Blend 2.0 (in the Making)

By Zain Adeel
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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Grand Master

ToneKnee

Posted
Posted

well .. i wish i couldnt..

the bitmap area is too small to make a button bigger :(

so duno how to make a big one...

any hack?

Zain, while I'm excited about the theme developing, I'm more excited at the moment with you passing your exams! Well done mate! :D

Grand Master

Brandon H Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
Posted

well .. i wish i couldnt..

the bitmap area is too small to make a button bigger :(

so duno how to make a big one...

any hack?

not really sure, but i've seen it done before on longhorn themes

Contributor

C1PR1ONE

Posted
Posted

tease.

did the back forward buttons.. IE9 style

wellllll the alpha release is just around the corner

post-285248-0-40650600-1293122162.jpg

aand guys i passed my exams!!!.. and sum suggestions will be welcome.

In my case I do not like the back forward buttons

But well look something like...personal opinion

Sorry for my English :rolleyes:

vg4mqx.png

Grand Master

Zain Adeel

Posted
  • Author
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im releasing the alpha here..

the main bugs arent there.. but only about 40% work is done..

do comment how you like it...

here is the link http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=30778367695069595312

and thank u everybody :)

im doing ACCA.. so passed my first 3 exams.

classes for next subjects starting soon. but ill work on my theme everyday to try to make it to beta soon.

Grand Master

zhangm Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
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It is innovative in some respects, but unassertive.

It looks good when you have one window open and a fairly homogenous background color. I like the scrollbars, and the taskbar window previews have impact. The curvature of the window corners is nice and minimal. The thin dark inner shadow of each window frame is also a nice touch.

What this theme lacks is usability when windows overlap each other. The glass, window borders, and shadows lack presence to the point that they disappear into the background, and when the background is structured (text, images, blocks of light and dark colors), the edges of the window get lost and it looks like a trainwreck. Too much of what is underneath shows up, and 12 pt text is on the verge of being readable through the glass. This means that the window in front - the one that you're trying to pay attention to - is no longer effectively separated from the content of inactive windows. This is not a good thing.

The titlebar buttons suffer from similar issues. The distinction between Active and Inactive windows is so subtle that I don't understand why you bothered to make them different in the first place. The amount of transparency also creates problems with colors. You've used a lighter, low-opacity base color for glass, and have used black text in glass textboxes. These look fine on their own, but if you put them in front of a darker background (either a wallpaper or webpage content, or even dark colored text), these background elements make the textbox elements much less visible.

This theme works fine if you only display one window at a time, or have dualie 30 inch monitors so that you don't have overlapping windows, or just want to pose a window or two for a nice looking desktop screenshot. It looks nice under certain circumstances, but that doesn't cut it in terms of usability. You can be minimal while still letting the glass stand out and more effectively separate foreground information from all the crap that is behind it in inactive windows. Keep in mind that regardless of the user's freedom in choosing a background, that window content such as webpages, Explorer windows, Word documents, etc, will be your background at least some of the time, and they are mostly white. Design for a white or light background, and make sure that content within the glass, like the searchbox text, stands out against whatever might be behind it.

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Grand Master

Zain Adeel

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  • Author
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thank u so much for ur time Relativity_17

i agree with you. I had to talk this out with myself. And i went with what you are using.

The thing is .. if i take into account all that. I would have to darken the shadows, add more white to the highlights and it would nt be where i was going with my idea. I use multiple windows and the addressbar is clearly readable even on anything. I stand 10 feed away from my monitor and try to read. If its readable its good.

:)

but keep it coming!!!.. :)

Grand Master

zhangm Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
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thank u so much for ur time Relativity_17

i agree with you. I had to talk this out with myself. And i went with what you are using.

The thing is .. if i take into account all that. I would have to darken the shadows, add more white to the highlights and it would nt be where i was going with my idea. I use multiple windows and the addressbar is clearly readable even on anything. I stand 10 feed away from my monitor and try to read. If its readable its good.

:)

but keep it coming!!!.. :)

The whole implementation of Aero Glass limits what you can do with text fields on glass. I think Microsoft spent a fair amount of time banging their collective heads on the proverbial wall while designing the theme. I think that for dark text, you'll want to use something like what Neowin has designed for its search input field in the site header: raised and milky smooth. If you want to switch to using white text, then make it dark and sunken in, like your window previews. That's all I can really suggest, other than to make a clear difference in the translucency between the glass background any any text fields. That might help with the contrast issues.

Grand Master

Zain Adeel

Posted
  • Author
Posted

so try this...

move ur mouse over the address bar in windows explorer. it will become more OPAQUE ... should i turn the normal image same as the mouse over one?

would it still look as pretty if its that white?

and relativity... are u on 64bit? i see u havnt tried the explorerframe.dll

Rising Star

Tweaker

Posted
Posted

so try this...

move ur mouse over the address bar in windows explorer. it will become more OPAQUE ... should i turn the normal image same as the mouse over one?

would it still look as pretty if its that white?

and relativity... are u on 64bit? i see u havnt tried the explorerframe.dll

Zain,

This comes from a theme called Clean & Clear. I love the font in the titlebar as it shows up using any wallpaper or solid color light or dark. Using a black font in the titlebar detracts from the theme its self because it is hard to read. This theme also has a nice search bar as it too is easy to read.

post-3332-0-70998000-1293233399.jpg

Grand Master

zhangm Supervisor

Posted
  • Supervisor
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so try this...

move ur mouse over the address bar in windows explorer. it will become more OPAQUE ... should i turn the normal image same as the mouse over one?

would it still look as pretty if its that white?

and relativity... are u on 64bit? i see u havnt tried the explorerframe.dll

I don't know whether simply increasing the opacity is a good solution, considering that it wipes out some of the details that went into the textbox borders - notably, the light inner borders. You might try more aggressive styling instead (mockup). Ignore the caption buttons - I can't take the idea to the point where they look good.

post-17075-0-95946500-1293268319.png

Mentor

Fluxii Media

Posted
Posted

After much work and many struggles with my Windows 7; I managed to finally patch things up (for the 10th time in a row w/ restarts) and get this theme working.... and so far Zain; I'm in love with the work you have done thus far. 40% done? Wow, I'd take this as is but I know you have much to do to get it to 100% in your own vision.

Any problems so far? None that haven't been said yet. I'm still digging around though!

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