Creating Winamp - Skins (Classic)

So, if you found this article or just curious as to what this is all about let me first get the basics down for you.

Winamp - A piece of software that plays media (video, music, streaming content and similar).

Winamp Skin - This is an alternative interface designed by another author to replace the default look and feel of the software generally provided to you free and downloadable from winamp.com.

What makes me an 'expert', well I wouldn't consider myself an expert however, I have been designing winamp skins since 1995 (the year it was released) and have reached some millions of users that have downloaded many of my skins. You are welcome to do your own search on winamp.com. I am garetjax (a.k.a. Joe W. Garrett).

I have designed some poor designs and some very advanced designs. It is very hard to discover the hows, wheres and why's. However, I can at least start you on your design.

There are some other requirements for you to be able to create your first skin. First, you must have a graphics editor (luckily) if you have Windows then you have a program called Microsoft Paint (mspaint).

Additionally, it helps if you already have winamp installed and at least one skin downloaded. If you don't have a skin yet, goto winamp.com and find one of mine. Note: Not all authors allow modifications of their work though, they do allow you to download it. Consider this my 'agreement' with you :).

When you download your skin you may be prompted to allow winamp to execute this option. Do so if you wish to continue. After you have installed your skin you need to find it on your drive. Typically, it is located in c:\program files\winamp\skins directory.

Now on to our next step, because we have installed our skin we also need to rename this skin so that we can work with it. Before we do however, we need to allow ourselves to see its extension at this moment it will be hidden.

While under your explorer window > choose > tools > folder options > check hidden files and folders as well as extensions. Click Apply.

This will enable us to view the full file name and its corresponding extension. At this point likely will be [skin name].wsz. I want you to click the skin you downloaded/installed and rename it (optionally pressing F2 will do the same). change the file to [skin name].zip. As all wsz files are actually compressed libraries.

Now, right click the skin and extract all. As you will see you will have access to the entire folder and skin contents. If you have downloaded a 'classic' skin then you will have quite a few .bmp files and some text files, otherwise you will have more folders (this is a modern skin and unfortunately, I will not be able to assist you.).

So, now we want to make our skin...find the main.bmp file within your skin folder and double click it. If it doesn't open in mspaint then we can run mspaint and navigate to the file by using the File > Open > menu.

Wonderfully enough you can now edit the skin and create something. For the sake of this tutorial just use your brush and paint around then save the file. Once you have completed your work...run winamp and right click it. You will be presented with a menu that will allow you to choose skins > [skin name].  Now your changes should be visible on winamp. 

Congratulations, you have just created/modified your very own winamp skin.  Of course there are more advanced skins, designs and software to use..and I will leave it up to you.

Thank you,