Skins for Stu’s Quiz Boxes
One of the great features of Stu’s Quiz Boxes is the ability to change skins for the program. The image below shows the Main Menu of the program which appears when you move the mouse to the top of the screen. Selecting “Skins” from the menu pops up a list of all available skins and a double-click swaps the skin immediately – even mid-game.
So basically, a school or company could make their own skin with their emblem or a school photo and have that made into a Quiz Boxes skin. Then, as you uncover the game board you reveal a second image…
Skins now available for download at this site:
- Skin: Porcupine Tree
- Skin: Honda Cars
- Skin: Final Fantasy
- Skin: David Beckham
- Skin: Modern Surreal Art
- Skins: The Energy Set (contains 4 separate skins)
- Skin: Fluids
- Skin: Colored (Great for Juniors!)
- Skins: Computing/Electronics (contains 2 separate skins)
- Skin: Beijing Olympic Games
- Skin: U.S. Politics
- Skin: Christmas
- Skin: Independence Day
- Skin: WWE – Wrestlemania
PLEASE NOTE: All skins are currently hosted at MediaFire. If the site is blocked at your school, you will need to download the skins at home.
Other “skinning” instructions and guides:
Stu's Quiz Boxes! 
Stu,
Tough question maybe? I have created my own skin. The photo is sliced to the proper proportions however boxes 1 through 9 is showing the defalt skin and the rest of the boxes are showing my photo. How do I correct this malady?
Thanks
Bruce
Hi Bruce. All of the image files that relate to your skin shuld be in a folder of its own inside the SKINS folder. Open that folder in My Computer. Look through each of the images in there. Do they all belong to your skin or did you somehow manage to put other images into that folder? That’s where you need to look. Jeopardy only displays images that are in your select skins folder. Make your own folder in there and make sure that the only images that are in there are for your skin and that they are all named properly. It will then work fine.
I know the steps for making the skins are very clear. However, I haven’t been successful. I have created a folder within the SKINS folder that contains the three images that I want to use. I have verified that the images are resized to the specified size and that they are jpg files. I then copy the MakeJeopardySkin file into the folder that contains my images. When I double click the file MakeJeopardySkin, I get the following error: The system cannot find the patch specified
Any suggestions to resolve this problem?
Hi Grace. OK. Inside your Jeopardy folder, do you have a folders called skinbuilder, quizzes, skins and sounds? If yes, then the skinbuilder folder is in the right place. If no, you need to put skinbuilder there, not somewhere else.
Inside the skinbuider folder, you should have two files and a folder:
ReadMeFirst!.txt (well worth reading), MakeJeopardySkin.bat and a Resources folder. In the Resources folder, there must be exactly eleven files. If there aren’t go download a fresh copy of it and reinstall it.
So inside your Skins folder, you have your folder (with a short name) with your three images and they are named background.jpg, foreground.jpg and final.jpg? AND they are resized exactly to the dimensions specified in the ReadMeFirst file?
Finally, can you verify the error message for me? Is it cannot find the “patch” specified or the “path” – there is a big difference. If it is the latter, the problem should be fixed by you checking the above stuff I’ve just referred to. If it is the latter, I’d suggest you try do it on another PC to rule out the PC being the problem. Please let me know how it goes.
Thanks so much that fixed the problem. Thanks for the support.
Excellent Grace. Well done.
Stu
I am trying to create a skin with no luck. I have my 3 images; they are the correct size, they are in the correct folder which is in the correct location. When I try to run makejepordyskin, which is in the folder with the pictures, I receive the same message every time telling me that I must supply the 3 images of the correct size. I have verified the sizes several times and they are all correct.
What am I doing wrong?
Clay,
Did you ever get the problem fixed. I’m having the same issue and would appreciate any help.
Hi Clay, Did you verify you have done everything according to my answer to Grace above? Next, make sure you have NOT named your files background.jpg.jpg – make file extensions visible in Windows, so you can verify this.
This program is exactly what I am looking for. I have a staff meeting this week and it should make it interesting, But, boy, it was frustrating getting this to work.
HINT: A change to your instructions.
When making skins, your directions specificaly state make three pictures to a certain size and then label them background.jpg, foreground.jpg and final.jpg. And when doing that doesn’t work the DOS screen comes up saying that you have to make three pictures to a certain size and then label them Bbackground.jpg, foreground.jpg and final.jpg.
But that will not work. You can’t have the extension ‘.jpg’. Please explain that to other newbies. Also, including pictures was hard to figure out. Again, don’t use the extension ‘.jpg’.
