Recommended Posts

in Vista, the balloon popups look like the ones from XP.

WGA_balloon.jpg

However, at some point in the longhorn beta's, they actually looked like this:

post-550-1169566961.jpg

I wanted to recreate that effect for vista, and made a small application to do so: GlassToastst.

First Version

toasts.jpg

What's working?

+ intercept notification balloons and replace them with a glass toast (longhorn 4xxx style)

+ notifications give the same response as real balloons (eg. "click here balloons" initiates the same acation with glass toasts)

+ made stuff a bit prettier.

What's stupid?

+ all offset values are hardcoded. All others are derived from bitmap sizes.

+ stupid DWM blurring: mask.bmp is used for masking out the blur on parts that should be 100% transparent; white = invisible; black=visible in the mask.bmp

+ occasionally some problems (seems not all applications use the correct flags)

Download

http://mpj.tomaatnet.nl/glasstoast.zip

Danny helped with some resources, for which I thank him gratefully :)

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/533322-glass-toast-for-vista/
Share on other sites

glasstoasts2.jpg

added some more:

+ dropshadow (an unshadowed png is also there).

+ options (half working for now)

+ masking the blur is finally working correct now

+ fixed a deadlock bug with icon retrieval

+ more stuff.

+ hopefully xp compatible.

x64: get me a working x64 compiler and you'll get it.

http://mpj.tomaatnet.nl/glasstoast.zip

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Good move IMHO no matter who is running the administration. We need checks and balances on this stuff especially concerning bleeding edge models. China and others that depend greatly on stolen IP will weaponize it ASAP if they get access. The same effort needs to be applied by the SEC concerning all of this circular funding of AI companies and BS financial reporting as well.
    • Microsoft kills AI-powered history search feature in Edge by Usama Jawad In June 2025, Microsoft began rolling out AI-powered history search functionality with Edge 138. The idea was simple: allow customers to use natural language phrases and synonyms to find their desired history items rather than matching keywords exactly. Although the company had already rolled out this capability in a phased manner, it has now decided to cancel it. In an update on its Microsoft 365 Roadmap, Microsoft has announced that it has decided not to move forward with AI-powered history search. The company has not detailed the exact reasoning behind this move, but it has apologized to customers for the inconvenience. The move is rather interesting as it seemingly could have improved user productivity. Edge users wouldn't have to worry about typos or exact keywords, and just focus on what they were trying to locate in their browser history. Microsoft had also assured users that an on-device AI model would be leveraged for this functionality, and no data would be sent to the cloud. IT admins also had the ability to control its availability through the EdgeHistoryAISearchEnabled policy. When the feature began rolling out last year, many of our readers called it creepy, noting that they couldn't trust Microsoft to keep their data on their device. Others also questioned its usefulness, saying that it's simply a way for Microsoft to insert more AI bloat into its products. Although the Redmond tech giant had stated that it will be more mindful about surfacing Copilot features in Windows 11 apps, we later discussed how this is mostly a rebranding exercise rather than an actual axing of AI functionalities. Indeed, a Microsoft executive later emphasized how they want to reshape Windows for the agentic AI era. That said, it does seem like at least AI-powered Edge history search isn't a part of that vision.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      tuben earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • First Post
      OffsetAbs earned a badge
      First Post
    • Reacting Well
      OffsetAbs earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • First Post
      Kolakid60 earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      xvvxcvv earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      424
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      185
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      149
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      72
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      71
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!