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Aero Glass for Win8 RC4

bigmuscle

By bigmuscle
in Aero Glass For Windows 8+

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CKyHC

CKyHC

Posted
Posted (edited)

I just can say that achieving simple transparency in Win8.1 is much much easier than in Win8.

win81_transparency.jpg

Strange how the colorization now replaces the text glow.

Notice that the window "glass" has another glow effect (no glow effect at all, but different from ather wondows)? WTF?

Edited by CKyHC
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PandaX

PandaX

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I just can say that achieving simple transparency in Win8.1 is much much easier than in Win8.

win81_transparency.jpg

Strange how the colorization now replaces the text glow.

Notice that the window "glass" has another glow effect (no glow effect at all, but different from ather wondows)? WTF?

Ribbon windows don't use the same glow effect as regular windows do. Text glow on the Ribbon is still possible, but no longer possible it seems on non-Ribbon windows. Adding back the properties and the glow image yields no results. That image just confirms it, instead of using the old glow image from the DWMWindow class in the msstyles it's drawing the colorization color behind the text instead.

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MikeRL

MikeRL

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Apparently, Windows recently was refusing to start. I tried disabling this application from loading (apparently it was attempting to load itself into the wrong memory location) and everything was fine again. I saw an extra file more than normal, this time in addition to a debug log a dump log was left behind. Please fix this if possible. It may be rare, but if this is a bug then it can prevent Windows from starting. I suspect DWM.exe injected something nasty into Windows's memory, causing Explorer to fail to load. Whole computer locked up. Anyhow, if I'm onto something here are some logs.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/66xwujx7nrddi7e/minidump.dmp

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o92mngig2r430ex/debug.log

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inighthawki

inighthawki

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Just to clarify a few things about the text. The solid blocks of color you see is NOT the text glow. It is a DWM optimization to improve font rendering performance by no longer alpha blending the text with the frame. It is instead rendered into an opaque texture of the same color as the theme color. I personally don't like this idea because it reduces the personalization capabilities of users with modded themes, since the background color of the winow now must exactly match the color of the theme as a solid block of color to work. I have no doubt that bigmuscle will work around this and maybe render font differently though.

The reason the "glass" window does not have this is because the ribbon UI renders its own non-client area.

The text glow will also not work on the windows with the new text rendering (I cant say about the ribbon windows, though)

Edited by inighthawki
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Luke7

Luke7

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Hi inighthawki

Thanks, I got it now.

Ok, I am going back to windows 7 and there will be no more win8 or 8.1 themes from me.

Edited by Luke7
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bigmuscle

bigmuscle

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Posted (edited)

Just to clarify a few things about the text. The solid blocks of color you see is NOT the text glow. It is a DWM optimization to improve font rendering performance by no longer alpha blending the text with the frame. It is instead rendered into an opaque texture of the same color as the theme color. I personally don't like this idea because it reduces the personalization capabilities of users with modded themes, since the background color of the winow now must exactly match the color of the theme as a solid block of color to work. I have no doubt that bigmuscle will work around this and maybe render font differently though.

The reason the "glass" window does not have this is because the ribbon UI renders its own non-client area.

The text glow will also not work on the windows with the new text rendering (I cant say about the ribbon windows, though)

I just noticed that the caption is rendered via pure GDI functions SetBkColor->SetTextColor->...->DrawText into intermediate texture. I think that returning glow effect won't be so complicated (DrawText hook etc.) but I'm not sure about the background. I guess that simple changing alpha channel of background will have no effect.

Apparently, Windows recently was refusing to start. I tried disabling this application from loading (apparently it was attempting to load itself into the wrong memory location) and everything was fine again. I saw an extra file more than normal, this time in addition to a debug log a dump log was left behind. Please fix this if possible. It may be rare, but if this is a bug then it can prevent Windows from starting. I suspect DWM.exe injected something nasty into Windows's memory, causing Explorer to fail to load. Whole computer locked up. Anyhow, if I'm onto something here are some logs.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/66xwujx7nrddi7e/minidump.dmp

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o92mngig2r430ex/debug.log

It seems you have windowsFX installed which is incompatible with this version of Aero Glass, because it injects into DWM too.

Edited by bigmuscle
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MikeRL

MikeRL

Posted
Posted

Just to clarify a few things about the text. The solid blocks of color you see is NOT the text glow. It is a DWM optimization to improve font rendering performance by no longer alpha blending the text with the frame. It is instead rendered into an opaque texture of the same color as the theme color. I personally don't like this idea because it reduces the personalization capabilities of users with modded themes, since the background color of the winow now must exactly match the color of the theme as a solid block of color to work. I have no doubt that bigmuscle will work around this and maybe render font differently though.

The reason the "glass" window does not have this is because the ribbon UI renders its own non-client area.

The text glow will also not work on the windows with the new text rendering (I cant say about the ribbon windows, though)

I just noticed that the caption is rendered via pure GDI functions SetBkColor->SetTextColor->...->DrawText into intermediate texture. I think that returning glow effect won't be so complicated (DrawText hook etc.) but I'm not sure about the background. I guess that simple changing alpha channel of background will have no effect.

Apparently, Windows recently was refusing to start. I tried disabling this application from loading (apparently it was attempting to load itself into the wrong memory location) and everything was fine again. I saw an extra file more than normal, this time in addition to a debug log a dump log was left behind. Please fix this if possible. It may be rare, but if this is a bug then it can prevent Windows from starting. I suspect DWM.exe injected something nasty into Windows's memory, causing Explorer to fail to load. Whole computer locked up. Anyhow, if I'm onto something here are some logs.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/66xwujx7nrddi7e/minidump.dmp

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o92mngig2r430ex/debug.log

It seems you have windowsFX installed which is incompatible with this version of Aero Glass, because it injects into DWM too.

Thanks. But that's strange since I believe I ran WindowFX before possibly alongside your Aero glass implementation with no issues. I could be wrong. Anyhow, looks like WindowFX will now be disabled. Worth getting Aero Glass back.

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NoelC

NoelC

Posted
Posted
I think that returning glow effect won't be so complicated (DrawText hook etc.)

I know you'd prefer to work toward a stable release for Windows 8 (.0) but just a quick question: Are you foreseeing any problem with restoring the drop shadow around windows? That, as supplied by an alternate resource file and injected via your tool, really helps make the Windows 8 desktop easier to use.

-Noel

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NoelC

NoelC

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Yes, I mean via the theme resource.

What's not obvious is whether 8.1 is compositing something outside the border of the window, and an updated theme resource will create the shadow as it does with Windows 8. I guess you're saying you've seen that the drop shadow resource is indeed being composited.

I don't do "theming" as most folks do. The only modifications I've made (and which are sufficient IMO) are those through the theme resource loading you provide with Aero Glass for Win8:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM]

"CustomThemeResource"="C:\\YourPath\\AlternateTheme.png"

-Noel

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