Skin

Skins is a major feature in ShiftOS. Skins are special files which contain Shifter options. These options are automatically applied once the Skin Loader is used with the .skn file of the skin.

Overview

A typical Skin consists of a desktop background, title bar colours, window button alignment and colors, panel colors and a font. Skins are often extracted from an actual operating system and then set up to work with ShiftOS. This process is called "ripping".

Skin sharing

Once someone finishes work on their ShiftOS Skin, they upload it as an .skn file to a file hosting service (either a normal one, such as SendSpace or one which is made explicitly for Skins, such as SKNUpload). After the file is uploaded, the Skin creator usually posts a thread with the link to it on the ShiftOS Forums. People then download the .skn file from the hosting service, copy it to their ShiftOS directory and finally, apply it using Skin Loader. The user Kiwi7 attempted to simplify this process by creating a system called Quick Skin Downloading, which downloaded the Skin directly to the ShiftOS directory immediately after clicking a special link. However, this system wasn't very well received by the ShiftOS community due to people having to create special links.

Skin Loader

Skin Loader is a ShiftOS tool which allows users to create or view .skn files and alter the appearance of the game using them. Skin Loader consists of a preview of a window and the desktop with the current Skin applied to them and four buttons: "Close", "Load Skin", "Save Skin" and "Apply Skin". The first button closes the program without taking any action. The second one loads a .skn file into the program and updates the previews accordingly, while the third one saves the current appearance of ShiftOS as a .skn file. The last button applies the currently loaded .skn file onto ShiftOS.

Skin Shifter

Skin Shifter is a ShiftOS program which can periodically change the appearance of the game using a set of .skn files. Three options are available in this program: "Shift Interval", "Add Skin" and "Enable", which changes to "Disable" when the program is enabled. There's also the "Next Shift" label, which shows the time remaining to the next appearance change when the program is enabled. The option "Shift Interval" allows the user to change the time (in seconds) between appearance changes, while the button "Add Skin" can be used to import a .skn file which Skin Shifter will use. Clicking on a file path at the left side of the program's window allows the user to instantly switch Skins.