Aero Glass for Win8 RC4

[NoelC]

NoelC: Details are important at this phase. However, it was already written about inactive windows - either use better theme or play with ColorizationColorInactive and ColorizationColorBalanceInactive registry keys.

Thanks for the suggestion to work on the ColorizationColorInactive and ColorizationColorBalanceInactive keys. I'd forgotten about those, as they're not currently defined in my registry at all. I'll fool with those and see what I can accomplish.

One thing I'd like to note here: I am not willing to hack into Windows (i.e., break System Protection, take on the potential problems of updates, etc.) to achieve a custom theme. I don't imagine in the general case anyone would like to do that - they'd prefer Aero Glass for Win8 to grow up into a product that can returns style and usability to the desktop look and feel and allows them to keep Windows unmodified. I sense that's your goal as well, Big Muscle.

The use of a custom .png file, in concert with BigMuscle's CustomThemeResource registry value is as far as I'm willing to go. As I understand it, that means DWM will still think it's using the Windows 8 supplied theme to do its work.

I'll be the first to admit I don't even come close to fully understanding all the relationships between themes and what is being overridden and accomplished by Aero Glass for Win8 and I greatly appreciate the patience of those here who help educate.

FYI, I've fooled with the drop shadow definitions in the PNG file and have achieved a bit of a look and feel improvement of sorts... I now have managed to put a subtle light edge on windows, and that seems to help when using dark backgrounds. Next step, getting the inactive window titles to show up more clearly.

By the way, today I've seen a couple of cases where glitches have shown in the blurred areas with the Direct3D setting. Unfortunately I wasn't poised to screen grab them, but I will try to be ready next time I see them.

-Noel

[ORelio]

Hey bigmuscle, is there an easy way for you to left-align text on windows title bar? If so, I would be interested if you could add a setting for that. Thanks for your consideration.

[Blackbird256]

Hey bigmuscle, is there an easy way for you to left-align text on windows title bar? If so, I would be interested if you could add a setting for that. Thanks for your consideration.

I'm interested in this as well. Would be nice to have that as an option.

[mrdiego]

For me it is not working! Why? Have Windows 8 x64... UXStyle, and Aero 8 Glow as Theme. First I saved the Reg with the correct location and restart. Nothing! I tried AGTweaker v1.2.1 and it does not work, too for me! In the past Version 0.5 I remeber worked...

[drakenabarion]

NoelC: Details are important at this phase. However, it was already written about inactive windows - either use better theme or play with ColorizationColorInactive and ColorizationColorBalanceInactive registry keys.

Thanks for the suggestion to work on the ColorizationColorInactive and ColorizationColorBalanceInactive keys. I'd forgotten about those, as they're not currently defined in my registry at all. I'll fool with those and see what I can accomplish.

One thing I'd like to note here: I am not willing to hack into Windows (i.e., break System Protection, take on the potential problems of updates, etc.) to achieve a custom theme. I don't imagine in the general case anyone would like to do that - they'd prefer Aero Glass for Win8 to grow up into a product that can returns style and usability to the desktop look and feel and allows them to keep Windows unmodified. I sense that's your goal as well, Big Muscle.

The use of a custom .png file, in concert with BigMuscle's CustomThemeResource registry value is as far as I'm willing to go. As I understand it, that means DWM will still think it's using the Windows 8 supplied theme to do its work.

I'll be the first to admit I don't even come close to fully understanding all the relationships between themes and what is being overridden and accomplished by Aero Glass for Win8 and I greatly appreciate the patience of those here who help educate.

FYI, I've fooled with the drop shadow definitions in the PNG file and have achieved a bit of a look and feel improvement of sorts... I now have managed to put a subtle light edge on windows, and that seems to help when using dark backgrounds. Next step, getting the inactive window titles to show up more clearly.

By the way, today I've seen a couple of cases where glitches have shown in the blurred areas with the Direct3D setting. Unfortunately I wasn't poised to screen grab them, but I will try to be ready next time I see them.

-Noel

I have not yet edited the borders but that is quite nice.

Just out of curiousity, how are people editing these things? I am using the png supplied by BigMuscle as a template and editing in image editing sortware.

I put a deeper white dab where the text glow portion of the png is to increase the whiteness of the glow. As mentioned, the inactive window has a less intense version of that and I will see how the inactive colourisation settings affect it.

Also I have tried to change the style of the buttons. I have an ok looking (nothing special so no point of uploading) cloth texture, and a transparent button (uploaded since I cant screenshot the artefacts it develops).

The transparent button cause unusual artefacts about 2cm of screen space outside the window border however... Its as though the border area is extended invisibly but the artefacts happen at the edge of this invisible area.But I dont quite like what I've done and it is my first attempt, so perhaps its nothing important.

Hmmm, is there a part of the png files used for themes that is responsible for inactive bar text glow? I dont see a white dot that would correspond to that like it does for the active window. I can work out every other element however. (Or at least I think I can )

Anywayyyy...

