Flaunt Your Windows 8 Screenshots here

By bogas04
in The Fast Ring (Insider Previews)

 Share

Recommended Posts

Enthusiast

WinMunkee

Posted
Posted

Transparent Start Screen while I'm working on an app. :)

I'm not sure why people are trying to change this. This looks worse. There is nothing wrong with how the start screen functions now. Removing the background only makes it harder to see. Regardless of anything, changing it to see the desktop while you use it still makes it function in the same manner and does not change how it's used.

Veteran

Shane Nokes

Posted
Posted

By the looks of things, I can enlarge the Store tile?

Yup just right click on it...there should be an option to make it bigger.

Here's my desktop btw...Picture is one I shot with my Lumia 900...shrunk it down to 1280x800 to not make things too big in here:

8Desktop.jpg

Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

Here's my desktop btw...Picture is one I shot with my Lumia 900...shrunk it down to 1280x800 to not make things too big in here:

Heh. Very Windows 95. ;)

Here's mine: Panoramic shot of Mount Sharp on Mars taken by Mars Science Lab Curiosity, cropped to fit onto my screens.

post-420821-0-84521600-1345903309_thumb.

Grand Master

bandit_liberty_rumble

Posted
Posted

Here's mine: Panoramic shot of Mount Sharp on Mars taken by Mars Science Lab Curiosity, cropped to fit onto my screens.

Just wondering - is this a joke? Don't tell me even you of all people are still having trouble remembering these shortcuts? Or is this for the benefit of other forum members?

post-5569-0-93976000-1345912565.png

Contributor

CyclingGuyNOLA

Posted
Posted

I'm not sure why people are trying to change this. This looks worse. There is nothing wrong with how the start screen functions now. Removing the background only makes it harder to see. Regardless of anything, changing it to see the desktop while you use it still makes it function in the same manner and does not change how it's used.

The transparency was actually a glitch from an app I am working on. Personally, I like Windows 8 (except for the scrollbar colors), but as a Developer, I have to pay attention to everyones wants, not just my own. Just because your opinion is that you think it makes it looks worse doesn't mean that's everyones opinion.

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

Posted
  • Global Moderator
Posted

A semi-transparent start screen would work, what you'd need is a layer between the tiles and the desktop so that they're not lost in the desktop background and you know you're in something else. It could be something simple as just a darker layer between them or a blur effect or something. I think in the end it'd probably make the transition less jarring to some and it could even look good though I'd have to see it done first to know for sure.

Grand Master

Dot Matrix

Posted
Posted

Just wondering - is this a joke? Don't tell me even you of all people are still having trouble remembering these shortcuts? Or is this for the benefit of other forum members?

Nah. I've had that there day one. Just forgot to hide it like a I usually do.

  • bandit_liberty_rumble
  • Like 1
  • 2 weeks later...
Contributor

CyclingGuyNOLA

Posted
Posted

A semi-transparent start screen would work, what you'd need is a layer between the tiles and the desktop so that they're not lost in the desktop background and you know you're in something else. It could be something simple as just a darker layer between them or a blur effect or something. I think in the end it'd probably make the transition less jarring to some and it could even look good though I'd have to see it done first to know for sure.

So far this isn't possible. The only reason it went transparent for me was an error in the image format. Once the image format is corrected and you add transparency to it, the color you chose with the image will take over resulting in a transparent image with solid background behind it.

Grand Master

George P Global Moderator

Posted
  • Global Moderator
Posted

So far this isn't possible. The only reason it went transparent for me was an error in the image format. Once the image format is corrected and you add transparency to it, the color you chose with the image will take over resulting in a transparent image with solid background behind it.

No, I get that it was done in error, I'm saying as a future option added by MS it could work. I'm sure one of the things at the top of the list when it comes to the start screen is being able to add your own background images to it. As we've seen though, doing so can often make it hard to see the live tiles clearly since they also don't have any type of depth and or thick border around them. So in the end if MS listens and does add this option in some future update to the OS like it sounds we'll be getting, then they'll have to tweak something in the UI to make sure the tiles are still distinguishable in the end.

Contributor

CyclingGuyNOLA

Posted
Posted

No, I get that it was done in error, I'm saying as a future option added by MS it could work. I'm sure one of the things at the top of the list when it comes to the start screen is being able to add your own background images to it. As we've seen though, doing so can often make it hard to see the live tiles clearly since they also don't have any type of depth and or thick border around them. So in the end if MS listens and does add this option in some future update to the OS like it sounds we'll be getting, then they'll have to tweak something in the UI to make sure the tiles are still distinguishable in the end.

