Classic Shell: Forum

WIN7LIKE (Windows 7 style)

Tweaky tweak tweak.

The short of it:

Using modified Win7 screenshots and CSM aero skin mods,
changed it to look closer to original Win 7 menu, on Win 7 operating system.
It's close, but no vape cigar.
Can be used on Windows 10, just won't look the same,
because of the different characteristics of different type of blur,
transparency, colors, and MS secrets.






The long blah, blah, blah:

Using skin on Windows 7 operating system.
Could only get so far, where the color/brightness matches up with the taskbar.
Toyed with brightness, opacity transparency, and color amount.
I could not achieve a 100% match in all cases.

Half of wallpaper MS themes work quite well. The other half doesn't have the right brightness/color ratio.
I can make bitmaps look exactly like say, the default "Windows 7" background logo picture,
then the menu is too bright on other themes.

Using the "Override glass color" option in CSM, can help on a case by case basis, for matching.
In my eyes, the "Menu color blending" tends to adjust the brightness of the menu bitmap itself,
not so much the Luminance and Chrominance ratio of MS signal. (old tv tech)

So as always, made the compromise to have everything halfway. So nothing will match exactly.
No home runs, but will be in the ballpark. For myself, I have Override color option, turned off.

The file got kind of big, because the default setting uses a larger menu/mask bitmap,
with dither noise to hide most of the brightness steps.
(low bit color makes horizontal step lines, similar to most so-called HD TVs, which are low bit as well).

Added back some refinements.
I brightened up the shutdown button. Even looked at the original button in Msstyles. It looks the same dark. I guess I know what premultiplied images are now. It compresses everything darker. Don't know the formula to reverse it, so I brightened rgb to the max, then brightened alpha channel appropriately. Added option for half user picture glare, or none. The original glare is too much.
Skin appears to work ok in High DPI. Had a problem with the user picture showing up when it's not supposed to.
I think it's fixed now. I separated the text from regular HIGH DPI. I did not copy every little detail from the original.
It would take a month of Sundays to get everything perfect. It would get confusing too.
Is this CSM, or real?

Ok, so on Win7.
Set menu to "High" option.

This will match taskbar in most cases, except when MS does some brightness twiddling,
which I could not find out how. I am only a layman, so I guess there is a different glass color access point, or
Einstein formula going on the system?




Using skin on Windows 10 operating system.
I decided to add an option to make the skin more usable on Win 10.
By decreasing the glass opacity, the strong dark Win 10 colors are reduced to resemble Win7 start menu.
Win 10 uses totally different properties, so don't expect too much. You won't have the wide variety of colors to choose from.
I was thinking of putting the Win 7 diagonal bars in the alpha channel of the menu bitmaps, for Win 10 use.
The skin would have to be huge, so forget it.

Anyway, if you are on Win10,
pick the "low" setting, pick "On Win 10", and set the "Taskbar opacity", (in CSM "Windows 10 Settings" tab) to 55.

If you want more blur, you will have to go into the menu look tab.
Change the "Glass opacity" to 25, and "Taskbar opacity" down to 30.

The "med" option, with "On Win 10" is more like original CSM Aero skin.
Set taskbar, and menu glass opacity back to regular values, for matching taskbar.
Was going to make the menu borders have more white.
Decided not to, as taskbar can't have it with matching lines.

Thank you, Ivo, for letting us mod your Aero skin.


EDIT: Just changed the picture, to show the highlight red squares for two different operating systems, for comparing.

I probably made close to one hundred bitmaps with minor & major changes along the way, to get skin the way it looks.

EDIT: Added combined skin "Full Glass WIN7LIKE" and "WIN7LIKE" to become "WIN7LIKE COMBO"

EDIT: Added option; white text with shadow on glass areas.[WIN7LIKE COMBO revC.skin7]

EDIT: I forgot to put picture frame for 84 pixels. [WIN7LIKE COMBO revC.skin7]
Now put in. One to match most common sizes.

100%=48 pixels
125%=60 pixels
134%=64 pixels
150%=72 pixels
175%=84 pixels
200%=96 pixels
268%=128 pixels

Woah nice graphics

_________________
TILES WOOOOOO

Thought I'd mention this.
Windows makes the taskbar have two types of brightness.

If you are on Windows 10,
and want to have glass taskbar roughly match to medium setting menu,

Turn Windows personalize settings "Make start, taskbar, and action center transparent" to Off
Have CSM "Customize taskbar" set on "Glass"
and of course, check mark the " On Win 10" option.

