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Jamush — Novus
Published: 2009-07-26 16:32:08 +0000 UTC; Views: 76306; Favourites: 222; Downloads: 18867
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Description
Novus, formerly known as Emendo, is a visual style for Windows XP and the successor to Watercolor Emico: Blue.Before using this theme, you'll need to patch a system file which is called UXTheme.dll
UXTender allows you to do this. All you have to do is download the patcher and run it.
When that's done, you'll need to place the folder caleld "Novus" in "C:\WINDOWS\Resources\Themes".
There's a choise between a style with the userpicture and one without. The 2 styles can be found on the "Color combination" dropdown menu.
This visual style also comes with 3 font choices as seen in the teaser image. These choices can be found in the "Font size" dropdown menu.
Modifications:
For personal use only.
Ports:
Please ask before doing so.
Bugs:
If you find a bug, please report them. Before doing so, try to see and think why the bug occurs. Does it only happen in 1 application? Does it happen when you change a setting in Windows?
Changelog:
v1.0.4 - 30-07-2009:
• Fixed font size for Calibri in the main style.
v1.0.3 - 28-07-2009:
• Fixed toolbar button alignements in Internet Explorer.
v1.0.2 - 27-07-2009:
• Fixed toolbar buttons.
• Added "Undock computer" button to the startpanel.
• Swapped Verdana with Segoe UI.
• Changed Calibri font size from 10px to 9px.
v1.0.1 - 26-07-2009:
• Fixed startbutton in Calibri substyle.
Info:
Wallpaper which I used for the teaser image: Fransisca by Julie Koesmarno .
FAQ:
• Could you make a substyle with a startbutton which doesn't have the text?
- No, the startbutton design simply doesn't look as good without the text. I also don't want to go beyond 2 substyles.
• Are you still going to release that black version? Or any other color mod for that matter?
- No, I'm considering this visual style my last one until further notice. I'm also quite bored of this style since I'm working on this for 2 years if you include Emico. Instead of making visual styles, I'm gonna make mockups and concepts and share them on deviantART.
• I wanted to ask if you're planning to port this visual style to Windows 7.
- I know I've said that I'll be doing this in the future. But my life got busy in between when I said it would happen and what I'm writing right now. Since much time has passed since then and Windows 8 is somewhat around the corner, I don't think it's such a good idea to put time into porting over Novus to a newer version of Windows. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Novus was intended to be a Windows XP-only visual style. At the time I've never had plans of porting it. Satukoro has made a personal mod recently and I've been in contact with him about releasing his port. There are some unfortunate issues with porting the theme over to Windows that there just can't be an official release. It won't be of the same quality as this one as the issues are just simply bugs due to the way the visual style was designed for XP.
• I've found a bug in Internet Explorer. The buttons on web pages appear very small when I use your visual style. Is this possible to fix?
- I haven't got a clue why this is happening. However, here's what you can do to "fix" this: Go into "Internet Options" and then click on the "Advanced" tab. Find the option called "Enable visual styles on buttons and controls in webpages" and disable this option.
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Comments: 249
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Hahaha nice!! Enjoy that 😃
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Still needing this for Windows 8.1
Watercolor themes were the best ever
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Thanks! 
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Just started my old XP hardrive to use your theme
Thanks for making such an awsome theme ^^
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Haha, that's pretty awesome! You're welcome!
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Beautiful theme...Too bad XP is so outdated or I would totally rock it on my desktop...
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Any chance that you could make something like this for Windows 8?
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I'm going to reply to you here on both comments, haha
I made these themes for Windows XP only. I did make a possible Windows 8 mockup before Windows 8 launched which you can check out here: jamush.deviantart.com/journal/…
That theme won't ever see the light of day for Windows 8, but that COULD change for Windows 10. But we'll have to see about that.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
Still using this gem on my windows xp computer and I would love if you would release a version for Windows 10
(Yes I am one of those that harrased you to release a Windows 7 versions, but now Im just praying for Windows 10
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
It's going to be a long time until Windows 10 is stable and available for everyone. Please make what you have in the mockup for Windows 8. You'd make me very happy. And I'm sure lots of people will appreciate it. It might well become the most used VS for Win8 as well, since there's nothing as neat as that.
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Not at all 
I wish I could say that I have enough time to work on that, but I simply don't unfortunately. And by the time that I do, Windows 10 will be right around the corner.
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PLEASE MAKE A VERSION FOR WINDOWS 8.1 OF THESE THEMES BUDDY!!
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IF I'd make a new version of this it would be for Windows 10. But I probably won't make a port because these themes are made specifically with Windows XP in mind.
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With Vista Icons and Aero Cursors looks Angelical, it's totally awesome <3<3
Will you do a Black Color Version? :3
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Thanks!
Sorry, but I won't be doing a black version. I released this original in 2009 so I can't even make XP visual styles anymore now that I'm running Windows 7. Also, the theme was intended to be released as it is without any color variations.
