Super Thin Taskbar Mod


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Well currently im trying to thin my taskbar down to a size of about 25 pixels but to no avail, it seems no matter what I do it either looks weird or dosent work properly :( if any of you theme masters could point me in the right direction I would be gratefull

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okay as a themer myself let me just say sit isnt easy to just rattle of how to do somethin glike this

1. most ppl dont remember unless they have the app open and in front of them 2

2. its very time consuming

3. Its very difficult to write easy and simple instructions especially with something like this

so just chill and layback when ppl get the time when their relaxing and chilling back later tonight they will probably explain how to do it.

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Can anyone point me to such a theme.... i'd love to try to figure out how it is done......

Peeeeeeeeeeez

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Taken from a post on hwg about the same thing

ok this is from a post that i read on neowin a long time ago about how this small taskbar is done. it's not the most detailed but maybe it will help some of you that have been working on skins for a while.

exactly how i made my XPort theme...

start with an MSStyle file that contains 3 different colours..

assign two of them to the coulour schemes.. and one to the shared resources that are common to both colours...

then i export the txt files from the original Luna.Msstyles.. and edit the code.

if you use the original file.. MS was kind enough to place comments all through the file to tell you exactlly what just about ever command in the file does.. most of those that aren't expained are either common XML or part of the custom XML used in WiMP...

to specifficly "shrink" the task bar.. you must reduce the size of the margins.. and bitmaps of the following items..

Taskbar Background (top, bottom, left, right)

Start button

systray

taskbar buttons

taskbar buttons (no edge)

none of the XML code that is required to be change can be changed from within Stylebuilder..

and once changed.. it will have to be hand edited there after (try and import my Xport style.. and you will either get errors, or as just happend to me.. it will kill stylebuilder [mfc error])

i cannot give our specific numbers, do to the fact that there is a font that is on the Task bar.. unless every one wants to use Lucida Grande...

Another Post...

thats a damn good question i once spent hours lookin and never found out

so i just used roberto's osx themes as a base for my themes and go from there! haha im a cheat

its a pain in the ass remaking my themes again but im gettin quicker! Haha LOL

my opinion would be to get one of the themes here -> http://www56.tok2.com/home/susumu/page3.htm and search in there for it, or build your theme ontop of it. (just make shure to get permission :yes: )

hope this helps :happy:

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okay as a themer myself let me just say sit isnt easy to just rattle of how to do somethin glike this

1. most ppl dont remember unless they have the app open and in front of them 2

2. its very time consuming

3. Its very difficult to write easy and simple instructions especially with something like this

so just chill and layback when ppl get the time when their relaxing and chilling back later tonight they will probably explain how to do it.

It's not that, I've seen posts with people proudly exclaiming they know how to do it, but they simply won't share it. Just like that, plain and blunt.

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not everything is open source, people prob. dont tell cause they want their themes different and not like the rest of the clones, so who knows.... :rolleyes:

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i'm gonna make a real whistler...very similar to watercolor but thinned taskbar and the whistler start button...

Don't you think I would have done this already had I known how to make a smaller taskbar? :)

It was actually planned for v5 ;) along with new shellstyles, anyways I need to find out how to do this, but outrigged is right, most of the people who know how to do this are pricks and just wont share.

Chris

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Thin taskbar!

thintaskbar.jpg

...but I have absolutely no idea how to do it. I've looked through the XML and I can't see any differences, I guess I'm not looking hard enough. But the values are definitely stored in [substylename].xml. I'm gonna keep looking around cause someone has had to figure it out originally.

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I been skimming through the XML and can't find anything 'out of the ordinary' :)

Even setting the content margind larger doesn't even set the taskbar thicker ... I'm very confused :?

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its not just 1 thing that will enable you to set the taskbar's height... as i have stated before, its the combination of everything in youre taskbar. ever heard the saying a chain is only as strong as its weakest link? well, in this case, the taskbar is only as thin as its tallest component. people that know how to do this CANT explain how theyve done it, because there are just so many things that must be done, and honestly, if you want to know that bad, figure it out for yourself, or pay somebody to figure it out for you. expecting somebody to tell you how to do this is like asking them to work hard.. why not work hard yourself? learn the ins and outs of the damn program, go through the entire freakin stylebuilder tree of youre theme, look at every option you can set, and play with it.

a note of advice: i recall the start button having a big effect on taskbar resizing(because the startbutton is always there, other components are added and removed as you open and close programs)... and you may need to mess with the truesizing/stretch/tile option... 1 or 2 of them wont allow you to get the bar the size you want it.

platinum mist had a thin taskbar for a while... it ended up getting on my nerves and i removed it.

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I figured it out by accident a long long time ago. This was during the time that J45on was the first to figure it out but wouldn't release it publicly. Lame that this has nto been made public yet. It has been so long that I have no idea what the values were to change. The way to get it to work the first tiem actually broke the taskbar so many times that it just was magic the instant it worked.

I first made sure my images taskbar were 20 pixels high to eliminate image problems. I then went through each of the xml files looking for values in the 10-40 range. I changed each one, one by one, to a smaller value and then applied to see if I could see the difference. I don't remember off hand and since then my pc has crashed and I lost my custom thin tasbar files. You cannot make the change in stylebuilder. If I remember correctly, the key for me was changing 2-3 different xml values and the string names were of no help because the string names sounded like they would be of no help. There should be one xml file much larger than the rest. I think this contained the only changes that mattered.

It was truly magic/luck when it worked for me because one value larger or smaller and the theme would not even load the taskbar. It works when some ratio between the values you enter works out correctly. I think the ratio was not even accurate adn was always 2 pixels short as well. Sorry I cannot be of more help.

Important things to note. It was a ratio, and I think the values were contained all within the largest xml file.

Ishmael

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Alright, since alot of people are mentioning they've done it before but don't know how, let's try and make it a point to find out how and publish the details, instead of letting 'em fade away into nothingness leaving us back at square one.

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