active desktop annoyance

[mludwig]

Hi all,

First of all I would like to say that I am glad I have found this great forum.

During my skinning and desktop cleaning rampage, I have decided to add some active content to my desktop (breaking news, weather and other cool stuff). However I wasn't able to find such an add-on on the internet. I want it to be HTML with JavaScript, Flash and so on, so I could customize it easily.

I thought I will create one for myself. However, whenever I add a web page to my desktop which doesn't have a solid background, the icons and the label below get a solid background which is really annoying.

I have Windows XP SP2 with the following settings:

Use drop shadows... is ticked

the background is a JPEG image (I tried with BMP too with no result)

the web page is added under the Web tab

Is it possible to use background, active desktop and transparent icons at the same time?

[mludwig]

Sorry, have to give it a bump.

So far I haven't been able to set active desktop and transparent icon labels.

[ceez]

I googled "transparent icon labels" and this was the 1st result....

Transparent Icon Labels

Posted Jan. 27

By Ciam Sawyer, Expert Zone Web site producer

Take a look at your desktop. Do the labels on your icons have a colored box around them, or are they "transparent?" I've been asked this particular question by more customers than I can count. Fortunately, it's an easy issue to fix, just not very intuitive. There are two settings to check.

First, make sure Web Items on the desktop are unlocked.

Right-click on the desktop, point to Arrange Icons By, then make sure Lock Web Items on Desktop is unchecked.

That alone might solve the problem. If it doesn't, there is one other setting to change.

On the Desktop, right-click on My Computer, then click Properties.

In the System Properties dialog, click the Advanced tab.

Under Performance, click Settings.

On the Visual Effects tab, make sure Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop is selected.

Click Ok, then click Ok again.

Now your icon labels will show a small drop shadow and no colored box.

[mludwig]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. However, I have already tried that and didn't work. I spent 2 hours googling, but none of the advices I found worked.

As I said:

the 'Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop' is selected

Web items are not locked (tried locking too)

JPEG background is shown.

If I disable all the web items, the icons gain their transparency back.

[Takeshi]

I have decided to add some active content to my desktop (breaking news, weather and other cool stuff). However I wasn't able to find such an add-on on the internet.

There are tools to do this, e.g. Samurize.

This is the reg key to check:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\

CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

ListviewShadow

REG_DWORD = 0x00000001 (1)

I don't think there's any other solution.

Edited June 9, 2005 by Takeshi

[mludwig]

Tried that too, didn't work.

I guess Microsoft doesn't really think that someone who wants to use active desktop, would actually like to set a wallpaper too.

The solid background for the labels below the icons wouldn't be an issue, but the outline of the icons are also solid and it's ugly.

Well, thanks for the feedback.