Welcome to my Football Manager Blog, the main purpose of this blog is to provide updates on the status of my Football Manager Skins & Guides Website

If you have any questions or queries then I can generally be found in the Skinning Forum at the Official Sports Interactive Forums, though I'd ask you to open a new thread rather than sending me a message.

To help with navigation I have included indexes of my content for the last few versions of Football Manager in the tabs below.

Sunday 7 November 2010

Netbook2011 Skin

My First Skin for Football Manager 2011 is the third version my Netbook skin. The FM2011 version is largely similar to the FM2010 one, but has been reworked to work with Football Manager 2011, I've also tweaked the various new screens and features so they work aswell.
The skin is designed to work better on Netbooks and other computers who's screens are limited to a 1024x600 resolution. Skin is based on the default FM2011 skin, with the most changes being the maximising of the screen content area.
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Netbook2011 Skin Download Page

Please ensure you read the instructions on the download page before installing as it gives full instructions on how to get the skin onto the game if you are having trouble it also tells you what screens to stay away from.

Friday 5 November 2010

Football Manager 2011 Patch 11.1 Released


The first patch for Football Manager 2011 has now been released.

A major change is the addition of a Dark Skin for Football Manager 2011.


Football Manager 2011 Base Skins - Dark Versions Released

With the release of patch 11.1 we now have access to the Dark Skin and as such I have released Dark Versions of the Base Skins. Please note the Dark Base Skins will only work if you have installed Patch 11.1 or later.

The Light Base Skins have also been updated for patch 11.1 (a couple more colours have been added to the settings file).

As with FM2010 to make certain changes in FM2011 you are required to add files to the skin folders, whilst this isn't a problem for fan-made skins it is a slight problem if you are using the Default Skins included with the game. So to help people out I have again made some Base Skins for FM2011 that allow you to add and modify the default skins without breaking your game.
Full instructions on when and how to use the Base Skins can be found on the download page, please ensure you read the page in detail before downloading the Base Skins as it will save you problems in the future.


Currently there are four versions of the Base Skin - two light and two dark one of each solely based upon the Default FM2011 Skin and another one with the Background Changes re-enabled thanks to Radestock.
If you have any further questions on the Base Skins please ask any questions in the Skinning Hideout on the Official SIGames Forums.

Friday 29 October 2010

How to Recolour the Footer in FM2011

My latest guide for Football Manager 2011 tells you how to recolour the footer so it changes colours like the titlebar does:


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Tuesday 26 October 2010

FM2011: Why are my logos not working?

The problem seems to be with the file extension of the logos, for some reason Football Manager 2011 isn't reading any files with the extension .PNG, to fix this all you need to do is locate the logos that don't show and change the extension from .PNG to .png, provided you have installed the logos correctly and don't have any duplicate config files.

To change the file extension in Windows you will need to:

- Go to Folder and Search Options item in the folder menu (the location of this will change depending on what version of Windows you are using, it should also be accessable through the Control Panel).
- Click on the View Tab.
- In the Advanced Settings Tab, untick 'Hide extensions for known file types'
- Click OK.
- Now with the extensions visible change any extension that appears as .PNG to .png
- Load the game and your images should now display.

Friday 22 October 2010

FM2011: How to make the Tactics Pitch Flat

My first guide for Football Manager 2011 tells you how to make the Pitch on the Tactics screen flat again, note that the file you need to edit has changed since FM2010:


FM2011: How to make the Tactics Pitch Flat Again



Football Manager 2011 Base Skins

As with FM2010 to make certain changes in FM2011 you are required to add files to the skin folders, whilst this isn't a problem for fan-made skins it is a slight problem if you are using the Default Skins included with the game. So to help people out I have again made some Base Skins for FM2011 that allow you to add and modify the default skins without breaking your game.

Full instructions on when and how to use the Base Skins can be found on the download page, please ensure you read the page in detail before downloading the Base Skins as it will save you problems in the future.


Currently there are two versions of the Base Skin one solely based upon the Default FM2011 Skin and another one with the Background Changes re-enabled thanks to Radestock.

If you have any further questions on the Base Skins please ask any questions in the Skinning Hideout on the Official SIGames Forums.

Football Manager 2011 Details


I'm a little late with this but the Football Manager 2011 Demo was official released today (well yesterday on Steam).

The Demo can now be downloaded from www.footballmanager.com if you haven't already downloaded it.