But other than that, this program is great.
And, any way to change the font color for the numbers when I put my skin on.
Dave
Hi Dave,
Extensions. The bane of a newbie’s life. You need to make sure that extensions are VISIBLE in Windows. Do this:
Open My Computer (or Computer in Vista/Win7). Press ALT-T to display the Tools menu. Choose Folder Options. Click the View tab. DESELECT the option that says “Hide Extensions for Known Filetypes”. Click OK a couple of times to get out.
Now you can see the extensions you need to know about.
My Teacher showed me one of ur quizzez and i loved it i am currently in year 5 we did the maths one it was fun
Glad you liked it Kurt. Ask your teacher if you can work with your class to create your own quizzes using QuizBoxes.
We love this site and used it last year. I have a problem this year though. When trying to create a skin I get the DOS message about creating the 3 files with the correct size. I have checked and double checked and they are correct. I even went as far as attempting to make a new skin with some of the same pictures used last year to successfully. I created a new folder and copied the pictures and the MakeJeopardySkin.bat file to the new folder and still received the same message. I tried to download again and it still didn’t work. Can you help, I’m at a loss. Thanks!
Follow-up: I believe it has to do with the foreground picture. The reason is that I downloaded one of your skins and copied your foreground picture to my folder and I still recieved the same message.
Did you sort out this problem? If you are still stuck, zip the three image files you made and email them to me at stu_hasic @ yahoo.com (without the spaces in the address).
i start up program, start math quizzes click on a dollar amount the question shows up with no teams at the bottom and freezes…any ideas?
Freezes? When you roll the mouse to the top of the screen, the menu doesn’t appear? If you can;t see the teams at the bottom, you either are not running your screen resolution at 1024×768 (or higher) and/or you have Large Fonts turned on in Windows Display Settings.
no menus appear if i roll over anything oln the skin nothing happens, i will try to change the resolution…thanks!
changed resolution no difference is there way a to send a screen shot to you? Also i run VISTA does it matter? thanks for any ideas
it worked! changed both res and icon size hope this works on my classroom computer too!
Icon size has the same effect as Font size in display settings It should be normal or small – not large, otherwise many programs do not appear the way they should.
When i click on the skin builder bat file file nothing happens? wat do i do
i have the three images correct sizes and everything
Hi Cheeseburger69. Have a really careful read of this: http://quizboxes.com/2009/02/15/create-your-own-custom-skins-the-easy-way/ looking at every step and confirm that you have done EVERYTHING in those instructions exactly. Particularly, take note of WHERE you created your folder for your new skin (and where it should be), and that you copied skinbuilder.bat into that folder and you’re not running it from anywhere else. The instructions do work when run exactly. Hope you sort it out.
im havng the same problem as cheeseburger69 im sure everything is correct, its in the correct location but when i click it nothing happens
yea, me 2 im havin the same problem as cheeseburger69
Tell me Cheeseburger69, tissuehead46 and bobbybob101, have any of your classmates been able to make it work? If they have, ask them to show you how. Unfortunately, the instructions are all I can offer for now. Maybe I’ll make a video one day.
I love the program and have soldered up some controllers (easy buttons from Office Depot) with a simple circuit board to show who rings in first. Works great and plays easily in class.
Any chance of a simple font style and color selector coming soon?
Hi Stu,
I’ve used your great program a few times for Challenge Days we host at our school. Each time I try to improve something. This time I tried creating a skin. Everything went well until I tried to change the skin to the one I created by double-clicking on the name in the Skins drop-down box. Nothing happens. I’ve read all the above and everything is in the right place. The MakeQuizBoxes worked and the skins/space folder holds all the correct images, buttons etc. I did notice that apart from my Space folder, all the (numerous) folders in the Skins folder have names solely composed of a series of symbols and the same series of symbols is repeated for four folders. If I try to open one the error message says it’s inaccessible because syntax is incorrect. Yet I’m sure previously there were names to choose from as I recall changing the skin for a previous challenge day.
Hi Stu, I found a copy of Quiz boxes on a USB drive and checked the Skins folder. It looked normal – Harry Potter, Sydney etc.Totally different form the one I was using.So I copied my Space folder into it, transferred the quiz to my USB and all works fine. .
Thank you for this program, It’s always the last contest of our Challenge Day and the students really look forward to it.
Glad you were able to sort it out Carol and I’m pleased the program has been working so well for you.