Classic Shell: Forum

Too bad that offset frame can't work for other languages, and text entries.

Your picture looks kind of like the title bar size on Win10.

That's the thing about HI DPI. The text area is enlarged, the borders are preserved, and stay the same.
That special Win XP skin I made for you, had enlarged borders for HI-DPI to stay in correct proportion.
I think it got moved or deleted. I don't see it anymore.

Does the Metro skin really have 4 numbers for the vertical slices.
Either I modified it by accident, or it's real.
Maybe that could be used to have a value set for the bar to expand in HI DPI automatically?

No it didn't get deleted. Here it is: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5675

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

Would it be possible if you, or Jcee could move the Hi DPI part of that post in the Classic start menu section,
and put in the same similar post in Start menu skinning section

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3025

and just have links in the start menu post?
If I had trouble finding skin, other people won't even know it exists over there!
I probably should have named the zip XP HI-DPI.
Thanks.



I could make qty 31, plus the support mask bitmaps to have the gradient with 150% size,
that automatically turns on at 144 DPI,
with bigger size user image as well. That would take time to do.

I could put in the offset picture for standard English setup,
with a couple extra sizes for different 2 column width.
It would look quite funny when it does not match up.
It will either be more towards center, or outside of menu.
Come to think of it, having a picture half outside the menu in Win7 must have looked odd at first,
until we accepted as the norm!
Ah shucks, even changing the font size option will change user picture position.
That would mean user bitmap as regular middle, 3 position reg corner, 6 more for other font sizes,
plus the same again for 150 HI DPI equals 20 user bitmaps, and it still won't be perfect.
Like Jcee says, goes exponential. Bad idea. I'm stuck in the mud.

Here is text from Metro skin.7

Main_bitmap_jump_slices_Y=12,10,7,0,2,2

Does that mean there can be two expansion slices for vertical now?

Yes, it's been like that since the Midnight skin was added in version 4.2.1 a year ago.
The second slice is for the search portion at the bottom. It doesn't work very well though when the search box is hidden.

I've moved all posts from that thread to this one: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3025

You can edit the main/top post to attach or link to all the skins so they are in one, easy to find location.

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

Thank you Gaurav.
I'm a bit wary about putting just links,
especially when the skin might need to go together with xml file and instructions.
I'll leave it mostly the way it is right now.

I absolutely love this skin! I wonder if it's possible to get rid of the top section on the "classic with two colums" skin? I know it's there for effect but if it's possible to remove it or have a variant without it that would be great. Anyway, great work on this!

It's probably possible to use the submenu as the main Classic two column menu to get rid of bar on top.

Yes, the initial requests, were because the classic menu with gradient bar, is missing in newer operating systems.
It was sorely missed.
Brings up problem of the name and user picture area. To leave big empty space up there, or make extra text modifications to fill in menu, when option not selected. Almost anything is possible.
I would need more than 1 request to do it, for it take lots of time on huge variation skins like this.
If lots of people want the plain look, I will gladly do it, when time allows.

Ok FlaX . Had time to make the plain menu option, for only the Classic 2 column.
The one without the gradient bar on top.

Once that bar is gone, a few menus looked exactly same as other menus. Same menu color, same selector color.
So I altered the color on those duplicates.

"Black, and Blue" menu without bar, turned into powder blue.
"System Glass Color Transparent bar" turned to whole transparent menu.
"Warm Day" has gradient bar on selectors instead.

The skin is revision D. It's at the first post. It should still work on older CSM versions.
Forgive me if I made a mistake somewhere.
Dealing with qty 255 bitmaps can be a bit confusing. Do I get a Creamsicle when it hits qty 500?
Just let me know if something is not right.

I just added a light pink variation with powder blue selectors.
If you want pink colored selectors , use Resource Hacker to go into skin file.
Go to "SKIN" folder 32 and follow the instructions that look like below:

pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink
pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink

;Remove the " ; " FROM THE SIX LINES BELOW TO GET PINK SELECTORS. CLICK THE COMPILE BUTTON, THEN SAVE AS " something name .SKIN "

;Main_selection=#FF7EDA
;Main_split_selection=#FF7EDA
;Main2_selection=#FF7EDA
;Main2_split_selection=#FF7EDA
;Submenu_selection=#FF7EDA
;Submenu_split_selection=#FF7EDA

pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink
pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink pink

I apologize for the necro/bump/whatever, but I just had to ask...