Ok. I have some problems.
I extracted the Folder and put the Skin in the Skin folder.
It shows up in the Skin tab in the Settings.
My problem is,The skin will not work,I mess with the settings,restart my pc,etc..
Still wont work..
I don't know how to fix/work it but if anyone does,I need some help.. :c

I just tried it on Win10 with CSM version 4.3.0
It's working ok.

Does the menu show color, or is it all white menu, flash and go away?
Do other Win7 style skins work?
Sorry, I don't know.

I think the menu shows,but the other stuff doesnt. (Taskbar,etc..)
Idk which version of CS I have but I'll try to get 4.3.0

Only start menu skins here. No themes. Themes alter the whole look of the system.

The latest version of Classic Shell Menu can have some texture on the taskbar,
along with blur/transparency settings.
To get exact look of Windows 7, with a theme on Win 10, might not even be possible.
Microsoft has taken a lot of theme capability away, and the blur is not same type.

Win7 has got to be the best looking system, Microsoft ever made.
Their taskbar buttons with all the luscious animated lighting effects, so beautiful.
Best way to enjoy Win7 is have the real thing.

The best we can do here, is add an image for the task bar.
Will still have the bland Win 10 square buttons on the taskbar, though.

You can look in the taskbar forum section for various types of taskbar images for Win7 look.
To make it easy, here are a couple from that section. I put them in a zip.
Unzip and put the two images somewhere that won't get deleted easily, like picture folder.

You need to set it up in the taskbar settings tab.
After pointing to location of one of taskbar images, set to Horizontal stretching,
and Vertical stretching with Border sizes 2,0


The "Win7 simple taskbar.png" can be used for menu medium option,
with CSM settings Menu look tab-Glass opacity at default 50
and Taskbar tab-Taskbar opacity at default 85

For a closer look, use the wider image "Win7 Taskbar Reflection for opacity 40 qty .png"
Set menu skin to Low glass color option. Set menu Glass opacity to 30,
and taskbar opacity to 40.

If you are using Win 8, there is no blur available, I'm not sure what settings work.

The Taskbar texture works and I am satisfied xD
Good job on the skin btw,I like it,Let's hope more people eventually find this and use it lol
Thanks for your help and being nice.
Have a gud day c:

Full Glass WIN7like [7 Style skin] use with CSM version 4.3.0

Works for Windows 10 operating system only, as it uses Metro color.

I don't remember if Splitwirez made one of these mutations already? I know the classic Claude Glass skin is similar.
Here is my 7 style full glass version. A bit boring though, when it's all the same color.
The middle menu shadow helps a little, but makes it darker.
Bit of a love/hate thing.
That's why I added the Metro color to brighten up again.
Was still not enough, so I put back all white submenus. Sorry. The file got kind of big.
I had to add lots of dither noise to help cover up the horizontal steps from low bit color.
It did not get rid of it all, as I have old Adobe Elements 6 software. It tamed it though.



Problems:
Skin will not work at all, on Windows 7 operating system. Metro color text disables it from running.
Skin is not going to work properly on Win 8, as glass blur not available on that operating system.
It will be very dark, due to lack of glass blur. The inside programs menu will not show correctly.
The metro colors will not work correctly. If you want to try anyway, switch option to white submenus.
If you have Big Muscle, it should work, but the metro colors will be start screen colors, not desktop colors.


When I upgraded to Win 10 Creators Update, there were a couple of problems that showed up.
The Win7 scroll bar does not work anymore.
An optional taskbar image does not stretch over the whole taskbar area, only at ends.
Hopefully, Ivo can figure out what Microsoft has altered, and find a remedy.
Menu can still work though.


Note. If you want to experiment with Ivo's Override glass color,
set to high skin option
enter DBA664 into the CSM "Override glass menu color setting", and "Taskbar color" boxes & click ok.

To have taskbar match have at 0 menu opacity, taskbar 70 opacity for wax paper look.
( Shows my age. Does anybody even use wax paper anymore?)
or regular menu opacity 50, taskbar opacity 85
or opaque menu opacity 100, taskbar opacity 100

Beautiful and amazing skin!!!

_________________
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.

WOAH NICE SKIN O:


Huh? What do you mean by "these mutations"?



Not necessarily - after all, this exists...




...also speaking of which, it seems kinda interesting how much of a difference the blur radius alone can make:

_________________
TILES WOOOOOO

Hey Splitwirez.
There is nothing really new with skin, except for using the extra bitmap slices, that can be used at search area.
Ivo mentioned about it some time back, that is used in his Metro skin.
That's the way the blue line above the shutdown button (white submenu), stays same distance, if 144 DPI is picked.
Is it the correct way to do it? Probably not, seems to work though.



