Plastik for Windows

[toadeater]

Yeah, thanks. Whatever bugs you can fix will help. See above about the text color which IMHO is too bright for the background, and the vertical taskbar startbutton bug. Set the taskbar to vertical and open up some programs, the startbutton overlaps the tabs. I fixed this in my own copy by hacking the theme with Resbuilder, hope you consider fixing it in the "official" version.

[COrwin]

A flag version would be nice. ;)

[Thresher]

Will the minor changes to Plastik incorporated in KDE 3.3 be made to this VS? Thanks!

A couple of people have posted about this. I'm not sure if this was ever done, or how many people want this done, but if it needs doing, could someone post a link or a screenshot or something? I don't have KDE, so I'm not sure what might need changed. Thanks.

Please, could you make this font white in all color variation in "the open file dialog". I think it's clearer.

I think I've fixed this:

There seems to be extra white space at the beginning and end of the task bar items.

I've gotten rid of some of the extra space. I'm not sure how much people want, so tell me how this looks:

Other bugs that I know of:

Firefox dropdown box: contra said earlier that he had a fix, so i might try to contact him about that. Otherwise I think I know how to fix it.

Text color in taskbar: I think I know how to fix this, i just haven't yet. Seems like I tried before the release and something went screwy... guess i'll find out.

Someone said they wanted the lighter gray menus in all of the styles. I might play around with this a bit What does everyone else think?

Vertical taskbar bug: I figured out what this is. I'll try my best, but no guarantees I'll figure out how to fix it.

And a flag version... I agree it's needed. The pre-releases had a flag, but some people hated it so it was changed. I'll almost definitely need contra or someone else to do this--I'm not real great with graphics.

Any other bugs I missed? I think thats all I remember. Tell me if there's something else I need to work on.

[COrwin]

Thanks Thresher.

There is a bug in Winrar:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?show...#entry584656700

[toadeater]

A couple of people have posted about this. I'm not sure if this was ever done, or how many people want this done, but if it needs doing, could someone post a link or a screenshot or something? I don't have KDE, so I'm not sure what might need changed. Thanks.

I'm not sure what these changes are, but there are screenshots of KDE themes here:

http://www.kde-look.org/

Here is a recent shot of Plastik, I don't know what revision this is, but it looks like the buttons and scrollbars have a more rounded look to them, and the three lines on the scrollbar are dots instead.

[Thresher]

Hey, thanks for the info. After I saw those I went to kde-look.org and checked out some screenshots. LOTS of ideas for improvement... at least I think so.

Anyone have an opinion about the taskbar/taskbar buttons in the first screenshot vs. the current ones?

(i.e. taskbar is a bit cleaner on the top/bottom edges, and the taskbar buttons are closer to the top/bottom, and touching each other)

I think I prefer this for the most part, although I'm not sure if I like the buttons actually touching or not.

I also sort of liked the light-tan-ish tint to the toolbars and taskbar buttons in the first screenshot, so go ahead and tell me if you agree.

If not I'll almost definitely take the lighter gray toolbar color from the 2nd screenshot, which I think looks much better than the current gray used.

Overall I think I'm going to move towards looking more like Plastik in KDE because I think it mostly looks better.

If there's enough variation in everyone's preference, I might decide to split it somehow into a couple of different themes if I don't think things will get too crazy (something like this probably should have been done over the WinFlag dispute before ver. 1...). I'll try to do whatever I can to make this theme appeal to the largest number of people while keeping true to its roots, so please post your opinions about this theme, and what it needs.

Oh, and I fixed another bug... sorta... The Firefox dropdown boxes now look like what was previously posted they would look like.

[COrwin]

I like the current scrollbars with lines. (Better than dots)

I prefer taskbar with space between buttons. It?s clearer.

And one more thing, I use a multiline taskbar:

Is it possible to reduce the space between the 2 lines?

[toadeater]

Anyone have an opinion about the taskbar/taskbar buttons in the first screenshot vs. the current ones?

(i.e. taskbar is a bit cleaner on the top/bottom edges, and the taskbar buttons are closer to the top/bottom, and touching each other)

I think I prefer this for the most part, although I'm not sure if I like the buttons actually touching or not.

I like them touching, or at least very close together. I wouldn't mind if they stayed the way they are in the theme right now.

I also sort of liked the light-tan-ish tint to the toolbars and taskbar buttons in the first screenshot, so go ahead and tell me if you agree.

If not I'll almost definitely take the lighter gray toolbar color from the 2nd screenshot, which I think looks much better than the current gray used.

I like the tan better.

[Thresher]

Thanks for your feedback. I'm in the middle of finals now, so I have been trying to keep myself from working

on this very much. Its so tempting...

Sometime, next week at the latest, I should have a revised version that will contain all of the bug-fixes I have

done. I'll have Contra upload this to and update the PlastikXP page on deviantart to make it available for download.

I'm also working on various changes to the theme, as mentioned previously. I will post some screenshots to

get feedback on my progress as soon as I can. When the new bug-fixed version is uploaded to DeviantArt I

will hopefully have one or more beta versions available for testing from my website for those who are interested

in its development direction.

[Journeyman]

just as soon as I work out how to use it, i will try it.

the preview looks really good.