HOW!? DOES ANYONE REMEMBER?? O.O

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Yeah, if this was work, I'd be crucified going off topic in a thread, or asking about something 2 years ago.
Thankfully, no suspensions here.

Shhh!
I can not divulge in top secrets of cloaking device.
For the safety and security of our nations, I did not include in the skin.


I gather you are asking about the selector, not the green mask.
It was just a 24 bits per pixel bitmap, instead of 32 bit with alpha, used on a transparent menu.

Using blur will help a little to see the text.
Once there is an area exactly same as text color the whole process is a dud. Can't read text.
I never tried adding the glass drop shadow feature, that Ivo added some time ago.
That might help in text visibility.

It's kind of like other unusual setups, usually made by mistake, that look cool at first, just mostly useless for a menu.

Like where the menu, or/and selectors all invisible, with just the text visible.
Just make menu bitmap a few pixels in size with overly large slices,
so program draws the few pixels, and the rest is drawn invisible.


One other transparent oddity was making a semi transparent 7 style skin.
Say if main menu bitmap is 150/255 alpha.
If the scroll bar bitmap has alpha 150 or higher, everything works as usual.
If the alpha on scroll bitmap is below that 150/255 alpha,
the desktop behind shows through.

I like the transparent feature Ivo put in the inner programs 7 style Metallic skin. So it does not end up as just a rectangle.

Thanks a lot juniper7 for the plain menu option! Really great work.

[About selector button cloaking technology]


Morning Splitwirez

I will look for that skin version later tonight when I get back.
I'm sure I saved somewhere on a backup drive. I may have overwritten it.
If I can't find it, I'll just remake a simpler one for you to experiment with.

Picture looks like Win8, so Big Muscle blur was involved.
It could look better in Win 10 blur, because of its stronger blur nature.
Gona be late bye

:OD



D:


:D


Oh...


O:


D:

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Here is that weirdo skin.
One day late.
Was busy doing other things.

ONLY WORKS ON WINDOWS 10.
HAVE TO ENABLE GLASS, OR SELECTOR'S TEXT WILL OVERLAY ON DESKTOP, LOOKING LIKE TRASH.
The opacity can be anywhere between 100% (regular looking menu), down to 25% (odd looking).
O% opacity with white lettering on white background equals whiteout.
Default 50% has readable text.

I did find a couple of versions, the one with 3d selector version in picture, must have been deleted.
None are complete. All at various stages, nothing completely works.
One even had the separators as invisible glass too.
I,I,I,I,I.
I am only uploading the last one that is simpler, and more complete.
I added the text shadow.
I don't know if it's possible to have only the hover select text to have the text shadow,
and the normal as without. Gave up trying.
It does not look so good with black text with shadow.
I never tried it on Win7.

Anybody is free to progress the skin into something useful.
That means Splitwirez, or you, or the other you. How can you tell it's the weekend



Menu skin is like a box of chocolates.
Never know if the selector uncovers a dud, or rich multicolored look.

Better late than never


False, the transparency effect seems to work more or less fine on Windows 8.1 with Aeroglass 8.1+ (Masks are kind of a mess, though) ._.

k


Huh. I'll have to dump it into my Windows 7 VM sometime...


Challenge accepted

wat

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Good for you, Splitwirez, and other people to check it out.
Maybe something new is discovered, that I did not see.

There is only so much that can be done with the selectors,
from what I found, so don't break your brain on it. Which is why it was never included before.

Anything higher than black 0/255 will increase the brightness of it drastically,
whether on the selector 24 bit bitmap, or if additional glass mask is used.

Never figured a way to darken, or did I, and forgot?
The old picture does show the dark bottom 3d edge. Hmm.
Well brain cells now dead, and unrecoverable now from fireworks and celebrating last night.

I find it too distracting at lower opacity. I have mine set to about 70.
Gives it just a hint of randomness.

Hi,

I'm new here

I've been using Classic Shell for a long time (practically since the beginning), and I've finally decided I wanted to make it more "XP like" (in its stock form, it's close enough for the most part, but I wanted to try to get it as close as possible).

