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Problem in taskbar "pop-up" after switching AeroGlass for Win8.1+ versions?


DADi590

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Hi everyone.

So I've messed with versions 1.5.10 and 1.5.13 (switched between them, from 10 to 13 and then again from 13 to 10) and I believe it was that that broke something on the taskbar, but I can't be sure because I can't replicate the issue... The problem is here (taken from main system):

image.png.6b28de4db1b2eff78f070a562b7a1fe3.png

And it should be something like this (taken from virtual machine where I tried to replicate the issue and I couldn't):

image.png.dfa160bc60f4c93a7900421545a23545.png

The difference is the border. And I love the border, because without it, I can't distinguish the little window very well if the thing behind is blue. The shadow also went away (the shadow border), which makes it worse. And I've no idea what I did to it...

I also have a custom theme applied to help with the Windows 7 look. And both the theme and AeroGlass for Win8.1+ provide the border (tested on the virtual machine), but none of them puts it back now and I can't understand why. Does this program modify any system files or something, so I can restore them? I'd love to have the border back... It's on Network, Clock and Sound "pop-ups" though. Just not here for some reason.

Hopefully anyone here finds enough information here to understand this and tell me a possible solution? I can provide any information necessary, just ask. I won't format this thing again after 2 days configuring it... (just installed Windows 10 permanently - in case it may help, LTSC 2019 Enterprise which runs on build 1809, version 17763.1432).

Thanks in advance for any help!

Edited by DADi590
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Have you checked Aero Glass settings by inspecting registry settings described here or using Aero Glass GUI downloadable from here? My guess would be that you have set custom atlas image without borders, overriding the one from custom theme.

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2 hours ago, UCyborg said:

Have you checked Aero Glass settings by inspecting registry settings described here or using Aero Glass GUI downloadable from here? My guess would be that you have set custom atlas image without borders, overriding the one from custom theme.

First of all, thank you for the reply.

The thing is that the borders work in ALL the other places. Just not there. Not even the shadow to differenciate it from other windows. Like in these examples of working things - which are all but on that "pop-up" window (interesting enough, there's some weird bug that puts the title words blank and without glow effect on some programs like Paint and Wordpad while all the others have them black as I've configured, for some reason):

image.png.3d0dea2dde705cce27d32d0c544b0db1.pngimage.png.d2b6ca338650c67ce89dd1fd0e12ff93.pngimage.png.90e39e9351b396ce48ad00a3167d3f74.png

The borders work everywhere. Just not on the arrow "pop-up". And I have exactly no idea why it doesn't work ONLY there. So that's why I was asking if AeroGlass changes any system files or something more specific that could break only this "pop-up", not all the others.

Also, about the registry, I just checked and there seems to be nothing here that could have to do with the border.

EDIT: About the GUI, I have that version already. And another thing, I don't think it has to do with some bug AeroGlass trying to change the border on the "pop-up", but with some bug on AeroGlass when I switched versions - or something other than that that doesn't come to my mind. Because the custom theme I have applied to help with Windows 7 appearance is ALSO supposed to activate the border on the "pop-up" - I tried on the virtual machine: both AeroGlass and the custom theme activate the borders. So AeroGlass might have changed something somewhere and now the borders can't be enabled for some reason, no matter what tries to enable them.

Edited by DADi590
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I don't know how that could happen as the borders should be the same for normal windows and the taskbar window containing hidden icons. Aero Glass is pure in-memory modification, it never modifies system files.

20 hours ago, DADi590 said:

interesting enough, there's some weird bug that puts the title words blank and without glow effect on some programs like Paint and Wordpad while all the others have them black as I've configured, for some reason

If you want to draw those buttons on the title bar programmatically, you also have have to draw the text yourself. Native API for this purpose reads certain rendering parameters from used .msstyles file, unless overridden and if the theme author didn't set glowing parameters, there'll be no glow. It's a separate method than the one that DWM uses by default. On top of that, the system may decide to change color for one of the states of the window - active/inactive - to something else, depending on current used accent color.

You can set Aero Glass' TextGlowMode to 3 to make DWM use the same method that applications like Paint and WordPad use, but you can't set both required parameters for glow to work without modifying the .msstyles file. Glow drawn with that method is different, it's not taken from theme's atlas image.

I forgot all details as it's been a while since I messed with themes.

