Thread with the Skins

[rrfpacker]

Sorry for this probable duplicate post. I was on the forum earlier today and stumbled upon a thread that had a lot of skins I had not seen before. I was interupted before I could notice where I was.

I remember seeing Black and Red Monkey, Dark Gray, Improved Dark Gray along with others that I had previously seen. Anyone know where this is????

Thank you

[rovingcowboy]

most likely the screenshot thread where members post what their favorite way of making monkey look.

[nohitter151]

Sorry for this probable duplicate post. I was on the forum earlier today and stumbled upon a thread that had a lot of skins I had not seen before. I was interupted before I could notice where I was.

I remember seeing Black and Red Monkey, Dark Gray, Improved Dark Gray along with others that I had previously seen. Anyone know where this is????

Thank you

Those are probably old MM2 skins that are no longer compatible with MM3. Most available skins are posted at the wiki.

[rrfpacker]

NoHitter,

While that's possible, I did download them, unzipped to sub-folders and tried to use them. The only issue I saw was that the first skin I applied was called "AS", nice light blue with a blue player. All the other "new" skins kept the same player. Example, Black and Red Monkey had a light blue player.

So, does that mean they won't work with MM3, or did I do something wrong?

[nohitter151]

mmip files are installers for skins for MM3
msz files are skins for MM3

wsz files are skins for MM2

[rrfpacker]

Thank you, but while what you said may explain it to someone who knows the language, it doesn't help me.

I know next to nothing about the language of computers and file extensions. I know if I click on a download I can either save it or open it. Usually I chose open as I'm not sure what to do next. The forums are full of patient people like yourself so I have been able to get by. I have downloaded 7 or 8 skins I like and have been able to get them to work, this latest glitch may be because of what you said, but I don't know what that means.

Does it mean that the msz is the actual skin and it needs the mmip to "make it work"? Does that mean after I unzip a file I need to do something else like double click on the mmip to make it work? And does it mean if it has a wsz extension I can't use it in MM3?

I will say this. The Dark Gray, Dark Gray Improved, and Black and Red Monkey skins all worked. The player did not match the color scheme. I did look in the zip file for these and there is no mmip file, no player ini, or a mskn for a player and there were a lot more bitmaps than the newer skins such as yours. Does that mean MM finds a default player and that they are MM2 skins? Since I really like them, can I somehow create or copy a player file to the relevant folder?

I'm sure this will not be the last time I have these questions, since I am Loving the Monkey and want to learn more.
Thank you again for your help and patience.

[nohitter151]

Can you show me where you downloaded the skins from? In that case I can tell you exactly what's going on.

[rovingcowboy]

what is going on is more likely you downloaded from the wiki site for the mm 2 skins.

those only work on mm 2.5 or lower versions.

you must use the mm 3 skins link for mm 3 to use the skin.

wsz = winamp skin zip file.

msz = mediamonkey skin zip file.

mmip = mediamonkey install package. this is a zip file which has ini files to do the install for you and is only for mediamonkey 3.

when you open from online if the file is a zip file you will see the inside of the zip file
and it won't install anything.

if you open an old wsz file you will get tons of images and one theme.mskn file.

when you download skins from online you should always save to your computer, and make a speical folder called
"My downloads" to save all your downloads in. this is to help prevent any bad virus's from going to your system folder. if one comes in with the download it is in that folder and can't get out, but when you go in that folder your anti virus program should see it and then tell you about it.
now that is not something that happens all the time and not that is caused by mediamonkey, but it can happen with a download from anyplace.

but after you get the skin file downloaded if it is a mmip file then all you have to do is start mediamonkey 3.
then go to that file you downlaoded and double click on it. then go back to mediamonkey and you will see an install panel. just click install and you can then change to that skin or you can then use the script which ever you downloaded with the mmip file.

if you downloaded a skin for mm 3 like one i have online now at my site, it is a zip file.
all you have to do with a zip file is one of two things. either unzip the msz file that is in it. and put the msz file in to the skins folder in side mediamonkeys folder in the computers location of C:\program files\ mediamonkey
then when you start mm 3 up you will be able to go to the options for skins and change to the new skin.

but if you look in side the downloaded skin's zip file and there is only one folder in there called the name of the skin. then you don't unzip it. just change the last part of the zip files name. example., my skin.zip you would change it to my skin.msz then you place that in the skins folder for mm 3, then you can change it by going to the options also.

