Classic Shell: Forum

Hi Ivo,

Up to now I have been using another utility to put titles (i.e., the path) on my Windows 8 File Explorer windows. Unfortunately, that utility is not capable of adding a background glow, which hasn't been a problem right up until I tried also using the software in development called "Aero Glass for Win8". Now the titles are almost lost on dark backgrounds.

Note the title difference in this Windows 8 screen grab showing both a File Explorer and Internet Explorer window:





I note that you have a background glow capability with your Classic IE component (which is what's generating the above title). Is there a possibility you might add a similar function to Classic Explorer?

Thanks.

-Noel

No, that won't work. The IE title is part of the "client" area, and easy to override. The title in Explorer is in the actual title bar (the non-client area). Those are hard to mess with, particularly in another application.

The "show title in Explorer" feature of Classic Shell (for Vista and Windows 7) simply enables the title, doesn't actually draw it.

Thanks for the quick response.


So does that just not work in Windows 8? I imagine if you could get Explorer to draw it itself it would have the proper glow.

-Noel

The titlebar glow is part of the theme so you can get a theme with white text, or with title-bar glow

heres a decent one, designed to look like windows 7 with titlebar glow:

http://xxinightxx.deviantart.com/art/Windows-7-Vs-REV-D-350491112

In Vista and Windows 7 Explorer hides its title. Classic Shell just unhides it. However it is just like any other title of any other window (like Notepad).

In Windows 8 Explorer has its title already visible, so Classic Shell does nothing.

Oops - you're right of course. I've made a mistake then in assuming it was showing because I was enabling it via another application (too many different systems).

I've noticed the glow missing from the Wordpad application as well. I guess this is either an incomplete implementation of the glass effect, or the fact that Microsoft has moved on from Aero Glass and just isn't setting the proper attributes any more.

ClassicShell plus a few other things almost make Windows 8 usable enough to adopt it. For now it just lives in a VM...

Thanks for setting me straight.

-Noel

Thanks, Jcee, but as you can see I've already modified my theme to have the glow. Something else is afoot here that's causing the glow not to be rendered for certain applications.
http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/Win8ScreenGrab.jpg
-Noel