So, when I decided to search for skins, I came across this. The blue and white, in particular, is a very good match to the menu from XP x64 (including the Caption). However, a couple slight adjustments were needed:

*First, the caption and caption text were more-or-less like stock in terms of padding and such, so I adjusted those via Resource Hacker to bring it closer to the real thing.
*Then, I adjusted some of the padding for the selection highlight, as there was a one pixel gap between the left edge and the caption. Real XP doesn't do that.

So with these changes, I went ahead and also replaced all the icons with their XP-based equivalents (where possible) and used an XP start button. Now, I have probably the most perfect XP Start Menu replica I've ever seen!

Here are the settings I used:

Caption_padding=5,3,2,6,100% (changed from 3,3,3,12,100%)
Main_padding=0,3,3,3 (changed from 2,4,3,3)

Very minor, but it made all the difference!

Thank you for all your good work!

c

Not everybody knows how to alter skins.

Upload your exacting skin (with a different name)for others.
The more the merrier.

OK

I should re-brand it, shouldn't I? Otherwise, I could just post it here as-is.

Meanwhile, I'm always making adjustments, so I may find ways of making it even closer to the real thing.

In fact, here it is: Classic Start Menu.JPG

Basically, I'm aiming for a virtually pixel-perfect replica. I think I did a good job

I took the icons from a real XP installation, so they're the real thing.

c

It's up to you.
I don't really know the protocol here. I don't own anything here.
But just in case someone wants some other effect, or to fix a boo boo,
I just rename it the next revision a b c d e f g etc.

For someone else, I think it's good if they rename to their own modded skin name,
to differentiate from the original poster, even start a new topic, with your new skin.

You can set up an xml file, upload it with icon folder to share, so everyone can get the same exact looks.
I don't think the original user name is shown anymore in xml file.

This is a really nice skin, juniper7. I've always missed the good 'ol Windows XP classic theme menu, and this works very well.

However, if you're like me you want a menu that follows your system colors. One that feels a bit more... native to Windows. Well using the XP Classic Retro skin as a base, I was able to create just that! I've attached it to this post (I may make a skin7 version if I have the time).

I would still recommend the XP Classic Retro skin, as it has a lot more customization options than mine does, and even has some variations that you could never get with mine. The purpose of mine is just to provide something that feels a bit more native to Windows, and will change with your theme.

Also juniper7, if you'd like to take resources from this skin and create a variation of XP Classic Retro that follows system colors, then be my guest.

Edit: Updated the skin to use the system menu text instead of the system window text.

Edit: Updated the skin to use the system menu color instead of the button face color.

This is great! It's awesome that this is possible with Classic Shell now. Looks better on Windows 7 with the 98 Plus themes than Juniper7's new pack for them!

Speaking of which, can you make the username font change with the titlebar font the way it appears to in Juniper7's new theme?

On a related note, I'm trying to make this integrate better with the 98 Plus themes. I want the My Documents and Network Connections icons to change with the currently applied theme. I know it's possible to do, because if I change the "command" from "user_documents" to "user_files" the icon changes to the current themed one. The same if I change "network_connections" to "network". But I don't want either of those folders--I want My Documents and Network Connections. Is there a way to change the icons separate from the command or jerry-rig something?

This skin also needs a slightly bigger user picture option and slightly thicker top bar for high DPI.

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Links to some general topics:

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

To have main menu bitmaps to have 1.5 times top bar/band height for HiDPI,
would mean making 50 to 60 extra main menu bitmaps.
Having offset user picture does not work properly. Could only be in center.

I just don't have time for big projects anymore.
They would have to be spaced out one every month.

I'll think about it though,
if more people came forward on the idea for 150% HiDPI version.

Right, right. And indeed especially for this skin which has so many bitmaps, I wouldn't want you to update all of them just for making the band slightly thicker. I didn't see the internals of this skin to see how its done so I assumed it might be possible to just stretch the bitmaps vertically without updating them.

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

Yeah, if it was the simple one of R.O.B.s, super easy, but only good for Windows 7 classic theme.

That extra vertical expanding slice that can be added is only for search area, from what Ivo said.
It would probably take a few nights work, just other life items on my to do list.
If five people say they want it, I'll do it, but still will take awhile.

I have started updating the 7 style skin with 20 extra pixel top bar/band height for 144 dpi.
I can only spend around 30 to 60 minutes a day on it, so might end up finished in a week or two.

Oh sure take your time. There is no need to hurry. I am thankful that you are future proofing it by updating it. You don't take donations, otherwise I would've sent some money to your PayPal.