[Suicide]

omg ... waiting for some new builds to start testing...

do you post them on somewhere?

[Suicide]

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/8066296/

is it the last version to get?

i want to start testing also

[Thresher]

That is the last publicly available version.

I haven't posted the most recent version for testing, hopefully I will do that in the next couple days.

I'll post here as soon as a new version is available.

Thanks for the interest! :)

[COrwin]

I am very impatient!!! ;)

[Suicide]

yeah give us a betah

and some ...h-ponicks :D :blink: :D :blink: :D :blink:

[Thresher]

So... you guys wanted a beta... you can't get much more beta than this :)

This is preferred, as it is much smaller (go to 7-zip.org for a great compression program):

PlastikXP.7z (401Kb)

If you must have a .zip file...:

PlastikXP.zip(815Kb)

Here is a list of all the changes (I think):

* Open file dialogue color fixed

* Firefox dropdown button themed

* Left padding in taskbar buttons decreased

* Darker taskbar font color <plastik, purple, slate, luna>

* Remove vertical taskbar spacing--look better on multi-line taskbar <plastik, purple, slate>

* Modified taskbar <plastik, purple, slate>

* Slightly more modified taskbar and buttons <slate>

The first 4 are bugfixes that should be included in the next official release. The others deal with various changes I've been playing around with on the taskbar. The three different taskbar versions in this theme should be [plastik, and purple], slate, and the others which have the original. If you really wan't to help out, try all of these and tell me which taskbar looks best, or any specific changes I should make to make the taskbar (or anything else) look better. Also, I'm probably not going to be able to make a winflag version unless I hijack a flag from somewhere. COrwin, is that your flag, or where is it from? I thought it looked fairly cool--most definitely better than the KDE logo, but I don't know if it's available for use or what anyone else thinks about it.

EDIT:

I think I've decided the slate taskbar style pretty much sucks so... unless someone really likes it... that one's gone.

Edited December 9, 2004 by Thresher

[COrwin]

Thank you very much!!

Testing right now.

First impression:

* the new taskbar for plastik is great

* firebox bug fixed cool!!!

* But I use the theme with tahoma font and it's not working :/

* Winrar bug still here

Yes it's my flag, I am playing a little bit with photoshop on this screenshot.

[Suicide]

ok. testing slate now :D

[Josrh]

is the link down?

[Suicide]

mirror

http://breakz.ru/temp/PlastikXP.zip

[Suicide]

bugs:

http://breakz.ru/temp/p/01.jpg

http://breakz.ru/temp/p/02.jpg

http://breakz.ru/temp/p/03.jpg

[Guest mgorbach]

new winamp skin is release on neowin ...

heres the deviantart link

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/6204311/

[Thresher]

* But I use the theme with tahoma font and it's not working :/

585076737[/snapback]

ya... somehow I managed to screw up the alternate fonts. I have no idea how, but its on my "to-do" list.

and Suicide, about the fonts being cut off... I really have no idea what's going on there. Its been a problem since before v1. I think the alternate fonts can be used to prevent this problem... but i broke them. This is another bug that I will try to fix but don't know if I can.

And thanks all for the support in testing this! My work on this theme went on a tangent yesterday after posting, but I'm reverting those changes--at least for now--and resuming the main work. Assuming everyone likes the changes, I'll hopefully have the bug-fixes/changes i've done so far applied to all the color schemes. Maybe even a release in the next few days if I can get the fonts working again.

[toadeater]

ya... somehow I managed to screw up the alternate fonts. I have no idea how, but its on my "to-do" list.

and Suicide, about the fonts being cut off... I really have no idea what's going on there. Its been a problem since before v1. I think the alternate fonts can be used to prevent this problem... but i broke them. This is another bug that I will try to fix but don't know if I can.

And thanks all for the support in testing this! My work on this theme went on a tangent yesterday after posting, but I'm reverting those changes--at least for now--and resuming the main work. Assuming everyone likes the changes, I'll hopefully have the bug-fixes/changes i've done so far applied to all the color schemes. Maybe even a release in the next few days if I can get the fonts working again.

585079473[/snapback]

Wide fonts are a known problem with visual styles, no one has fixed it yet AFAIK. Use a standard font as default.

About the taskbar changes... I think you should just make the quicklaunch folder text black for all the styles, it will save you some trouble and will match the rest of the text.

Btw, I couldn't wait and made a startbutton:

If you don't want to use it, at least this is what I was thinking would be good, greyscale when deselected and color when selected. The bitmaps are attached to this message, I used the original as a base so you don't have to adjust the size.

Plastik_Startbutton.zip

[Thresher]

I just uploaded an updated version. Download the preview from the same locations I posted previously.

New changes:

* Updated the taskbar/taskbar buttons in all color schemes

* Darkened the taskbar text in all color schemes (although I am thinking about just making it black, like toadeater suggested)

* NEW START BUTTON!!! Courtesy of COrwin. Thanks a bunch, and nice job :).

Toadeater, thanks for the effort, although I think that COrwin's flag seems to fit the theme a little better. I'll let everyone decide which they like better. For those who don't dl the beta, here is what this one looks like:

And I was thinking about the green/teal styles... I personally don't use either, but even if I did they are so similar it seems silly to have them both. What does everyone else think?