.zip

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ok - will look - i wondered about sidebar - its just as it loaded - i was looking at the side tools as the problem as i thought you did not use them

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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interesting - i have never worked out the code for the popup window - there is code there but changing it does nothing - i know the side favourites is an internal call - its not part of the skin - maybe they have changed that - if you close down with a certain configuration it usually retains that at the next boot - i write protect a couple of files so its always the same when i open it - maybe theres something there

a puzzle is that i ported over the standard skin from 3 - that worked as i think it did for you - thats a full install - leave nothing from 4 in the main dir - i then added your mods from the latest file and that then worked - it did not give the sidebar as you want it which is why i am wondering if they have changed core code - but is my thinking right that when you did that thats the white screen - i need to double check but sure i overwrote it all

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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look at this - its wrong in many ways but i am not sure how you want the sidebar to work - it certainly has the popup and it can be closed and opened by using the side buttons

there are no buttons top right to close - max etc but they are pretty simple and the icons in the side dock are wrong

the white screen on the port over was skin3.ini - not looked at the differences but use one from 4 and it loads the skin

ui.zip

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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ok - i wondered about that with your earlier comments - thats pretty easy to get rid of as far as i remember - i have not seen it for a long time - just need to look how i got rid of it - look at what i posted that seems to give the popup favs - its just your code from 3 added to 4 with the changed skin3 ini file - as said its all sorts wrong but does the popup work as you expect

its the other end of the day here so thats it for 9 or 10 hours

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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I completely forgot about the skin3.ini file, I even looked through it - just never clicked that it might be the issue. Thanks for that.

As far as the Fav's pop-up in your mod, it's a no go. I'm dead certain the change is somewhere else in the code. Although I think I like the mod to the tab bar :-)

The easiest way to see what I want is to:

Run MX3, open 2 or more fav's using the sidebar favourites panel. You'll notice the panel doesn't close after opening each. It will only close after you click on the main browser window.

Run MX4, open 2 or more fav's using the sidebar favourites panel. You'll notice it will close upon opening the first selection. Meaning you have to re-open it to select more than one.

I want it to be like the MX3 style.

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i think you are right that the problem is in some other part of the 'core' code - if it is then it gets more difficult as you have obviously ported everything across from 3 - just the skin3.ini making a mess

you could try copying some of the dll's from 3 over - thats how i got page mute and the original skin mod to work - maxthon.dll and mxcore.dll are useful ones to try - if you get it to work as you want by doing that you need to check if it breaks anything else - with the skin dll swap it broke magic fill - not the function just the button not working - i needed that so in the end stopped using the swap

will follow your instructions later and try a few swaps

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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Run MX3, open 2 or more fav's using the sidebar favourites panel. You'll notice the panel doesn't close after opening each. It will only close after you click on the main browser window.

thats not working for me - as soon as i click on a favourite the panel closes - so i am doing something wrong or have something wrong - my 3 install is old and has been played with over time so i will do a clean install - what version are you running

also let me check - the 3 ui.dat file - that has all your mods in it - so all i need is to add that to a clean install

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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How strange.

But yeah, try with a clean install. As far as I recall my version is stock standard, apart from the skin mods (which are all aesthetic), and the addition of the fav's on toolbar button (which accesses the same content as the sidebar).

I'm using the portable version of MX3 & 4, but that shouldn't make any difference. (3.5.2.1000 & 4.0.6.2000).

Also any testing i'm doing is on a clean install in a separate folder. Only adding the changed files as required, then running that .exe. That way I know that any other additions/mods aren't causing any issues.

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just done a clean install and no difference - open one fav and window closes - will try potrable - never used it so dont know if there are differences

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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ok - installed portable - no different - let me check this is correct - am puzzled by the fact i see the dock - this is portable with your MX3 ui.dat - are we agreeing on that

as soon as i click any favourite the window closes

if so then i cannot make sense of it unless you have other mods - maybe to page.dat

post-2400682-14315107165495_thumb.png

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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By dock, you mean sidebar, correct? This isn't removed from my skin, just hidden for my everyday usage. But the panel works the same way, be it from the sidebar, or favs on toolbar button.

I've only ever played around with page.dat, but never used any of the mods to that in my general usage.

So unless my system is causing a bug somehow, which is beneficial for me - i'm just as stumped as you are. I'll keep playing around though, it's got me wondering.

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by dock - yes the dark sidebar with the 4 or 5 icon - i thought you had hidden that - ok - we are not seeing the same - maybe its me maybe its something missing - i have done a clean install and a portable install and as soon as i select anything from favourites in the popup leftside window it closes - that does not happen for you

can you double check - install MX3 again to another dir and overwrite the ui.dat with the one you posted here - dont use one off your system - download it from here - that way we both have the identical software - if that then works for you i am stumped

lets see what happens

and does my grab above lok lige your screen - is that what you see

Tony     -  Vivaldi 4 on Windows 10 64Bit
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