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

I just looked at the classic 1/2 version. It has 3 times as many bitmaps, and made the old way, before Ivo invented tints.
That one will have to wait for Christmas. I will carry over the no bar/band option, and put in 7 style version.
Those poor guys in the bar band. They won't have any place to drink, n play guitar.

OK, finished upgrading Skin7 style with the extra 20 pixel bar height for 144 DPI (150% size).
Can disable the band at top, for plain look.
Scatterbrain text in file is all over the place.
I'm sure meetHG, will grade me a D-
As long as it works, and does not slow operation down, is all I care about.

Included in the same zip at the top of post,
is also a super simple version of same 7 style skin.
It does not have any preset colors. One uses the color pickers in the skin options instead. The drawback is I did not put a ton of color pickers for every little thing. Still, it can make a good personal touch menu in a couple of minutes.
See example of XP Teletubby colors.

Oh my God what lovely changes!! You are an artist juniper7! I want to meet you some day and buy you a coffee (or a beer). Thank you so much for updating this skin!!

And the color picker skin is so awesome!!!! It is exactly as I imagined some day someone would build a skin based on the classic skin. The color picker adds infinite flexibility for customizing the Start menu appearance.

Since you said you are between jobs, could you PM me your PayPal? Such excellent work deserves a donation.

P.S. My suggestion is to merge the skins (add the color pickers to the same skin) so we can, for example, set the menu color to the "System Glass Color Full" but customize the top band colors separately. Or you could add the option to use "System Glass Color Full" as the menu color to the "Color Picker" skin.

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

Yes. I am between jobs, I have lots of other non paying jobs though.
Don't need any money. That's the great thing with the dying electronics industry in North America, they sure give good severance packages.
Don't need to work for a couple of years.
The drawback was using the high dioptric optics equipment everyday for years (for surface mount inspection /rework), prematurely destroying my eyes.
They have frozen my vision to seeing only the far away Draco Dwarf galaxy.


Which comes to making menu skins. It's really hard now,
so I don't want to spend lots of time to make anything really complicated.
Adding that color picker into the already complicated large skin,
is too much for me. Believe it or not, those Retro skins Classic 1/2 skin rev D,
and the new 7 style rev B skin, even have a hidden bland glass blur option.
Just set to System Glass color Transparent bar, and turn off Top bar/band.


When I have time, I will add the glass menu option to the small color picker skin, as the bitmaps are setup already,
to use the red 255 (very bright) mask.
Doing a quick test. See picture (Win 10) of only blue glass color menu,
with rest of colors still custom color.

The simple color picker skin is not like a real XP menu,
where highlight lines are set by system. Example R.O.B. skin download/file.php?id=3966

Only just an approximation. So those lines will look too white when using a dark menu color.
I would have to add an option to subdue the highlight lines for dark menu color like black.




I'll wait a week or two, in case someone else wants to do it, better.

juniper7, what parameter do I need to modify or add to the skin to change the search results background to white? I guess Main_search_bitmap would be it - so many to update!

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Links to some general topics:

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

Parameter? If it was only that simple.
Son of a gun, I should have kept listening to the little voice in my head.
"Will Gaurav ask for white search menus-yes,-no, ok no he won't, ,no maybe he will."
On the 7 style 34 flavor variation skin, I had originally started to add provisions for white search option,
You can see remnants of it in skin, that I disabled

;Main_bitmap_search_tint1=#FFFFFF
;Main_bitmap_search_tint2=#FFFFFF
;Main_bitmap_search_tint3=#FFFFFF

but abandoned part way through, as skin was growing in complexity with each new option.
Too much work .

The simple color picker menu never had any mask set up to make white full, only split.
It would require another pattern mask for full width.
In maybe a couple of weeks I could put it in the simple color picker skin. Due to the split conflicts, and regular, there would need to be lots of extra text to accommodate different arrow color ,text color ,separator type, maybe different search padding,
search box bitmap, and on and on.
One little change affects everything around it.

On that color picker skin, it would end up something like mockup. Just so busy, and because it is summer, I want to be outside enjoying life, or doing odd outside jobs for people, before the rains come.

Okay. Can the Retro Color Picker skin have all its default colors set automatically to the System Glass Color Full values (top band, menu color and selector color) *when the colors are not customized*? As I understand, currently they are set to "Windows Standard" colors. And if they are customized, the custom values override the default. Also, a 3D search box+shutdown button as well? (since that option isn't there in the Color Picker skin at all but is there in the Classic Retro skin).

