Advanced techniques

The tutorial skin is built from 14 disp sections, which isn't exactly much compared with the original skins that ship with cFos and cFosSpeed. Even the rather basic cFosSpeed "Icon" skin uses a total of 39 different sections to convey as much information as possible. Having a switch cycle run through three interface states displaying different parameter information was implemented by using a combination of regular sections and a group of activearea switches toggling not only those sections but also the switches themselves.
You may want to have a look at the corresponding INI file to understand how this works.

Another example of advanced skin design is the definition of history sections to track the progress of a parameter (and its maximum values) during any given period of time. This is used in most cFos and cFosSpeed skins to display data traffic. It offers a wide variety of options to create some truly sleek effects, while providing users with as much information as possible.
Again, you may have to take a look at the corresponding cFosSpeedINI file and the description of the history method to learn more about this.

Last but not least, the activate method didn't make it into our short tutorial, even though it's been used for creating most cFosSpeed skins. But, in terms of functionality, it is so similar to the fader method used for disp13 that it just didn't make much sense adding another section solely to introduce an almost identical approach.

It might be a good idea to browse through the different skin definition files coming with cFos or cFosSpeed to see how things can best be accomplished. At any rate, it should be a good starting point for mastering those techniques and then creating the "ultimate" skin – which we sincerely hope you will share with the entire cFos(Speed) community.

The fader method Skin definition reference page Index