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SlanXP 2.0 is a complete remake of my first visual style SlanXP. It's a very dark theme that works good for us with very bright LCD monitors.
There are 2 font option substyles. AvanteGarde and Tahoma.

UPDATE: (18/4 - 2007)
-Captionbar fixes. Resize problem fixed. This also makes the captionbuttons a lot more compact.
-Blank shellstyle included.
-Small update on the instructions.htm file for the foobar2000 config. (About the foobar2000.cfg file.)

Hot!

WOW! Looks very nice. thanks.

very nice dark theme

this looks promising!

great job.
any chance to have a minimalistic colored winflag version?

Good job. Although I don't like the hover image on the scroll bars and the taskbar.

kewl !!!111BBQ

too dark

great work mate!

Is the progress bar supposed to look like this ?

Really nice Theme

two suggestions though:
-You should use the CaptionButtons attached as your normal CaptionButtons and also as your SmallCaptionButtons.
This will solve the bug in Photoshop

-Use the same FrameBorders in the SmallCaption windows as you do for the normal windows. The borders are to light for the SmallCaption windows at the moment.

Thanks all.

@zachacham: A colored win flag was the original plan, but somehow it looked very odd. The contrast played tricks with my mind.

@thememories: Nope, that's a bug that I need to fix.

@srn: Thanks for the suggestions. Will be fixed in the next update.

I don't like that blue line/ring that you have around everything when you hover your mouse over things. It doesn't flow. To me.

Here's my version of the startbar.



Also, I noticed the bug in the small close/min/max buttons. I actually like the buttons more-without the square around them.

Great looking theme, very clean!

I don't usually use dark themes, but I am using this one. Great work.

First update complete.
-CaptionButton, frame and progressbar fixes.
-Calibri substyle.
-Startbutton fix on the Tahoma substyle.
-Other small fixes.

great theme, even better than the first.

I don't like how you made the start button image smaller

I also found a bug with the min/max/close buttons-in your updated version.

Nice!

Very nice. I like

@tehmemories: I'm aware of the high placed caption buttons. I just need to figure out where the margin values can be found, then it should be fixed in the next update.

Does anyone know where to change the top and bottom margins for the captionbuttons in Stylebuilder? I need to place them in the center of the captionbar.

I'd actually take the caption buttons off. It looks a lot smoother without them. But that's me personally.

Yup, captionbuttons removed.

The new update also includes a new wallpaper and the Foobar2000 config. The size of the startbutton is also increased.

it seems you have given up on this but if you want to solve this bug here is a little howto:

-increase the Bitmap size of the CaptionButton.bmp (the one which is solid "magic pink") from 18x144 to 20x160
-then change the ContentMargin of each CaptionButton to "1, 0, 2, 0"
-change also the ContentMargin of the SmallCaptionButton to "2, 2, 2, -2"

you could add the bug fixed version as a substyle

Nice, will give a try:D

Yeah it would be cool if a substyle could be added, I personally like the caption buttons alot and they made the theme feel more responsive.

If you end up putting the caption buttons back in. I would make them go more smooth with the titlebar. I thought they looked odd.

Oh well, they're back in the 3 standard substyles. XD
I'll focus on fixing bugs now (if there are any) instead of removing/adding things.
Thanks for the help srn.

I hope I'm not annoying but this is what you could consider aswell:

When windows are maximised the gradient ratio between light and dark is wrong.
try to change the SizingMargins there.

change the HighlightText to 255,255,255 because it's hard to read now.

set the ContentMargins in StartMenu->MenuBand->NewAppButton and StartMenu->Toolbar->Button to 3, -4, 0, 0 (it will look more compact)

I found a bug with the arrows on the left. They are cut off.

That's in the first substyle btw.

Also is the icon suppose to look higher? It doesn't look like it's in the middle of the bar.



And is My Network Places supposed to be cut off?

I really enjoy this theme! I like the fact that it is slim and compact.

a little request Can you add a Compact start menu?

I love this skin

@srn: Not exactly sure what you mean with the gradient ratio, but I'll see what I can do.

@tehmemories: Thanks for the bug reports, I'll see what I can do.

@CrisCr0ss: At the moment I get apply errors when I try to add compact menus. Probaly something I've missed. Hopefully I've figured out what it is in the next update.

Edit: Hmm. I've tried a lot of stuff with these bugs. My first priority now is this bug.
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/4406/bugsys3.jpg
I've tried changing the sizing and content margins in taskband > toolbar > button, but nothing helped. What else can I change to make this go away?

About the icon that isn't centered in the captionbar. I haven't found the margin values for it yet. >_<

What should I change to make the black arrows in the startmenu to move a bit to the left? I don't have this problem, but I guess some people have.

The network icon problem I have no solution to right now.

@srn: The maximized windows use a different image for the top bar, so he should just change the gradient in that image right?

the dark part is too narrow (maybe 1 or 2 pixels)



change the sizingmargins in taskband > toolbar > DROPDOWNbutton



I don't think it can be changed



set the ContentMargins in StartMenu->MenuBand->NewAppButton and StartMenu->Toolbar->Button to 3, -2, 0, 0



the window can be resized. there is no bug!




@Capric0rn:
Yes

Ok, I've fixed most of these things now. (I think.) Except for the upper left icon (SysButton), it's not possible. :<
Thanks for the help srn.

The new update also includes better instructions for the foobar2000 config.

Very nice theme. I was looking for a new dark one to use! Thanks

PS: Good sized fonts too, very easy to read on my laptop.

How come in a lot of vs' it's not cut off and you don't have to resize it?


@lassekongo83: Looks good so far

I love this! I'm using Vista on this machine, but this one's going on all my XP machines!

It's moving right along, too! Most skinners leave the users in the dark, bugs and all!


Clint

My favorite dark VS yet. Seriously.
Thanks.

I TRIED to followed your foobar instruction and I couldn't get it to work at all. I tried for like 45 minutes. Also I "zlib and libpng" never came with column ui.

I've updated the instructions with even more details and screenshots. See the instructions.htm file.

Anyone else think the font is a little too large?

Thank you for that. I got it going right away ^_^

Ok I found another bug. You know how you can stretch a window from all sides of the box? (top/bottom/left/right) Running this vs, you cannot stretch the window from the top. With other vs' you can.

Yeah I have also noticed this, the only place you can re-size the windows in this vs is in the upper right corner, nothing happens if you try to re-size it from the top.

I'm aware of this bug, don't know how to fix it though.