Classic Shell: Forum

Well, I just found out that there's a forum for this. I figured I might as well post my first Start Menu skin, which was meant to be a recreation of the Start Menu from Windows Longhorn's Plex theme, made to go with my (very unfinished and rough-around-the-edges) Windows 8.1 Plex theme. Am I allowed to post that here?

Um... here's the skin. If anyone knows how to save transparency to a BMP image with Paint.NET, I'd really appreciate it, as that would allow me to remove the white boxes around the large arrows. Also, I should probably mention that it was built straight off the Windows XP Luna skin, since the layout is pretty much the same, and I made this before I found out that there was a tutorial, so I had no idea such themes could be built from the ground up.



This is my first post here, so if there's anything wrong with it, I'd appreciate it if someone could please tell me so I can fix it, whatever it may be.


EDIT: V2 is up!!! It has fixed arrows!! (Full credit to juniper7 for that)

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Updated to attach the files directly, and added a screenshot (otherwise good work

Alright, I'll keep that in mind. And thanks

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could you also add some buttons with windows 8 logos on them?

Hmm...I guess so. I'll get on that soon

EDIT:


There it is. Not amazing quality, but hopefully it's good enough :3

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Hi Splitwirez.
I think somebody said a long time ago about a possible export plugin for Paint.NET? Dunno myself.
I use Pixelformer, or very old Adobe Photoshop elements,
sometimes copying back and forth a merged copy to different programs with the Windows clipboard.

I put your arrow in zip file, along with a modified plex arrow, with different amounts of border pixels removed.
No idea what is correct.

Thanks, it worked!!

V2 is up! Thanks so much :3

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Wow, gotta love blue menu.
Did not realize there are so many versions,
or milestones of Longhorn, before it became Vista.
Later, a lot later, I want to make a blue menu too, but not exact copy.
I want to find all the original screenshots.
See what can be made by combining parts.

Splitswirez, do you know any good sites with screenshots?
I did see you in another forumn. I saw a couple of Paul Thurrott pictures, but gif quality not so good.

Screenshots of...Longhorn? No idea where to find those at good resolution - I actually used a Virtual Machine to rip the resource images from Longhorn's own "Plex" theme, which I also used for the Windows 8.1 theme I made this Skin for.

The only other place I've posted this was a board called Kuribo64...and I presume you weren't referring to the "Computers and Technology" subforum of a board that is largely centralized around hacking Mario games?

Also, my (user)name is Splitwirez, not Splitswirez

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Sorry about that Splitwirez.
It was the something about Mario forum.

I just found what I was looking for :

http://dk.toastednet.org/iex_lh/

Lots of everything there.

Here is a plugin for Paint.net which allows opening and saving 32-bit BMP files (with alpha transparency). Extract the DLL to the Program Files\Paint.NET\FileTypes folder before starting Paint.net.

To avoid conflicts with the built-in Paint.net BMP functionality, the extension of 32-bit BMP files must be different. Only then will this plugin open them as 32-bit BMPs. For example, rename your file to Image.bmpx while opening and saving. Then from Explorer, you can rename it back to Image.bmp once you are done saving.

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Links to some general topics:

● Compare Start Menus

● Read the Search box usage guide.

I am a Windows enthusiast and did Classic Shell's testing and usability/UX feedback.

Ah, that's why I got the error, when trying it before.
Thanks WG.

Where's the Plex theme for Windows 8.1 download link?

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Android hacking is sometimes a puzzle.

Just above the screenshot, it's the bit of blue text that says "V2 is up".

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