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StartIsBack.Next test toy


Tihiy

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NOTE: THIS IS A TEST TOY, NOT A PROGRAM INTENDED FOR DAILY USE NOR REALLY A DEMO OF STARTISBACK FUTURE VERSION

FOR TINKERERS / SKINNERS / WINDOWS 7 USERS

Let's raise the curtain...

So! Given the fact Microsoft did cut Start Menu out of Windows 8.1, it's kind of haunted spirit now.

What to do? Resurrect it again! Good that 8.1 leak gave me time to do it.

Now I'm giving you one toy - mostly useless for you, useful for me - full standalone start menu prototype.

toy.png

Download: http://tihiy.net/files/StartMenuToy.zip

What for:

- Test if Start menu reimplementation is good. I'm quite proud of what I've done in two months - 99% of the functionality reimplemented. I think. Far more faithful than Start8 - that's for sure.

- Test if custom skins work well. For skinning you can probably test it on Windows 8 too.

- Just to have a lot of startmenus on display.

Test notes:

- Works on Windows 7. Test in on Windows 7. Windows 8 / 8.1 - not really.

- Userpic is not displayed.

- Start menu is always on top and does not close as you expect. That may seem buggy but you have to think outside of the box. Exit it with Alt-F4 or right-click - EXIT.

- Certain settings (like drag&drop, hover, context menu) are hardcoded.

This thread is for:

- Useful bug reports, explaining chain of your actions and your setup.

- Useful screenshots.

- NOT for Windows 8.1 discussion.

- NOT for any kind of support.

Admin: If this thread does not belong to this forum, please move it.

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Nice to see your working on alternatives mate, just had a quick test on Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and I like it so far, did notice a couple of things though, the windows update image on the shutdown button sometimes showed a second image under it and in the programs list there was an extra large gap at the bottom that forced the start menu to be larger, other then that it looked identical to the native start menu.

It's a great start anyway mate, look forward to seeing how you go with this road :)

317axht.jpg

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Updated: - removed extra slot - fixed shutdown icon

Thank you. What about skins? :angel

Thanks the space looks much better now, cant test the windows update though at the moment as I have no pending updates.

Custom skins work OK but some things need to be worked on a bit, if the custom theme has the same default panel size then it would be perfect but that can be changed in the msstyles and at the moment that's being read from your hard coded values.

14mql90.jpg

You can also see in the pic the user picture frame is disabled in the msstyles on the one the right but yours still shows it there.

All default Panel sizes need to be read from the msstyles if possible, at the moment it looks like sizing margins, sizing type and content margins are being respected, so that's a good start, also with some of my custom themes I set the searchbox (Open Box) default panel size to 0 and adjust the content margins to 1, -1000, -1000, -1000, what this does is removes the search box but at the same time removes all the blur from the start menu and is the only reason why I do this, that way I can have more interesting start menus and also add shadow to them.

Not sure if you are able to do this but if you could somehow have an option to have the blur and colorization removed that would be an amazing feature for us skinners.

Here is an example of one of my start menus without blur and the search box and next to it is how it looks with yours, still a good start though.

67nt5k.jpg

This is something that SIB currently can do perfectly when the transparency setting is turned off or when using Aero Glass for Windows 8 by Big Muscle.

At the end of the day though I would love to keep the search box there and have a better way to remove the blur then this nasty hack in the msstyles lol

Obviously you plan on having a open and close using a custom start button and other customizing options the same as SIB in the future versions?

Not sure what else to test or tell you at the moment, I could probably point out a few more things, I did test it on windows 8 and worked OK aside from the programs list not being populated, have not tested on 8.1 yet though as I don't have it installed and probably best to wait for the official public preview.

Here are a couple of custom themes on Windows 8 pro x64.

6gg13p.jpg34srsid.jpg

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Thank you very much for testing. I wonder where 'All programs' disappeared from the first screenshot. Also search box has different icon.

I could remove limitations on not having non-rectangular panes but not sure about the shadow.

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Thank you very much for testing. I wonder where 'All programs' disappeared from the first screenshot. Also search box has different icon.

I could remove limitations on not having non-rectangular panes but not sure about the shadow.

The all programs might have something to do with me using script size 1 font, it pretty much removes the normal text there and allows me to use an image there instead, I will test it a bit more and see if I can get it to show again.