[rrfpacker]

Cowboy,

What I've been doing is creating a folder in the skins folder of Media Monkey for each of the skins. I save the zip to that folder and extract to that folder. Seems to work.

For MonkeyRok, I do the same thing for skins.

Still not sure why the skin worked, but not the player except for the reasons I mentioned.

Thanks for the help.

[rovingcowboy]

okay what you say is the skin is just the theme part and it is the wsz files you found for mm 2.5,
when mediamonkey started it did use winamp skins.

and monkey 3 uses the same type of theme skin but not everything mm 3 does, is able to be done on mm 2's theme. and using mm 2 theme file does have the possiblity of causing errors in mm 3.

the new mm 3 can not use the mm 2 player skin, which is why the skin did not change on the player.

you need to go through your folders and find the wsz skins, and delete them all as they don't work on mediamonkey 3. you can download them as the wsz file and put that wsz file in to the folder for winamp that it uses for skins.
and they will be used as winamp skins then. if you have winamp on your system.

all my mediamonkey 2.5 skins are dual skins. meaning they are full skins in both mm 2.5 and in winamp.

now back to your trouble with mm 3 skins.
once you stop getting the mm 2 skins you won't have troubles with skinning mm 3.

and i don't use the monkeyrok skins so i don't know how to set them up.

but you don't need to put a folder in the skins folder for each skin file.
in fact if you do by chance get a skin for mm 3 that is a zip file that contains a folder with more folders inside that one with all the images in.

and then you put that zip file in another folder in the skins folder you might be getting too many folders for monkey to open or open fast which can cause images not to be put in the temp files cache for monkey to use.

so make sure you check what is inside those zip files for mm 3. if it is only a folder, then change that zip file to the msz file and place it in the skins folder, theres no need to keep adding folders that take time to open.

if you use any of my skins you download from my site they are all msz files just unzip them and stick them in the skin folder. i had to use zip files on my site to get them to upload. which is why mine are msz files in zip files.

if i send you a skin that i don't have online i'll send the mmip file.

[rrfpacker]

Very clear explanation and very thorough. Thank you.

I did compare the skins I know work just fine and have a player to the others. The ones that work like yours have theme and player ini files. The others have a theme.mskn but no player, but they have a winampmb.txt and winampmb.bmp, so I'm guessing those are what win amp used for the player. I did not find any wsz files.

I will again mention that the themes seemed to work just fine and I really liked a couple of them. Can I copy a player ini file or some other theme to these folders? The player that shows up now is one I don't remember seeing before...it's light blue, so Ifigured it some kind of default player if the theme doesn't have one (is it coming from the default mskn?).

So, I think you have moved me much further ahead, everything seems to be OK. Thank you.

[rovingcowboy]

you only found winamp bmp's? you must have got a zip file that was in need of changing the .zip to a .wsz for mm 2.5 to use.
so when you unzipped it you got all the skin's files in the folder.

but those won't work on mm 3. only the theme.mskn is seen by mm 3 however the skin creation engine for mm 2 did not have all the options on the one for mm 3 has. so it does cause trouble just using the mm 2 theme.mskn file. you have to convert the mm 2 skin to the mm 3 skin. you must use the mm 3 skinning engine to do that.

and it is far easier to use another skin as a templete. but you must make sure you are using mm 3 because the default player skin you should get would be white.
the bluemonkey default is the mm 2.5 skin.

but take all those folders you found with the winamp bmp's in and remove those folders from the mm 3 skins folder. you can put them some place else to use for parts until you get the skins converted over that you want, if there is not any of them already converted to mm 3.
nohitter151 did several convertions of the old skins, and i did a few.

but if you want to convert an mm 2 skin in to an mm3 skin then you should use one of the skins from trixmotos site as a templete, and then go to the wiki site and to the skinning page to find the lesson on converting mm 2 to mm 3. i tried to keep it easy to follow but it might be too hard for a newbie.? check it out and see if you can
do it. if you can it will be a good lesson in skinning, then you could move on to the mm 3 skins.