Whilst the full game is due for release on 5th November 2010.

You'll also be happy to know that during the next two weeks instead of playing the demo I'll be working on updating my Skins, Mods and Guides for Football Manager 2011.

Wednesday 26 May 2010

How to add a Manager Picture in Football Manager 2010

My latest guide for Football Manager 2010 explains how to get a picture for your manager to show in game:

Friday 16 April 2010

How To Create Football Manager 2010 Player Faces

My next guide for Football Manager 2010 explains how to create your own player faces in the same style as the Default FM2010 Player Faces (cut-out style).


Thursday 1 April 2010

Classic2010 Dark Skin (Left + Right Versions)




This is the Dark Version of my Classic2010 Skin, which is a simple skin based on the Default Dark FM2010 skin but with the tree menu re-enabled. Please note for the skin to work you need to have installed patch 10.2 or higher.

Screenshots:

Left Hand Version:

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Right Hand Version:

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Thursday 25 March 2010

Classic2010 Skin (Left + Right Versions)

This is a skin I have been working on since the release of patch 10.3, it's simple skin based on the Default Football Manager 2010 skin but with the old style tree menu re-enabled.
Please note that you will require patch 10.2 or later for this skin to work, though you do not need to be using Steam.
The skin comes in two versions one with the tree menu on the left hand side and the another with the tree menu on the right hand
side.

Left Hand Version Screenshots:

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Right Hand Version Screenshots:

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Saturday 20 March 2010

Football Manager 2010 Skinning Guide Part 1: The Basics

The first part of my Football Manager Skinning Guide has now been updated for FM2010.

Part One of the guide is a simple introduction to skinning with Football Manager 2010 and should be enough to get you going.


Thursday 11 March 2010

Custom Split View Mod

This is something I've been working on on and off since about FM2006, it's a simple mod that changes the split view mode in matches, and should be compatiable with most if not all user made skins for FM2010 there are currently three versions of it::

Enlarged Left Side Split View Mod

This version of the mod extends the left panel in the split view so it takes up two thirds of the screen leaving one third for the right panel, in addition the contents of the left panel have been changed so they use the normal fullsized content rather than the small panels content.

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Enlarged Right Side Split View Mod

This version of the mod extends the right panel in the split view so it takes up two thirds of the screen leaving one third for the left panel, in addition the contents of the right panel have been changed so they use the normal fullsized content rather than the small panels content.

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Triple Split View Mod

This version of the mod adds a third panel so you now have three panels each taking up a third of the screen instead of two taking up half, each panel still displays the small panel content, however I've had to remove some screens from the middle panel - pitch view and ass. manager feedback as they don't work correctly, in addition the panel headers for the middle panel lose the team names but all the actual stats display fine.


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I've also released instructions on how to modify the code yourself those instructions can be found here: Split View Mod Coding if you have any questions then ask in the [Mod] Custom Split Views Mod for FM2010
thread in the Skinning Hideout on the Sports Interactive Forums.

Friday 5 March 2010

Base Skins for Football Manager 2010

As with FM2009 to make certain changes in FM2010 you are required to add files to the skin folders, whilst this isn't a problem for fan-made skins it is a slight problem if you are using the Default Skins included with the game. So to help people out I again made some Base Skins for FM2010 that allow you to add and modify the default skins without breaking your game.

Full instructions on when and how to use the Base Skins can be found on the download page, please ensure you read the page in detail before downloading the Base Skins as it will save you problems in the future.

Further note that you can only use the FM2009 Style Base Skins if you have bought or installed FM2010 through Steam, if you try and use the FM09 Style Base Skins without having Steam the game will crash so you have been warned.


If you have any further questions on the Base Skins please ask any questions in the Skinning Hideout on the Official SIGames Forums.

Netbook2010 Dark Skin

My Second Skin for Football Manager 2010 is a dark verison of my Netbook2010 Skin. This has the same layout as my normal Netbook2010 Skin however it is a dark version based upon the Dark Default FM2010 skin.

The skin is designed to work better on Netbooks and other computers who's screens are limited to a 1024x600 resolution. Skin is based on the default FM2010 skin, with the most changes being the maximising of the screen content area.

Screenshots:

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Please ensure you read the instructions on the download page before installing as it gives full instructions on how to get the skin onto the game if you are having trouble it also tells you what skins to stay away from.