Edited by UCyborg
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On 9/1/2020 at 7:58 PM, UCyborg said:

I don't know how that could happen as the borders should be the same for normal windows and the taskbar window containing hidden icons. Aero Glass is pure in-memory modification, it never modifies system files.

It's a pity then... I won't format it hopefully until 2029 when the support for LTSC 2019 is dropped (XD), so I guess I'll have to stay with this here forever... If it was just the border, but not even a shadow is there. So Windows may have that broken now on that pop-up --> ONLY on that one.... wtf?!?!?! This is weird. Ah crap...

I could also have restored the system from some restore point, but somehow I managed to disable them until I had everything ready on the computer, so no restore points where I needed them XD.

On 9/1/2020 at 7:58 PM, UCyborg said:

If you want to draw those buttons on the title bar programmatically, you also have have to draw the text yourself. Native API for this purpose reads certain rendering parameters from used .msstyles file, unless overridden and if the theme author didn't set glowing parameters, there'll be no glow. It's a separate method than the one that DWM uses by default. On top of that, the system may decide to change color for one of the states of the window - active/inactive - to something else, depending on current used accent color.

Ah no, what I wanted was to put the glow effect and black color on Paint and Wordpad, just that. The buttons don't matter here. The main thing with the picture was to show that it's not black nor with the glow effect as the other windows are.

On 9/1/2020 at 7:58 PM, UCyborg said:

You can set Aero Glass' TextGlowMode to 3 to make DWM use the same method that applications like Paint and WordPad use, but you can't set both required parameters for glow to work without modifying the .msstyles file. Glow drawn with that method is different, it's not taken from theme's atlas image.

I forgot all details as it's been a while since I messed with themes.

Just tried that but it didn't work. Didn't notice at all any change. Nor by changing to 1. To 0 must be to disable it, I guess. To 4 and maybe 5 it increases the glow effect on the normal windows. Paint and Wordpad didn't change at all.

But there's no problem with that really. I don't mind. I only mind not having anything decent to distinguish the taskbar pop-up from other windows behind it... But unless someone knows why the bug is happening, I guess I'll have to stick with it.... Thanks for trying though.

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22 hours ago, DADi590 said:

Ah no, what I wanted was to put the glow effect and black color on Paint and Wordpad, just that. The buttons don't matter here.

I know, I tried to say that the applications that put buttons on the title bar have to rely on special function to also render title text, and that function works differently compared to internal one that DWM uses by default render title text.

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2 hours ago, UCyborg said:

I know, I tried to say that the applications that put buttons on the title bar have to rely on special function to also render title text, and that function works differently compared to internal one that DWM uses by default render title text.

Oh right. Sorry then. I mistunderstood. But seems to be too hard to just get letters black and white glowing for something that I can see perfectly anyways. It would just be aesthetic in this case. In the pop-up thing it's not just aesthetic which kinda annoys sometimes me but what to do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hahaha. In that one I could have more work with it though, even if I had to try coding something in C or C++ with some API for the first time - would learn too, which would be cool.

Maybe someone finds this and knows who to fix it some day. As I said I'm supposed to not do anything big on the system for "some" years (unless I REALLY need a newer Store app with newer Windows version requirements), so I can wait XD.

Edited by DADi590
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  • 5 months later...

So after some months and a problem changing icons after a new update which signed all files (and I only found out later after modifying the files and rebooting...), I had to reinstall the system and came across the solution for the problem. Nothing to do with AeroGlass.

An option on Winaero Tweaker lets us "Increase Taskbar Transparency Level" (done through Regedit and it's a Windows feature). With that enabled, the shadow on that rectangle goes away, and AeroGlass won't put a contour there. So it must be disabled. And I need to mess with the transparency through the SetWindowCompositionAttribute program provided in the website.

Needed to have a big problem to find out about this xD. Just a pity I can't have the battery saver option On inside AeroGlass GUI to disable transparency, or when I plug the computer back in, I'd have to use the program again, since it doesn't keep the transparency after that, and I only start it on user account startup.

Thanks in any way!

EDIT: Just a pity SetWindowCompositionAttribute can't make the changes remain after reloading Explorer or something. Like, when I click Ctrl+Alt+Delete, the taskbar transparency is removed. And I'd have to restart the script to put it back. Or when Explorer restarts. Not that good on that part. But no problem. I don't mind too much not having transparency on the taskbar. At least it has the perfect blue color. Cool enough.

Edited by DADi590
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