bigmuscle

CKyHC: it is not difficult but it adds another rendering thus it brings some additional performance drop. hello2u: black screens are not caused by Aero Glass itself - especially when CTRL key does not help (because it completely disables DLL loading). The most common reason for black screen is applied unsigned theme without theme signature bypassing.

Just thinking... Win7 reflection effect is not aero stripes only but it includes shiny corners on window frames too. Do you think it has sense to implement this for Win8 too or stripes are enough?

a) symbols downloading does not work for explorer stuff (shell32/themecpl) b) Win8.1 version does not install explorer stuff, so you installed anything but not "Aero Glass for Win8.1"

AERO GLASS for Win8.1 Alpha 2 Let's have a look at alpha 2 of Aero Glass for Win8.1. This is still for preview only, so no internal optimizations (just a code mess to make it work). This version includes several changes: * fix (or rather workaround) for glass safety zone on windows with extended frame (ribbon etc.) * included NoelC's glow.bmp * fix for invalidly blurred pixels at screen edges * fix for glass being on incorrect places (e.g. background of the desktop when explorer is not running) Because Win8.1 uses Direct2D for desktop rendering, the blurring algorithm works a bit different than Direct3D in Win8. This makes ColorizationBlurBalance settings unuseful and amount of color transparency is taken directly from alpha channel specified in ColorizationColor (this value is in form 0xAARRGGBB where AA represents two digits of alpha value 00 [fully transparent] - FF [fully opaque]). This is still controlled via intensity slider in control panel but ColorizationBlurBalance is completely ignored now (maybe we could add it some special function later). Glass reflection has been ported to this version and its intensity can be controlled via common DWORD settings ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity where value is 0 - 100. I also added temporary function which makes glass work correctly even for all already opened windows. This is very low level thing which will be removed in the final version and it can be even broken by any Windows updates (and there is no other solution for it). This version does not include hardcoded DWM function patterns and thus it needs public symbols to be present - symbols are downloaded automatically from MS server for donators (i.e. if license.key is present). Maybe I fixed/modified more but I don't remember everything. And yes, there is still present one glitch when window edge is behind the frame (and needs to be blurred) and you slowly move another window over the frame - do no report it, I'm aware of this and it is currently not easy to fix. http://glass8.berlios.de/win81.html Remember! It's still only alpha intended for preview and not for regular usage!

Full guide is here: http://glass8.berlios.de/guide.html Non-listed values are unsupported temporary settings which should not be set at all and it's not sure that they really work and they can be removed in any upcoming release.

It wasn't me. But to clarify - my reflection is drawn as if you set value 100 in Win7. Actually, the value only means the amount of transparency (0-100%) in Win7 - I use only alpha channel as information for transparency.

Also check that it does not have the same bug as Win8-RP-like atlas for Win8 - when windows is fully blurred, it leaves half of window fully opaque.

Of course, as stated in the changelog/guide - disable (0) or enable (other values), nothing more.

If you manage to call DwmEnableBlurBehindWindow function on alt-tab window then it will be blurred. If I find a way to load it from theme directly then I will use it.

CKyHC: this is the theme thing - you should modify theme resource for getting this effect.

AERO GLASS for Win8 v1.2 * inactive frame blur/color balances are not altered by theme opacity settings when user set them manually * blur deviation settings is applied everytime colorization is changed (so no DWM restart is needed now) * custom theme resource can now be loaded globally from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE * glass is disabled when running on a battery --> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:DisableGlassOnBattery (DWORD 0x0 / 0x1 = default) * implemented glass reflection (aero stripes only) --> HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM:ColorizationGlassReflectionIntensity (DWORD 0x0 = disabled (default) / other values = enabled)

Why do user try it on Preview version of Win8.1 when it is stated that it is intended for Win8.1 RTM and build 9600 only

WindowBlinds replaces Windows theme service, disables DWM frames on windows and renders its own frames using GDI. Thus it's not possible to use them together (my library renders blur into DWM frames using Direct3D).

I must admit that I don't know how remote desktop works in Win8. I just know that earlier versions (Win7) didn't use desktop composition for remote desktop and thus I couldn't control it. RoundRectRadius is independent from theme resource. RoundRectRadius is applied to the geometry which is filled by color/blur. Theme resource specifies texture which rendered over the filled geometry.

Is anyone running my aero glass on laptop?

Yeah, I am not angry about this. Although this autoclicking mechanism violates EULA/copyright of my library, it is user's choice whether he donates small 3 euros per two licenses or he gives precedence to some background automatic script which either deadlocks kernel message queue (as in case of Silent AG) or uncontrollably clicks something on the screen. It will just be funny when the script automatically clicks on something important

BypassThemeSignature should work but I didn't try it at all.

Version 1.1 is for Win8 and not Win8.1.

Color balance specifies how much the result color will be dark/light (% of specified color) and blur balance specifies how much of the color will be applied over the blur effect (something like alpha channel of the color).

CustomThemeResource does not do anything in Win8.1 builds.

The plan is to slowly bring new features - probably one feature per new version. However, "Disable Desktop composition" is not between planned features for the reason that it's against the sense of this tool. The task is to bring new features for desktop composition and not to disable it.

I just tested and the http://glass8.berlios.de/themes/win8rtm_glow.png has glow effect although it's a decent thus it's more visible only on dark background. And right, CustomThemeResource does not work in HKLM because it is theme related which is user-dependent.

Logging is disabled by default (no need to disable it explicitely) - however, how stated in the guide, message about licensing are always logged regardless the settings. About CustomThemeResource, I must admit that I don't know. I use this option (in HKCU) and it works properly. If logging is enabled (EnableLogging set to 1), then debug.log should contain information why resource loading failed. If the information is not there then you are modifying wrong registry key/values.

This is interesting. I guess the tab belongs to Firefox and not to Outlook mail? Do you use custom theme, or theme resource? I see this more as a bug in FF theme but I don't see the way how could it achieve...

It is the same reason as in Win8 - it's not DWM related, these windows renders glow effect on their own. Nothing to do except of modifying Windows theme directly. I don't understand exactly. Glow image can be modified in image editor, but I used the same image like in Win8 RP. I believe it happens for windows which were opened when DWM was starting. Nothing to do about it - these windows are already marked as "non-transparent" and it is not so easy to clear the bit. Right, colorization algorithm has not been applied yet.