[Shell Patcher] Tango Icons for Windows

By vertigosity
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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vertigosity

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Note: Due to other things going on in my life (work, cars, video games, hanging out with friends, etc), work on this project has essentially ceased.

The Tango Shell Patcher is a mostly self-explanatory graphical wizard designed to make integrating the Tango icon set into your system files as easy as installing any other piece of software. Likewise, it includes a reloader to re-Tangofy your system files if necessary, and an uninstaller to restore them to their original state. It is designed to work on all language versions and editions of Windows XP and Server 2003. 64-bit versions of Windows are NOT supported. If you are experiencing trouble with it, or just want to want to learn some useful tips and tricks, check the included CHM-based documentation.

It currently includes implementations of the Tango icon theme, the Tangerine icon theme developed by the Ubuntu art team, Gnome-Icon-Theme2 and NLD10's Industrial-Icon-Theme, and various pieces of artwork created by myself and culled from various sources to round it out in places.

As this is Neowin, your feedback, good or bad, will make this beast all the better. Many thanks to those who've volunteered opinions, chances are you either helped development along, or incremented by one my ego counter :) There are some icons that are not patched. I'm not going to throw together some random pixmap just to satisfy the look; I'd like to try to stay at least mostly metaphorically correct to the ideas of the original icon creators, the Gnome HIG, and so forth. Many things in Windows will not have counterparts in any Free/OSS environment, and I'm both lazy and busy, and so they will more than likely not be added to the patcher anytime soon.

Stable Release: 8.06 (2008/06/15)

  • Split the applications portion out into a separate patcher, since it'll work just fine on Vista, and even X64 (providing you haven't gone and found special 64-bit versions of things).
  • Replaced my crappy WiMP icon with the icon from Totem
  • Replace my crappy Winamp icon with xTom's
  • Add comctl32.dll locations for SP3
  • Finally work around the multiple-notepad.exe business using the code I put in place for that very kind of problem (comctl32.dll).
  • Optionally extract source code to the patcher directory; I'd like to be more transparent and open-source tbh, and if XPero has XIS publicly available, I say it's fair game ;) . I'd also like to be able to accept patches for third-party app support, as I pretty much let that languish, and there are people around who would be willing to help with that.
  • Added /bootsplash=(0|1) command-line parameter. 1 is on, 0 is off
  • Check for Vista. Don't run on it.

Future plans (Last updated 2008/04/23):

  • STTP:XP feels more or less finished to me. Sure, there's a lot more things that it could cover, but looking for them, matching/making resources, and then mentally declaring it not "HIG" enough feels too much like work these days. I've moved on to Vista both as a user and a tweaker/developer, so this is really in a maintenance phase now.
  • More minor theme updates, and I'd like to work my Tango-Vista sideways folders in. As always, I like to promise everybody (including myself) some new incredibly reliable/stable/functional/simple patcher architecture, and never get around to it. That's a known bug.

If you're using Windows Vista, you maybe be interested in STTP 6000.

FAQ:

  • When are you going to add the Ubuntu Human skin to the patcher?
    • Never? It's not Tango, it doesn't really have the all the sizes that need to be there, and the only thing that looks substantially different is the folder icon. Plus, I'm lazy, and that's the trump card of excuses.

    [*]I'm using 7.08 and all my start menu icons are orange program icons. WTF?!

    • ATM, I'm not changing this back, it's by design - the "orange program icons" are the Tango icon for categories/applications-other. It makes tons more sense if you have your program groups organized and categorized, like so:
      post-52710-1188884561.png
      I'm probably going to change this back, soon, since this is the noisiest damn thing I hear about, the only person who actually liked that was me, and I'm not even using XP anymore. Maybe I'll just use the Gnome icon all around...

    [*]What VS are you using in the orange-diamond-faq-screenshot?

    [*]When will X86-64 be supported?

    • I'm workin' on it!

Edited by vertigosity
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vertigosity

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Thank you!

Install worked flawlessly on my German Windows XP Home...

Sweet, that's the kind of thing I want to hear :yes:

Just need some icons for dll, ini, jpg, gif, png, and bmp

I've got 'em converted, I'll drop 'em in when I've got time, which I might tomorrow.

Neowinian

Magus667

Posted
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Hi, mi name is Felipe, i'm from CHILE, XD, well i'm using it right now!! I have a spanish version of windows xp sp2 and it works fine!

P.D the first time, i patched well, but some icons didn't change, so i changed the cuality color desktop from 32 bit to 16 bit, and then back to 32bit, and the icons get "refreshed" and everything is fine now

p.d2 sorry my english sucks i know! XD

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vertigosity

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Great, post when you've added them in so I can download the new version :D

Done, and up.

Hi, mi name is Felipe, i'm from CHILE, XD, well i'm using it right now!! I have a spanish version of windows xp sp2 and it works fine!

P.D the first time, i patched well, but some icons didn't change, so i changed the cuality color desktop from 32 bit to 16 bit, and then back to 32bit, and the icons get "refreshed" and everything is fine now

p.d2 sorry my english sucks i know! XD

Relax, your English is already better than a few native speakers on this forum ;)

It's possible that you might have encountered my suspicion that non-English Windows names it's start menu differently... can you post the path of your startup folder (omitting your username for paranoia, of course)?

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
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vertigosity

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Those of you that've been having trouble, sorry I haven't said anything yet - I hadn't really been checking the thread for responses a bunch, since it cooled off after the first week or so. Just as a first guess for why, you guys running any sort of antivirus/antispyware/script blocking programs? That might very well be the cause, although it could just as easily not be it!

Also, after a month of spending a bit of time watching Firefly, looking for a job, helping out a friend who was busy trying to tear herself apart, and waiting for a few point releases from the upstream people who actually make the icons, I've spent a little bit of time working on Tango again recently. I've got some netshell goodness together, but it doesn't really feel quite right... same icon sizes and such as the Gnome pack, but it doesn't feel as right here. I can't quite put my finger on it, any comments or suggestions?

  • 2 weeks later...
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vertigosity

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Update: Some more random-swath-of-destruction resource inclusion, notably included is the start button logo, Netshell (the lock DOES look a little out of place, but it stays until I find something better - I'm a little bit more satisfied with the old "wired-network" icon though), a 96x96 folder icon for thumbnail view, and a completely inappropriate icon choice for the explorer view-type button :laugh:. Hit up the first post in thread for linkage.

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Draaku

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I love the tango port! very cool. I have it running on my work and home pc. One question, if i already have the previous version installed, how would I go about installing your update? Do I just run the installer over the existing? Or do I need to remove then reinstall? thanks

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