Ahhh, I got you. It'd be nice but as is with every version of Windows, Microsoft likes to have that one little thing they try to keep to themselves and in this case it happens to be customizing the Start Screen.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Browser vendors pen open letter to Microsoft saying "enough is enough"

      By Primey_ · Posted

      The nerve of Google to sign this.
    • Browser vendors pen open letter to Microsoft saying "enough is enough"

      By s0nic69 · Posted

      I don't understand the vision. Do people really want to buy a new computer from Dell with 6 browsers installed? We all keep asking for Microsoft to stop having so much junk on their OS, and adding a bunch of browsers seems to go against that. Ideally, we would just be asked what browser we want during OOBE but Google is just going to pay Dell a bunch of money to include Chrome. Additionally, would you want your phones to start including all the browsers too when you get them? The only thing I ever wanted was to be able to uninstall IE or edge and I believe you are now able to. I do agree that microsoft needs to chill with their "are you sure you don't want to try edge before you install chrome" ads when going to download chrome.
    • Browser vendors pen open letter to Microsoft saying "enough is enough"

      By The Norwegian Drone Pilot · Posted

      The funny thing here is that like 70% or so of the web browser users use 'Google Chrome' as web browser. What I don't understand is that why on earth would ANYONE choose 'Google Chrome' on Windows when 'Microsoft Edge' is not just better in most things, but it's already there right out of the box for the Windows users. Microsoft Edge has less data collection (yes, that's a fact), less RAM usage and is more optimized for Windows (as it's a Microsoft product) right out of the box. I'm sure you will come with the argument of bloat in Microsoft Edge. Sure, but most of that can be fixed with a simple tool (there are many good ones out there for this). Yes, that require a couple of clicks in the same way as it requires several clicks to install 'Google Chrome'. And I'm sure you really love the 4 GB of AI-slop data 'Google Chrome' is downloading for Chrome without you agreeing to it. Fun right? Sure, the way Microsoft is pushing 'Microsoft Edge' on users might not be the best way of doing it and might need to change. But I would never choose 'Google Chrome' over 'Microsoft Edge' today anyways. I'm sure there was a period back in the days when 'Google Chrome' actually was better in most things, but that period is not today.
    • JetBrains rolls out IntelliJ IDEA update with Markdown preview fixes and more

      By David Uzondu · Posted

      JetBrains rolls out IntelliJ IDEA update with Markdown preview fixes and more by David Uzondu Image via JetBrains IntelliJ 2026.1.3 from JetBrains has landed, bringing several highly requested bug fixes that target common UI glitches and terminal rendering issues. If you run tmux inside the integrated terminal, the IDE no longer renders the cursor above the active line. The Markdown preview bug, which was fixed in this release, had annoyed developers for quite some time, as the preview pane failed to render images saved outside the project directory. Instead of displaying the actual image, the IDE simply showed a broken image icon, a problem that stuck around for two years before this update. Over on Windows, developers running WSL can now use wsl.exe to spin up their environments without losing terminal functionality. In previous builds, launching a terminal shell with something like wsl.exe -d ubuntu inside a Windows-based project broke both shell integration and active process detection. Other bug fixes in this release include: An issue where Gradle sync incorrectly reported success as a failure on WSL when using Gradle 9.5.0. A syntax highlighting bug that flagged valid Java for-loop initialization blocks with multiple statements as incorrect. A warning bug that triggered a false non-null local variable alert when using JSpecify annotations. A database generation bug that hid the option to use a DELETE statement instead of a TRUNCATE checkbox. A Kotlin highlighting failure where an assertion error in the Gradle redundant library inspection broke error highlighting. A UI bug where the ComboBox popup lacked a maximum height restriction. A Snowflake syntax error where DataGrip failed to support the "create temp" command. A Svelte syntax parsing failure that incorrectly flagged quotes inside inline expressions. A VCS repository manager deadlock that triggered thread pool exhaustion. A memory leak where the LazyTree component kept all previous versions of a tree in memory. IntelliJ 2026.1.3 is the third bug fix release for the IntelliJ 2026.1 series. The first one landed back in April with a fix for the WSL Python interpreter freeze, another fix for guest participants using Emmet abbreviations, and corrected WildFly server deployment errors.
    • Browser vendors pen open letter to Microsoft saying "enough is enough"

      By haxasaur · Posted

      That stupid annoying Sign in with Google on all these sites now... get the fk outta here

  • Recent Achievements

    • Collaborator
      Asgardi earned a badge
      Collaborator
    • Conversation Starter
      mobandz earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • Apprentice
      fernan99 went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • One Month Later
      nothanks earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      B2Proxy earned a badge
      One Month Later

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      469
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      243
    3. 3
      Skyfrog
      79
    4. 4
      FloatingFatMan
      73
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      60
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!