The search icon is taken from the theme folder, I have a folder called explorerframe.dll inside the themes folder and that contains the png image that is normally a bitmap image taken from the explorerframe.dll in the system32 folder, I use a program call Theme Resource Changer that loads images into memory from the themes folder that would normally be loaded from the shell32.dll, exlorer.exe and exploreframe.dll, anyway I will have a play and report back with anything interesting.

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Remove your walls of text, ace2. Better test which start menu policies do not work in toy which work in native menu.

Updated toy

- Removed pane size restrictions

- Built-in basic style for high contrast theme (test)

- Userpic context menu (Windows 8)

- Legacy userpic is loaded if PC is domain joined

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Updated toy

- Removed pane size restrictions

- Built-in basic style for high contrast theme (test)

- Userpic context menu (Windows 8)

- Legacy userpic is loaded if PC is domain joined

OK well I tested HC but it didn't work for me.

Default Pane size was an interesting one, this has worked to some extent, only problem I found is that on some of my themes the default pane size was not set on what seems to be a duplicate places list, this default pane size is normally ignored when I add properties to the first places list, not sure if you can do anything about that or not but it's not a big deal, I can either set that value or delete it and it will then read the correct value.

2lld1ly.jpg

UserPicture:Bool and it's default pane size is still not being read from the msstyles, that is the setting to enable or disable the user picture frame.

2nu4yrl.jpg

All Programs button image is using the wrong image, it's using the Programs List Item image instead of the More Programs Tab

2njx254.jpg

Default Pane sizes for Open Box and LogOff should both be adjustable without effecting each other, at the moment if I change a value to either one it effects the other.

2uyob6e.jpg

I really like it so far though, the extend animation looks smoother then then the native one and some of the sizing margins that were not being respected properly in the native start menu are being read correctly in yours, so this is great work, better then the shoddy work that MS were doing, give yourself a huge pat on the back my friend :)

Edited by MrGRiM
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Tihiy can you make it so StartIsBack.Next test toy closes on its own please.

This thread is for:

- Useful bug reports, explaining chain of your actions and your setup.

- Useful screenshots.

- NOT for Windows 8.1 discussion.

- NOT for any kind of support.

I'm sure that will be something to add in a future version but not something important to work on right now, this is strictly for testing only, only core features and skinning need to be tested, the final version will have to read a custom msstyles containing the start menu images as 8.1 msstyle images and properties have been completely removed.

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Default Pane sizes for Open Box and LogOff should both be adjustable without effecting each other, at the moment if I change a value to either one it effects the other.
Is it just height or width too? How does/should search view look with different heights?
UserPicture:Bool and it's default pane size is still not being read from the msstyles, that is the setting to enable or disable the user picture frame.
That's strange because it should.
this default pane size is normally ignored when I add properties to the first places list, not sure if you can do anything about that or not but it's not a big deal, I can either set that value or delete it and it will then read the correct value.
Currently it reads only bottom one.
extend animation looks smoother then then the native one
Yes, animations are bit different but they're smoother than native ones. Blending is done in separate thread to improve responsiveness. Edited by Tihiy
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Default Pane sizes for Open Box and LogOff should both be adjustable without effecting each other, at the moment if I change a value to either one it effects the other.
Is it just height or width too? How does/should search view look with different heights?

The Height is what matters there, it looks fine but when you adjust the Search Box pane it should not effect the LogOff Pane, the width on the other hand is ignored on the Open Box, this is the same on the native start menu as well, it will only go by the width set by the Programs List.

UserPicture:Bool and it's default pane size is still not being read from the msstyles, that is the setting to enable or disable the user picture frame.
That's strange because it should.

OK I tested this a bit more and the default Pane Size does work but unchecking the UserPicture:Bool does not remove it, One strange bug I did notice is the places list is not reading the content margin for the top only, left, right and bottom content margins work fine though.

this default pane size is normally ignored when I add properties to the first places list, not sure if you can do anything about that or not but it's not a big deal, I can either set that value or delete it and it will then read the correct value.
Currently it reads only bottom one.

OK well it does read it but only if I remove the property from the bottom one.

extend animation looks smoother then then the native one
Yes, animations are bit different but they're smoother than native ones. Blending is done in separate thread to improve responsiveness.

Well it is a very noticeable difference, I am really loving how well some of this skins compared to the native start menu, I would love to use this on Windows 7 as well lol

A few other things I noticed was the sleep missing in the LogOff options, the spacing between the Icon and the text on the programs list is out by 2px and the Places List Item Hover content margins are out by 2px on all sides making the button look smaller and making each item 4px closer to each other on the list resulting in it looking squashed up..

Edited by MrGRiM
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