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It's more than just a concept though, it's an actual finished product
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Wow, this theme is surely what I'll install for now. I love how almost-but-not-square, 1px-sharp it looks!
But the only thing that could improve a bit for me would be the sidebar on explorer.
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Thanks! 
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Well, it's a matter of preference, but in any case I'm using it and loving it!
The only (minor) defect is that the scrollbar handle (the middle thingie) is slightly off the center diagonally.
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Could you give me a screenshot? As far as I know it's centered.
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Oh yes, here: [link]
It looks just slightly off-center, so I made the window smaller for it to be more obvious.
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Ah yeah, that. That's a bug that I can't do anything about. The margins are correct for normal windows. They the glyph goes off center when an app decides to do something with the scrollbars. Scrollbars with the default width look fine as far as I can tell. It might be something that I have overlooked, I don't know. I can't fix it anymore either since I don't use XP anymore
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Hm, that's unfortunate.
Since I'll be using XP a little while longer, I may try my hand at making a theme for it (hard to beat yours though!). Which makes me ask, which software did you use?
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I used SkinStudio XP, Reshack and Notepad. I used SkinStudio to put the images in the file and set the margins, change the colors for fonts and all that. I used Reshack where SkinStudio failed in editing the resource files etc. And I used Notepad to edit the XML files.
Good luck! I might port Novus over to Windows 8 since the Windows 8 theme looks a lot like the Watercolor theme. And since Novus is based off of the Watercolor theme as well, I might as well port it. Though it's going to be tough since I won't be installing Windows 8 on my actual machine but in a virtual machine, haha. I don't like Windows 8 at all.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Ah, thanks for the info. I had a hunch I'd need resource hacker
Lol, I can relate to not liking Windows 8. Is it any more "tweakable"? Maybe the problems it has can be fixed. If it runs at XP speeds it would be cool.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
It's not more tweakable than Windows 7 though you can still change visual styles etc. Windows 7 runs at XP speeds already to be honest
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Really? Because, my laptop is from Vista times and as soon as I uninstalled Vista and set up XP on it things started flying.
Vista and 7 look so much like each other I never upgraded again from my impression of Vista
And on Windows XP or modern Linux the system by itself rarely uses more than 150-200MB of RAM on idle... Vista used some 500MB and it's just too much.
I'm never sure about 7 because people's computers I see with 7 are usually hosed anyway.
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Well, 500MB shouldn't be a problem nowadays since a PC just needs more than 2 gigs of RAM. That's a simple fact.
Also, I don't know if you've been following Windows 7 since it's release, but it's LOADS better than Vista ever was. Windows 7 is perfect and their best OS to date, IMO. Vista and 7 do look like each other but the UI of an OS doesn't say everything. OSX had subtle changes the last few releases as well and each major update was actually a major step forward performance-wise. That's the same with Vista and 7.
Each iteration of Windows doesn't mean that the newer one will need better hardware than the previous one either. 7 runs a lot more smoother than Vista. And that last bit you said, that's just a user thing. Same thing with virusses on Windows. The people that get them are just screwing around without knowing exactly what they're doing. In my years of using a PC (since I was around 10 or something, now 24), I have only had 1 virus and that's because I was using the internet for the very first time on my own PC without a virusscanner. I have also never had any other major issues with any of my PC's. So yeah, that last bit is just a user thing and not something to do with Windows 7.
Also, remember how you have to install XP every now and than because the OS is slowed down and whatnot over a period of time? That's gone in Windows 7 as well. I have this install of Windows 7 for 2 years now. It's still as fast as the first day that I installed it.
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Hm, maybe I had a bad impression of 7 just because it looked like Vista.
In any case I have about one GB of RAM per machine and XP runs without a problem with several browser tabs, photoshop, other apps... (the same with Linux and its apps) I just wouldn't like to use a system that's slow as Vista was.
But I think I'll give Windows 7 a try next time I format my machine. I had tweaked XP internals in the past (and still do), so 7 should also be tweakable.
Thanks for telling me how is it for you
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Windows 7 is tweakable but IMO it needs less tweaking than XP. But that's just my opinion. 1 GB isn't recommended with Windows 7 though
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Gosh I adore Watercolor. Especially in the original Whistler form (which is sadly hadn't been ported to Win7 yet). This is awesome, thank you.
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Would I be really rude if I asked for permission to personally use Satukoro:s port of Novus? Ofc I'll come back once you release your version for windows 7
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Thank you for messaging me about this. I'm going to contact him with a request myself. I'll get back in contact with you ones he's answered me
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As it turns out he has lost his theme files in a laptop transfer. So there won't be a possibility for anyone to use his port any more.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Ah thats to sad
Oh well thanks for telling
(I wont try to pressure you into release your own version, but I will be happy if you happen to
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Satukoro told me that he's working on a new version. We'll see what comes of that
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