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

Hi Gaurav
I'm back working on adding the white search view menu option, to the big 7 style skin.
3/4 done.
I've been nick naming that revB skin the Willy Nilly,
as to the jumbled file contents, from revising so much, like the old BlackBerry OS.

There is a problem on a number of variations, because the jump view,
and search view have to share the same text color, arrow color, etc.
Black text on white search menu turns to black text on dark/black jump menu, (hard to see).
I have to lighten/whiten those 7 variation jump bitmaps,
and fiddle with shutdown button to work for all menu views.
Going to take awhile.

You know way back(1 to 3 years), when you asked for white on the menu,
I should have had just put one white option, and called it "7 style look",
where everything is white except for right column main menu view.
That would have been a lot easier.
Once I finish adding white search view, I don't want to add any more white options,
because all the elements have to be changed in ever more complicated ways,
to jive with the other options.



About your requests on the color picker skin, maybe meetHG can help you with it.
If not, I will work on it after the 7 one is done, or maybe update the Classic1/2 to HIGH DPI.

Later

Hi Juniper,
Love to talk to you again.
Out of hometown for study since our last talk.

I love to make a new skin. But college schedule is very tight
Plus my laptop harddisk failed. Needs repair.
So it might gonna take some time.

Bye.
Have a nice day.

Hello meetHG.

Hard drive failure. I had a few of those.
I remember one disk drive on Windows 7 had just certain areas of drive with the damage.
Win7 os would try to fix it, and make it worse each time and get stuck at the bad spots.

I eventually used Win 98 floppy to check for the disk errors, and it showed me where the non fixable bad blocks were.
I then formatted the drive with the bad blocks section as non formatted partition, so Win7 would avoid that area.
End result, worked for a number of years.


Switching to quiet, mildly warm, and fast solid state drives,
was the best computer upgrade I ever made. I bought 4 ssd so far.


I'm working on adding the white view menu to the big 7 skin, and jump view option with a lighter color(not white), too.
It has got to be the most complex skin now. Very easy to make mistakes, and not know about it till later.
With my lack of logic skills, it's total chaos inside the skin file.

Maybe another week to finish it off.

The small color picker skin comment that I put, was to kind of bait you!
I figured since you made those other skins, you might want to go for it.

No problem if you don't have time.

Good to read from you.
Bye.

I think you should know that 9,000 was a translation error. It was 8,000 in original.

With color masks, and tints, and now pattern masks, there are more colors available.
So we can do more, with less bitmaps. If I had to start fresh with this type of skin, I would have very few bitmaps with color on them. It would all be done with masks and a whole lot of text.

Sorry I did not finish adding white search to the big 7 skin. I got bored and went back to making simple Star Trek skin.

Ok, upgraded the 7 style back in Nov, finished the Classic 1/2 today, so top band is bigger.
I never got around to changing color picker skin 7style, or even made a classic1/2 one.
I still don't even know if all the things you ask are even possible.
Will try again at a later date.

now my start menu look better ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I added a separate simple color picker skin for classic 1/2 styles.
It is in the "XP Classic Retro rev D, E, Picker.zip" at first post.
Similar to what Gaurav asked, but not combined.
It came out to what I thought it would be.
It is near impossible to just have one skin, to be all types of skins.
There would have to be multitudes of options to accommodate all types of colors,
brightness levels on different elements, which would lead to dead options that don't do anything, in a lot of cases.
Custom color options don't carry over too well for different looks, due to lack of my understanding of how to use various default true color hex numbers, for different variations.
To get exactly a classic look, better to use the big variation skin.

I gave it a shot anyway.
The Classic opaque variation is good if you want to tweak menu color a little bit,
like say mimicking the light blue menu color tinge of Anixx's screenshot from another post.
That has green on the band: R181 G212 B180, with the menu color: R210 G213 B215
If you make anything with strong color, you might want to click on the "Highlight lines reduced" option,
so separator lines are not so contrasty white.

When using the glass variations with a very dark menu color, it might be hard to see the classic look dark selector.
In this case, turn on the "Selector with light border" option.

Made for Windows 10. It should work on 7 & 8.1.
Will probably have to adjust the glass color/brightness settings in CSM "Menu Look" setting for those OS.