Finally some Visual Styles that I like
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I sort of posted here long ago about visual styles in windows XP. I've tried WindowBlinds, but they've made my PC unstable so I had to uninstall them. I then patched uxtheme.dll and it worked wonderfully for me. Now the only problem was to find suitable styles. It's actually amazing how hard it is to find a decent style. Even discarding flashy puberty type styles, very few of the themes I've found were functional. Most of the time the style was good but it was always missing some crucial usability aspect, for example forgetting to properly highlight active window in the taskbar (and no, one and a half pixel border instead of one does not count), failing to make scrollbar distinctly visible on scrollbar background, failing to make inactive window titlebar different color than active one (making titlebar wording slightly different color while leaving actual titlebar color the same does not count either). Sure, inactive titlebar color seems like a trivial issue, but it is amazing how fast it drives you nuts trying to find active window on the screen. In the end the best visual styles that I've found were clones of various linux distro's styles. I thought it would be nice to share. Human for Windows (Ubuntu clone, comes in a variety of colors, not just orange, elongated minimize/maximize/close buttons, currently my favorite) Human for Windows[^] ClearLooks for Windows XP (Another ubuntu clone, don't like it for the font choice) ClearLooks[^] Bluecurve 4.3 for Windows XP (fedora/lunix red hat clone, only the link for rapidshare.de works) BlueCurve[^] Granted, neither of these are perfect, but they are the best I could find so far. If anyone has good visual styles, please share.
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I sort of posted here long ago about visual styles in windows XP. I've tried WindowBlinds, but they've made my PC unstable so I had to uninstall them. I then patched uxtheme.dll and it worked wonderfully for me. Now the only problem was to find suitable styles. It's actually amazing how hard it is to find a decent style. Even discarding flashy puberty type styles, very few of the themes I've found were functional. Most of the time the style was good but it was always missing some crucial usability aspect, for example forgetting to properly highlight active window in the taskbar (and no, one and a half pixel border instead of one does not count), failing to make scrollbar distinctly visible on scrollbar background, failing to make inactive window titlebar different color than active one (making titlebar wording slightly different color while leaving actual titlebar color the same does not count either). Sure, inactive titlebar color seems like a trivial issue, but it is amazing how fast it drives you nuts trying to find active window on the screen. In the end the best visual styles that I've found were clones of various linux distro's styles. I thought it would be nice to share. Human for Windows (Ubuntu clone, comes in a variety of colors, not just orange, elongated minimize/maximize/close buttons, currently my favorite) Human for Windows[^] ClearLooks for Windows XP (Another ubuntu clone, don't like it for the font choice) ClearLooks[^] Bluecurve 4.3 for Windows XP (fedora/lunix red hat clone, only the link for rapidshare.de works) BlueCurve[^] Granted, neither of these are perfect, but they are the best I could find so far. If anyone has good visual styles, please share.
Pardon my ignorance, but the only way to have alternate styles on XP is to actively hack a system DLL? Is Vista the same way?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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Pardon my ignorance, but the only way to have alternate styles on XP is to actively hack a system DLL? Is Vista the same way?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Jim Crafton wrote:
Pardon my ignorance, but the only way to have alternate styles on XP is to actively hack a system DLL?
Yes. Well, unless ...well, no. Thats the only way. Vista....I dont think its even POSSIBLE to have custom styles in Vista.
:badger:
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Pardon my ignorance, but the only way to have alternate styles on XP is to actively hack a system DLL? Is Vista the same way?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Jim Crafton wrote:
Is Vista the same way?
Its VISTA!!! Microsoft made it EXACTLY right for you. No need to change the style. Sit down, shut up and use it!! ;P
"Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest." - Isaac Asimov
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Jim Crafton wrote:
Is Vista the same way?
Its VISTA!!! Microsoft made it EXACTLY right for you. No need to change the style. Sit down, shut up and use it!! ;P
"Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest." - Isaac Asimov
Mike Mullikin wrote:
Microsoft made it EXACTLY right for you
You say this as a joke, but this sentiment is EXACTLY why I don't use Windows as my Desktop OS at home. If Windows actually allowed me to customize the Window Styles and Widget Themes without having to hack system DLLs it might actually entice me to rejoin the MS club. The ease of customizability is one of the primary factors in my adoption of Desktop Linux.
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Mike Mullikin wrote:
Microsoft made it EXACTLY right for you
You say this as a joke, but this sentiment is EXACTLY why I don't use Windows as my Desktop OS at home. If Windows actually allowed me to customize the Window Styles and Widget Themes without having to hack system DLLs it might actually entice me to rejoin the MS club. The ease of customizability is one of the primary factors in my adoption of Desktop Linux.
Jimmanuel wrote:
You say this as a joke
Yes and no. I was trying to be funny but it was at Microsoft's expense. I agree that Microsoft should allow more flexibility with styles and themes. I don't base my choice in OS on eye-candy but MS could certainly stand to loosen up.
"Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest." - Isaac Asimov
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Pardon my ignorance, but the only way to have alternate styles on XP is to actively hack a system DLL? Is Vista the same way?
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Well, I don't pretend to be an expert on customizing windows, so I can't give you full tour, but I can point you in the right direction. There are three ways to customize WinXP. (1) Use WindowBlinds. This is a third party commercial program to create new windows themes. You install it and it's ready to use. It replaces standard windows customization dialogue and has some fancy vista like effects like transparent borders if you're into this thing. I don't know what it does under the hood, but it works.... for some. For me it was too unstable, random errors, couldn't reboot computer, etc, etc, etc... (2) Second way to customize winxp is to patch uxtheme.dll. WinXP already has skinning feature built in, however microsoft only allows you to use microsoft signed styles which can be purchased as a part of WinXP Plus! pack I believe. You can create your own styles and use them with WinXP, but in order to do that you have to patch uxtheme.dll to remove protection. Pros is it's free, stable (for me), and in general the quality of Visual Styles is greater than for WindowBlinds Themes. Cons, you are patching windows dll and it can go wrong, no fancy transparency effects, and compiled Visual Styles are pretty limited, so if you want to change something in the theme you don't like, you will have to compile your own theme. (3) So called "total conversions". I've never tried them, but those completely revamp default WinXP interface. For example you can have mac-like quick launch gadget at the bottom and the likes. I have not explored this option, so can't be of much help here. Regarding Vista I don't have Vista (briefly tried it, got annoyed and decided not to move to it in the foreseeable future) so once again my knowledge here is limited. You can customize Vista too, but I don't know to what extent. If this thread[^] is any indication, it also involves patching system dlls. Neowin forums actually is a good place for windows customization if you are interested. I wouldn't mind default windows look myself, but after 5 years I want to spice things up a little.
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Jimmanuel wrote:
You say this as a joke
Yes and no. I was trying to be funny but it was at Microsoft's expense. I agree that Microsoft should allow more flexibility with styles and themes. I don't base my choice in OS on eye-candy but MS could certainly stand to loosen up.
"Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest." - Isaac Asimov