1) We can't control what people make in skins. If someone chooes to make a skin with their own font that's something the skin author chooses to do. That's no different than if a "theme" author does something unusual with their theme that causes it problems on systems.

2) Not familiar with BAT.

3) - 5) some apps do their own funky stuff and that is why menu skinning and console skinning aren't on by default. For most people on most apps, they work fine (see my screenshot of Opera and other apps).  But as you move away from the programs most people use, you are more likely to run into some program doing something odd.

But let's cut to the chase: The argument isn't that WindowBlinds is 100% compatible on 100% of the systems out there. It's not. No program is.  Read through the Aston Shell forum and you'll see peopl ehaving all sorts of problems. Does that make Aston "buggy"? No.  WindowBlinds isn't "buggy". Jus tlike DOOM 3 isn't  "buggy" just because it has problems on some video card combination. 

I am not sure why you seem to have it out for WindowBlinds. Especially since you push alternative shells. That's what mystifies me. You seem incredibly tweak averse with WindowBlinds and yet are recommending people toss out their default Windows shell and download themes that always require some tweaking.  You think novice users are going to understand why their MS Word "menu item" in a given theme brings up some huge error dialog (because the origianl author hard coded it to a path on their computer)? Of course not.

When using advanced customization programs, a certain level of sophistication is expected.

WindowBlinds, by default, turns off its advanced features so that casual users can use it without compatibility issues.  And for those users who are a little more sophisticated, they can turn on features that work fine on virtually all programs out there but it is understood that if they do run into some program that is doing something odd with its menus or whatever that they may have to exclude that. 

Draginol, let's clearify things once and forever.
First of all, I completely agree, that you cannot (and should not) control skinners, but you have to control the default set of skins. And as certain skins in the default set (like Corona) cause more troubles (aka glitches), than others, they should be replaced, IMHO.
The skin, which cases a minimum of problems (at least with the default configuration of WB 4.3 sw) is FlyOS (it's nice and simple).
The second. The things I'm trying to show is that there's no "natural" way to skin Windows applications (as it's not a part of system architecture). Surely, there are numerous applications, like eFX and ShellWM, which are quite buggy or MSStyles, which is solid, stable, but offers a limited functionality. "Nobody is perfect, but I'm pretty f*cking close" (c) Clawfinger.
There's also WindowBlinds, which is far no that good as you're trying to show. Draginol, I understand, that you need to promote Stardock products, but isn't it honest to say them the truth. And the truth is that the more WindowBlinds moves from MSStyles, the more is possibility of getting into a trouble. The more complex is system, the bigger is the chance of its failure.
I like WindowsBlinds in case of nice skins (Pixtudio folks are really talented), but I don't like the need to tweak nearly every application to make it "compatible". This way MSStyles is highly superior to WB no matter what you think: it causes troubles very rarely simply due to its simplicity. WB offers more, but needs much more time to set up. And constant configuration is not the thing a new user want to do (most users I know leave default settings everywhere). And, yes, WindowBlinds is buggy. Buggy just like any other window decoration engine: it can't work flawlessly by its nature. Neither eFX nor ShellWM, not even MSStyles is perfect. And the more troubles someone gets with a certain app, the more rights he has to call it buggy.
That's my position.

You see, this is the thing I'm talking about, you say msstyles are "solid and stable".  As someone who is quite familiar with MSSTyles, they have problems too. Lots of problems. Just the ones that come with XP are solid (and many others made out there are solid but plenty of others have serious problems, particularly with the Start bar and properties dialogs. 

What is honest is to say that you aren't very familiar with the issues you are talking about and have a double standard in how you judge things.  Obviously the more complex something is the more chance for failure there is.  But then again, look at Aston shell, it wants to replace the explorer shell and in doing so, the more complex the theme, the more weird things happen.

MSStyles is not more compatible than WindowBlinds. The underlying system in it simply excludes everything that might possibly give it problems. It has problems with Dephi apps so it just doesn't skin them.  It has problems skinning menus so it doesn't skin them.

Heck, msstyles won't even skin programs that aren't explicitly theme aware.  Try running Adobe Acrobat. Not exactly an obscure app and it mostly looks like Windows 95. Then run it with WindowBlinds and it's fully skinned.

WindowBlinds isn't just msstyles with console skinning and menu skinning. It has hundreds of features and capabilities that msstyles don't have.   But you don't seem to be interested in that because you want to stick with your agenda.  Heck, by your definition, Aston is "buggy". Lots of people are having problems with it. One visit to your support forum verifies this.  But there is a difference between a program being buggy and not being compatible on someone's skin.

Your entire argument boils down to this: With WindowBlinds if you turn on all the features and load up a third party skin that installs a set of fonts that don't support Crylic then  it will have problems on the Russian version of Windows and with an obscure shareware program you have.

And from that you decided to call WindowBlinds "Buggy".  And this from a guy who suggests people dump Explorer for an alternative shell where nearly every theme requires significant tweaking in order to work correctly.

I think you should find somewhere else to peddle your agenda.

So I go and download "The Bat" to see if I can verify this "bugginess".

Maybe I'm blind but it looks fine here:

That isn't to deny that Sacrat has problems on his computer. But maybe...JUST maybe it has something to do with Russian Windows or something.  But no matter how you slice it, the Bat obviously functions (for me it is). 

I'm sure I could get a theme with Aston Shell that has a link to "The Bat". Maybe even with a cool bat icon.  But then again, I'd have to spend time tweaking it so that it actually would load up when I clicked on it.  But that's okay in Sacrat's world. It's perfectly acceptable in his mind for shell links to not actually work without having to be fixed by the end user.  But I suspect other people would object if they loaded up Windows XP and the desktop links brought up error messages saying it couldn't find them.

I thought about looking into Talisman to save myself some work. But after reading these tirades, I've decided to write my own desktop replacement in .NET c#. I had ObjectDesktop a while back, and removed it. ObjectDesktop is a mess. I suspect Talisman uses VB (in some form or another) based on one of their fix logs. .NET and c# allow total control over anything in Windows, and reading your posts has given me some ideas for skinning it - thanks.

Greetings, Bob.
First of all, before you start coding, I'd highly recommend you testing all the existing shells:
Aston, SharpE, LS clones, Geo, Hoverdesk etc. I'm glad, that you're such an enthusiast, but note, that shell replacement is not "just an app, running as a shell". It must also support a huge number of features to work correctly (few shells are doing that). Besides, you won't be able to find any useful documentation about it and will have to find out lots of features by either disassembling MS Explorer or asking other developers.
Still I'd really liked to see your result. IIRC no one ever tried writing a shell on C# before.
At present time there are two big shell projects I'm looking forward to: A2 and SharpE 5. Both are being actively developped now.

C# and .NET have shelling built in. You'd be amazed at what .NET can do. The .NET initiative is actually heading towards becoming an OS because MS is building it into it's operating system. In fact, the strands of the .NET framework is spidering into everything MS is creating. Office 2003 is a small example. But they are also building the next OS with .NET connections. The next SQL server (longhorn) along with VS2005 (Whidbey) is also another step.

Many of the shells you list I've never heard of. I just got VS2005 beta, so I need to look at what "things" they have added to the environment. I'm really not that interested in skinning everything in Windows. I'm more interested in just replacing the desktop, which I have already done. I'm not 100% happy with the results, but only because I got lazy towards the end. When skinning it, I should have used an XML config file and added a dashboard to the settings - sadly I got too lazy. So my plan is to wait until VS2005 release, then redo it right.