Preserved Topic: GUI HELP

Ok you guys are the pros and that's why I'm here. I'm new to all this shit, but I love it. Anyway, I found this cool stuff called GUI's, I'm sure you know what they are. Problem is, I have no clue how to EDIT them. Do I need to put them in Image Ready to slice them? Can I also change the colors and textures? Any help via here or e-mail would be greatly appreciated thank you

GUI stands for Graphical User Interface. Many things have GUIs, your computer has one, programs have them, many websites have them, but you don't really edit a GUI as such.

On websites GUIs are generally created by means of graphics created in Photoshop. If you have the image files then you can edit the GUI. Depending on what format you have the graphics in you can edit to varying degrees. If you just take the sliced images straight off a web page you are going to have some trouble. If you have the original Photoshop file (and the designer left all the layers intact) then you can edit it with no limitations.

Maybe you could show us exactly what you want to edit?

-jiblet

What I want to edit is on http://www.guistuff.com. It would be cool if a neat texture could be added, instead of what the oroginal is. They are FREE with link backs. Go check it out.

I tried to sign-up just to get a closer look at the files, but I kept getting Internal Server Error.

But I did notice that they offer TIFF and PSD. The latter prefered by 9-out-of-10 Asylumites (don't ask about the other 10%). However, I'm willing to bet that the PSD's offered are flat. I would be surprised at a layered PSD.

Using them as they intend you to use them is a matter of slicing (IR or PS), adding text, and putting it together with HTML. No big deal with a modicum of practice -- especially if using IR.

But you did mention changing colour/texture. The easy way of doing that is if they offer a layered PSD. If you are willing to do it the hard way with a flat GUI, then you might as well build the thing from scratch yourself.

If you want to try to build from scratch, go to Gurus's Network PS tuts and read the tuts entitled Creating Shapes and Adding Depth, both by DL-44.

Seems like an interesting site.

I would have to tell you to go about reading all the info they provide you with. They may give you the tools you need to do the stuff with. You would have to sign up... but that is a small price to pay.

I attempted to sign up but got the all so important 500 internal error.

If you are simply wanting their design and to edit it, well you are in for one hell of a pain in the ass, you would have to grab all the images and then play with them.

The best way to go about it would be to use an offline browser tool that would grab the main page in its entirety so that you would have all of the pieces to mess with. From there open the shite up in PS and take it for a spin.

Hmm... some of them come "Generator-Enabled" whatever that is. Also, they say that the TIFFs are flat, but they don't specify that the PSDs are flat. Curious.

Okay, it's been about 10 mins and all is well. Logged in, down-loaded a PSD, and checked it out. It's fully Layerd. Changing colour/texture should be a snap. Just a matter of Preserve Transparency, Adjustment Layers, Clipping Groups, or whatever. No effects on seperate Layers, however. But I also noticed that a lot of the Layers are named "Path", so I suspect these were made with 6.0 (could be wrong, though).

The pre-sliced comes with sample HTML and the images. So, load the appropriate slice, add text, save as, edit the HTML to accomadate.

They've got Tutorials and Examples to check out. The Examples seem to be more informative on modifying and implementation. (Firework tutorials? WTF?)

That's enough of me.

BTW, that's a cool site. Especially since they let you have a layered .psd

The only downside is more cookie-cutter sites.

threep sighs.
"i found this site long ago," he says,
"but vowed never to let it see the asylum's light. oh well. this, like piracy, is another terrible opportunity for the 'right tools in the wrong hands' syndrome. (although the classification of this as 'the right tools' is debatable)"

I think treep is really twitch^ in disguise. Or maybe his alter-ego?
Kind of interesting, that site. Havta look a bit more into it. When I find the time...

Huh? Why would someone purposly skip the creation of the graphics for your side? Why, that's the best part! What's the fun in using graphics that someone else has made? You are just left with the boring part of filling your site with content...

Besides, it can't be much fun to have a site based on the "laser" theme, and knowing there might be some 17,000 people out there having more or less identical pages.

