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About Skins

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[The feature associated with this page, Windows Media Player SDK, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by MediaPlayer. MediaPlayer has been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use MediaPlayer instead of Windows Media Player SDK, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

With Windows Media Player, users can choose from a variety of standard skins, each one providing an additional visual experience that enhances listening and viewing pleasure. Windows Media Player comes with several skins to choose from, but it is relatively easy to create and distribute custom skins.

Skins are simply collections of one or more computer art files, organized by a text file, which tells Windows Media Player how to use these files to display a skin. You can use a variety of programs to modify existing art or create simple art of your own. For example, using the drawing tools and clip art supplied with Microsoft PowerPoint, you can create artwork by just dragging and dropping. Similarly, you do not need to be a programmer to create the text file used to define an individual skin.

One of the reasons that skins are relatively easy to create is that you can look at the individual pieces of art and the source code for any skin and see how each skin is put together. Several simple example skins are provided with this SDK, as well as a reference for skin elements and attributes.

The following sections provide overview information about Windows Media Player skins.

Section Description
Why Make Skins? Describes some of the uses for skins.
Skin Files Details the file types for skins and their uses.
Writing Code Provides an overview of how to use Microsoft JScript in skins.
Debugging Code Describes techniques for finding bugs in skin code.
Submitting Your Skin Distributing your skins on the WMPlugins website is no longer supported.
Referencing Skins in URLs Explains how to author URLs that cause Windows Media Player to display a particular skin.
New for Windows Media Player Skins Lists the new items available for creating skins.
Borders for Windows Media Player (deprecated) Describes using skins in Windows Media Download packages.

 

Windows Media Player Skins