aphelion

Noel, these clearly contradict Apple's human interface guidelines for the height of buttons to be at least as tall as a thumb. What kind of monster would design such an interface? You must have no regard for humanity, usability, or thumbs.

I haven't tried AutoIt but have had no such issues with AutoHotkey

Here's my themeatlas modded from Snowy8Glass. It's resource name STREAM name 986 language 0 if you're using Resource Hacker to change the msstyle. Or you can apply using the ThemeAtlas reg entry from AeroGlass. The entire file is different so there is no overlap with the original Snowy8 other than inspiration so I think it's ok to post here. Note I just tweaked the maximize buttons and they're alternatively either pushing up on mouseover against the close button, or going 1 pixel too far down. I'll track it down eventually but welcome contributions. http://i.imgur.com/4L7jcaw.png

That would only be theoretically possible with a custom unsigned theme, since it can have a different stream used for the atlas. The default windows one doesn't have enough room to put a glow

There's also a helpful guide png in the theme atlas thread that shows some very general sections. But for reversing 2 colors, it's fairly straightforward just by looking at the atlas in photoshop. Wherever one color is, put the other, and vice-versa.

Noel, check out my theme atlas in that thread for a glow that is both white and dark at the same time depending on what's behind it. Edit: Link to PSD if it helps

clownoutbreak.com, really? hmm.. Edit: And gotyoursoul.com?

It's probably a font substitution issue (since the taskbar is messed up too.) Try restoring the attached keys. DefaultAllFontKeys.reg Edit: If that doesn't work try restoring the font links: HKLM.FontLink.backup.reg Edit 2: Last resort, http://www.withsteps.com/2621/windows-8-default-font-download-repair-kit.html

I think it's applicable. The term is used in most of philosphy as way of defining rationality. Probably off topic though, and yes, you are free to jump off the island any time, but no island's terrain is going to be perfect (or is it?)

Also, nothing we say or do can change the fact that Microsoft won't change a thing. Microsoft is the terrain here and that does not change. We all are navigating the same course, and I struggle to find sense in focusing on what bumps the road has.

Sorry, that came off harsh. If you don't want to forego the color altogether, then those TTF fonts optimized for ClearType are going to end up looking bad on any screens that are not either RGB or BGR (the limitation of PixelStructure besides grayscale.) The tuner does allow you to change the degree of color intensity which is reflected in the EnhancedContrastLevel registry value (I don't recall whether that's respected with the Segoe-esque fonts or not, but I suspect not.) The reason I'm recommending removing color altogether is that this is the direction Microsoft has already chosen as the future of ClearType through DirectWrite. It's different than using grayscale rendering or disabling font smoothing altogether. Instead it resembles the rendering of OS X a lot more, widely considered a superior font rendering platform, without losing much of the subpixel antialiasing that the colors were creating. In truth, there really aren't subpixels in the first place. It's a distinction between the cones and rods in the back of the cornea that can distinguish between luminescence and hue. The brightness/luminosity will always be caught first and the hue provides additional details, and in that sense it sorta-kinda creates this illusion of subpixels, but that's not really a thing. It does exist in the panels, but ClearType does not take advantage of the hardware in the way it claims it does-- that is, using those 3 separate colors in varying levels of brightness to provide greater resolution. It just isn't possible through software. It simulates it, but it's not the same thing. The DirectWrite method does have the benefit of supporting every rotation (not just RGB or BGR) so while it's being adopted on one hand for tablets/handhelds, there's more to it than just a loss of color. It's very finely tuned to provide the same resolution you're used to with ClearType now, without attempting to simulate subpixel antialiasing and creating all sorts of distortions in the process of using color to do that. It's a bit of an upgrade to ClearType more than anything else, since it ultimately is more widely supported and looks much, much better than either grayscale or aliased rendering. If you want to experiment with the different types of rendering there are 2 great tools, one is a Firefox plugin called ClearType Tuner or similar, and the other is the MacType Wizard which lets you set granular control over color to an extent far beyond anything available in Windows native font rendering. It applies system wide in Windows if you choose to use it, but it's also a good informational tool to see what's happening with the various ways. Basically it's the ClearType tuner with a thousand more options, and they choices you make are actually respected system-wide. There is a toll on resource use, primarily keeping the glyphs in memory but that shouldn't be an issue with your setup.

A complete fix is possible, though. You're getting lost in the weeds. Check out some of the screenshots I've been posting. No color fringing anywhere--taskbar, notepad, explorer, etc. The way it's done is by a combination of: 1. ClearType Tuner set to PixelStructure 0 2. CU WindowMetrics all set to use OTF with PS outlines (Myriad Pro comes in many forms) 3. LM FontSubstitutes that previously pointed to sans serif changed to point to the same OTF 4. Resource strings in the Windows Theme changed from Segoe UI to the same OTF (.msstyles String Tables and shellstyle.dll HTML) 5. Edge case: Photoshop needs "drop shadows" disabled in its UI fonts to remove color fringing I am not modifying any registry settings manually or disabling ClearType--grayscale seems like it loses all tracking. Another way to go about it is MacType but that's a sledgehammer I suspect you don't want to use.

Yeah I get it, and as you said the shadow resource doesn't get the color tint, so that's why I proposed a color agnostic solution. It's the only way that it can be ubiquotous, so that it works for everyone regardless of theme or color settings. If it's done right it can still look good which is why I showed the screenshot--there's no need to have 2 borders on my windows, but it doesn't look bad at all.

Another way to restore borders is in a color agnostic way. I'm on 8.1 but this screenshot shows 2 pairs of borders, the second is generated by the shadow resource and is clear so it won't conflict with whatever the desktop or theme color is.

Isn't that the same look when you run an app in compatibility mode for a previous version of Windows? I'm not sure if it's aerolite or just something for compat mode but I've seen it in Win8 before