I am currently re-skinning my version of limewire and as far as I have been able to see so far there is no way to put a background image instead of using rgb and hex codes. I have been browsing some of the GUI code and it appears the stuff I am going to need to play around with would be in Java. However I don't know enough about how the limewire gui works or limewire in general for that matter, so if somone would kindly:

A) tell me a way I can add a background pic

or

B) find a way to put a feature like this in a future release

I would be very greatful
thanks,
Chronowraith

We're also interested in using background pictures in themes. Unfortunately, it isn't easy to do. If you'd like to modify the code, you're correct that it's all in Java. Pretty much every GUI component would need to be modified to handle this kind of change.

A change of this magnitude probably won't see the light until after LimeWire 5.0, which is some ways away. So that we have an idea of what to shoot for, though, how would you envision the background image to work? Would it be a single image for the entire application, or a different one for each tab, or ?

I was thinking that for the search tabs, the librarys, the monitor screen, there would be an image which would be static. that is it would not move when you scrolled. the there would be another static image on the d/l section. those would be easily changeable to any normal user(well i am speaking of if it ever gets this far) whilest you would be able to (if you were experienced enough) add pictures and image files to the frame of the whole app. that would work (in my mind anyways) much like skinning winamp or you could keep it the way it is but just allow image support instead of RGB and HEX colors only. mind you I understand that this ranks lower on the list than actual usabililty, and this might not be very easy because, as you say, the whole thing would need to be modded. well for now I am just broswing the code and seeing what it is doing. maybe i can find a wau to allow for a background...