Skin mutations
You know way back when you were experimenting with the aero skin, coming up with transmogrification variants.
You know, like the cosmic, and solar radiation that rains down on us.
Usually not enough to destroy quickly, just enough to damage the DNA, to allow to live on with portions that are different than before.
Have I been watching too many mutant movies? Yes, yes I have.
Come to think of it, I don't think Ivo had the option for 1st column to be glass at that time.


I gather you are playing with the "Blur Deviation Amount" setting of Aero Glass Configurator,
to get Win 7 look, or the "Singing in the shower,di,di,dah,di,di,di,dah" foggy shower doors look on 8.1?

Due to request,
I added user picture option to be frameless,
so a png transparent background icon can be used instead.
Now full Full Glass WIN7LIKE revB.skin7

Can you add reflection (the diagonal shiny bars) to the start menu skin?

"[Can you add reflection]"

Kind of late, but I'm working on it now.
It will not look exactly like Win7 shiny bars, but close enough.
Will probably finish this weekend, unless I die shoveling snow.
See the picture of what it looks like so far today.
I'm adding all those bigger size picture frames.
Using the Full WIN7LIKE skin, modifying to have the standard split white option.
It's really for Windows 10, because of use of "$Metro colors"
I'll put small -8 size font option if it helps people with newer HiDPI screens.


Expect Greatness.....not in the features, but in size of the file.
Right now, great file size is 2.42 MB

WIN7LIKE COMBO

I put it in zip (big file)at top of post.

It is the combination of " Full Glass WIN7LIKE" and "WIN7LIKE" skins.
Was made for Windows 10, due to some options that use Metro colors.

It still works on Windows 7 with CSM 4.3.0 as long as not set on Metro color options.
I think CSM 4.3.1 killed it from running at all.
Would have to click on "Menu Look" tab, and adjust menu color blending/glass intensity settings.


I did not try on Win8. It should work better if Big Muscle aero glass blur installed.
The Metro color options get adjusted using Start Screen color settings.


Ok, back to writing my bla, bla novel.

Yeah, the reflection image overlay didn't work out too well.
The way I think Windows 7 does it, is take the diagonal bar image in Aero theme.
Then it gets enlarged to match whatever size desktop is used.
Then it is displayed as an alpha layer.
So if start menu is at the bottom left, then the same corner of the reflection bars will show through.
Have a look at the picture right side.
For Classic Shell, Ivo states that the pattern image begins in the top left.
The bars will show in wrong location, as well as possible different angle.
So right away, it is never going to match exactly the correct corner.
Add to that, the pattern image used does not stretch.

I can take the reflection image from Aero theme file and enlarge it exactly for my monitor resolution,
then temporarily display it as desktop picture behind the menu,
then crop that so the top of menu starts at that exact same location when using as the pattern image.
As you can figure, it's a lot of work, and only works for one size/dpi monitor.
It's impractical for me to make a large number of different ratio sizes to fit for everybody,
and the file size would be huge. Just one full-size reflection image is 2 MB!


If I put the pattern image as a stretchable green mask, it could kind of work,
but only if the height/width ratio stays exactly the same,
which is impossible with a stretching menu. I skipped that method.

So this is what I did, for the small reflection option:
I took the original image 802x596, added some extra bars at the corners,
then copy/pasted to itself to be a bigger 1280x1200 so it won't tile repeat.
It is not blurry enlarged.


The medium size, I stole from Clasetro skin. I forgot how I made it originally.
There was a lot of processing involved.

For the large option, I enlarged original image 2 times, added extra corner bars.
The angle of bars will not match original Win7 look, but hey, life is a compromise.
This one is blurry enlarged.

To be subtle, all three options use pattern masks that only let through around 20 to 30 percent brightness.
Note. This might slow down menu animation on slow computers, like when opening jump view.


If anybody wants to try enlarging the unaltered reflection image for their own desktop,
it is image #190. Use Resource Hacker.
It uses OPTION INTERN4
See bottom of text file skin to see pattern masks used.
Those masks let about 50 percent brightness.

I don't want to stray too far away on this skin, as it's supposed to be a replica of Win7.
I even have the original pin bitmaps for jump view on the white split option.
I did not add black text / black text & shadow.
I only added the shadow for the white text on glass. Sorry

merci juniper7, ce rajout .."only added the shadow for the white text on glass" est tout ce que je demandais !
à très bientôt mon ami

thank you juniper7, this addition .."only added the shadow for the white text on glass" is all I asked !
see you soon my friend