I am glad there is the *.png theme method and I hope that people use this more rather than just using UXThemes - The UXTheme patching is too unreliable for me to want to use it on a regular basis. I am rather happy with the transparent Windows 8 theme but, I would hope for base optimisations of the default setting rather than needing things like WSB. Then once that is at a good standard, people could use UXThemes for whatever alternative changes they like. But perhaps it is too early to think about the finalised default settings

I have to play around with the colourise inactive, which is fine at this point. I have no issue doing this kind of thing (and sometimes even enjoy doing these things).

(Whew, more than I intended to say - I hope it kept everything coherent!)

Edit: I keep forgetting to mention. The taskbar colour is different on main ans secondary monitor. Both look nice, but, they are using different methods to gain transparent. I guess secondary monitor uses default Windows 8 methods.

Edited April 10, 2013 by drakenabarion

[mrdiego]

OK... I donwloaded Version 0.5 again and I started the .exe. Than I got a black screen with only mousepointer. Restart. That is what the .log shows:

[0x2EC] Installing DWM hook...

[0x2EC] DWM: 0xEC, error = 0

[0x2EC] Module: C:\DWM\DWMHook.dll

[0x2EC] RemoteDLLName: 0x9C090000

[0x2EC] WriteProcessMemory: 1, error 0

[0x2EC] LoadLibrary: 0xE9EA28AC

[0x2EC] CreateRemoteThread: 0xF8 error 0

Maybe this is the error.. I have Steam installed with Witcher 2.. It installed me a old dx-version, too. More ideas I do not have why it does not work for me?! Please help... I want it, toooooooo ;-)

[NoelC]

Just out of curiousity, how are people editing these things? I am using the png supplied by BigMuscle as a template and editing in image editing sortware.

Sounds like you're going down pretty much the same path I'm traveling, drakenabarion. I'm using Photoshop to make changes to the PNG file. Separating the transparency into a layer mask makes the whole thing a bit easier to work on. It's not really clear where the regions for each "effect" resource start and end though, so I've needed to do some experimentation, especially to find all the drop shadows. Fun stuff to play with.

I managed, through the registry parameters mentioned, to make the inactive window titles just a bit more visible, but I wasn't specifically able to make the glow stronger. It just lights up a slightly lighter title area now, which puts the title readability just within tolerable limits for me.

I'm amazed how much just these style changes plus Big Muscle's Aero Glass for Win8 prototype turn the feeling of using the desktop around. If Microsoft had released Win 8 with these capabilities out of the box I might have actually bought it.

Big Muscle, every time I've tried to capture blurred area glitches, which look a bit like information from the theme PNG file getting misplaced, the screen grab looks fine.

-Noel

P.S., Here's my updated PNG file:

[drakenabarion]

P.S., Here's my updated PNG file:

Thats a very good shadow! I hope you don't mind, but I applied the button colour changes and transparency I liked to that theme. Here is the result.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9os68uz6kmqj9rx/Capture9.PNG?m

It had a ruby coloured look on a darker background:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/14stgj143lp7phc/Capture.PNG

(I wont share the theme png without your permission since it is more yours than mine even after that edit)

[ORelio]

I managed, through the registry parameters mentioned, to make the inactive window titles just a bit more visible

You can easily set the inactive window coloration using the last version of the GUI (noticed on your screenshot that you are using the previous one)

[mrdiego]

Still not working... I deleted the added text in the "Registry", rebooted. Than tried Version 0.5... That is what I get. Why it isn t working to me?

[ORelio]

Try setting the device feature level to 9100/D9.1 using either the registry key or the GUI

[NoelC]

You can easily set the inactive window coloration using the last version of the GUI (noticed on your screenshot that you are using the previous one)

Thank you for that! I must have downloaded it from an older link upon reading an earlier post in the thread.

Works great! Really makes testing this software a breeze.

Drakenabarion, of course I don't mind that you used the theme file. I'm glad to hear someone could make use of my little tweak.

-Noel

EDIT: Sorry about misspelling your name!

Edited April 11, 2013 by NoelC

[drakenabarion]

Drakenebaron, of course I don't mind that you used the theme file. I'm glad to hear someone could make use of my little tweak.

-Noel

In that case:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h2pgimb7sv5uaio/AlternateTransp.png

[bigmuscle]

Hey bigmuscle, is there an easy way for you to left-align text on windows title bar? If so, I would be interested if you could add a setting for that. Thanks for your consideration.

I guess that the position can be found in vertex buffer and thus it can be easily changed. The main problem is that it will absolute screen position (and not window position) thus it can be more complicated to compute the correct position relative to the window (you don't know the window position/size when text is being rendered etc.). I am not sure whether the final absolute position is computed by DWM or by some other component (themeui for example).

[Tusticles]

P.S., Here's my updated PNG file:

Thats a very good shadow! I hope you don't mind, but I applied the button colour changes and transparency I liked to that theme. Here is the result.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9os68uz6kmqj9rx/Capture9.PNG?m

It had a ruby coloured look on a darker background:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/14stgj143lp7phc/Capture.PNG

(I wont share the theme png without your permission since it is more yours than mine even after that edit)

RP theme is the best with dwmglass.