That's weird that some of you are getting Internal Errors. It does seem like brain damage to edit them. I have Photoshop 6. I just got into this design stuff about 4 months ago, I'm an artist as a hobby and a RETIRED car saleswoman, oops not retired...QUIT!! I enjoy what the program offers me to express my creative side, however I hate the manual it came with, too many pages!! I threw up a quick temp page to my site, no links yet, I did the graphic with Photoshop 6. Go have a look, it's not extravagant, but it's cool XXXX http://www.beaconwebdesign.com

Excellent, well, you've been at it for a few months now, and I doubt you would learn much by editing outside work at this point. I'd say take warjournal's advice and do some GN tutorials, that should quickly open your eyes to Photoshop's possibilities.

-jiblet

I just gotta leap in here for a moment. Not because I want to comment on the site (which allows you to discard designers, put together a cookie-cutter site and not pay anyone for it, all thanks to business), but instead to tell WebShaman that I am not, in fact, threep. Though I'm sure he's flattered by the idea, what with me being a sort of living GOD here, but seriously.

My only other-persona has been ##p1xl.

~cough~

That was fun.


s t e p h e n

ahh....that was you? shoulda known......

Dick.



'Crazy_Sexy_Cool' - if you're going to bother taking things like that and editing them...you might as well just make your own......didn't look at the site, but the concepts involved with re-texturing and re-coloring an interface are about as advanced as the techniques for creating your own in the first place.

Check the photoshop tutorials at the gurusnetwork, and hands on (links at the bottom of the page....)

Yo threep. How 'bout it? You flattered? *hi pitched laughter that peals off into the distance...*
So, more over this GUI stuff - I'm not really interested in using other people's graphics (like making my own) but
it is interesting what they got there (IMHO). But, I would never use it. Go figure.

Ya know, as long as this thread has been reactivated ..... I was mulling this over and the more I think about it, the less comfortable I am dismissing the value of this site and similar ones for a thinking person.

No one condones taking the easy way out by making minor modifications to someone else's work. But if you are curious about how someone else works, the thought process, the way they organize layers - there's no better way to get a glimpse inside someone's head. When we were doing logos at Gurusnetwork I had a blast deconstructing a layered file Doc posted. NavWorks has some cool stuff that's very instructive to pull apart.

I guess you have to be at least a little bit sophisticated and experienced to profit from the exercise, but let's be careful about tossing out their value completely. They really are mini-tutorials, self-contained if you choose to look at them that way. Yeah there's the danger that a new-comer to Photoshop may be overwhelmed by the information in a layered file and be tempted to take the easy way, but just as there is great value to looking at html code in addition to the rendered page, so there is value in looking at layered photoshop files.

~stepping off soap box~

Ah, Steve, always the voice of reason.

And I agree, for what that's worth. There's a lot to be gained by that preocess Steve describes so well above. The thing is, even if the work you're analyzing totally bites the knob, you can almost always learn from it. And I don't mean in that condescending "ha *I'd* never do *that*" kind of way, either. People are full of inventiveness and creativity. Look at the file and be determined to learn something, and you will. Even if it's just the way the layers are named.

You peek at other folks' HTML source, don't you?

Well, our intrepid explorer decided to take a brief moment and consider that he may be, actually, wrong in judging this site. Steve(N) has been right before, maybe he's right again.

So, I downloaded all that they had to offer.

Aaaaand...it's a toss-up. Sure, they've got some interesting interfaces offered to download. But, uuhh... mini-tutorials? I don't see how. If I didn't already know enough about photoshop to create my own, these PSDs wouldn't help me out ... at all. Lots of layers, unnamed, with lots of layer styles and effects. And.. nothing.. to.. learn.

So, I guess it could be good if you're desperately searching for an interface to stop the designers block that we all have from time to time...but little else is useful there, unless you're just planning to, outright, eliminate designers so you can spend $25 and get your own interface pre-made.


s t e p h e n

"bite the knob"?
that's about the best I've heard.

twItch^ - ahh the extravagent excesses! I only downloaded one and it was pretty tidy. Gulp. Here's me, drawing conclusions with insufficient resources.

Dilbert's "Phil - Prince of Insufficient Light" is gonna bust me on this one.