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Description

Hey all,

I've been working on these themes since last year. I redid 99% of the images in the .msstyles, and left the ones I didn't know alone. Lots of little details and hackish (but working) implementations... which 99% of it you won't notice (alignment, for instance). I'm not satisfied with it yet, but I figured I might as well upload them for you guys who are still enjoying Windows Vista (me included). Windows 7 is supposed to be released soon, and I will likely upgrade and update the theme whenever I get the time to.

Remember that this theme is in the BETA phase. Only two others have used it, and neither reported anything back to me, so I suppose it works well enough? I played around with lots of apps while using this theme to ensure that the theme doesn't break the usability of your programs -- pleased to say that it worked well with all my programs!

INFO & DOWNLOAD

Clearscreen Round is the darker and rounder version of Clearscreen Sharp.

This is the first of three themes.

* You can download all the versions in one easy link: *Uploading

* Or download the currently viewed theme by clicking "Download" to your top left.

--

Installation: Check out this great guide at WinMatrix -> [link]

You can also apply the themes without messing with any of your files by downloading StyleSelector (32-bit OS only), AveStyler (Shareware), Tuneup Utilities 2009 (Shareware), or UXStyle (Free & Shareware).

BUGS

You can go ahead and report any bugs you find -- I already know of a few but haven't figured up a solution for them, yet. The main issue is that many of the text colors and images are shared, so altering one will often screw with the other. It becomes a game of whac-a-mole. Except that it's all tedious, and no fun.

Known Bugs

Resource Monitor shares with the titlebar text color (white) -- becomes difficult to read on the gray gradient it sits on. This will have to be fixed outside the theme by hacking the Resource Monitor (maybe hexing the gradient or replacing the image)... wouldn't know where to look.

PERSONAL NOTE

This is not a 'designer' theme. I wanted this theme to be usable, functional and accessible. I had originally started doing the *.dll mods but it became very time consuming and confusing for me -- if you would like to help me on this part, please send me a message! I will credit you here Anyway, I omitted the *.dll which is why the navigation and shutdown buttons are the same (they are located in another DLL file), but would like to continue on these parts.

Thanks to: PandaX, Ave, ~ZEUSosX , =Satukoro , ~sweatyfish , ~invaderjohn , and anyone else I missed.

/etc: I used Photoshop CS3 and Vista Style Builder to create these themes.

CHANGELOG

V3.5 (MORE BUG FIXES & POLISHING):

[Sharp/Round/Basic] Swapped solid bordering on buttons with transparent ones
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed text clipping in menu's for longer/wide-character languages (like Chinese)
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed text clipping in Windows Security Center
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed text clipping with Toolbar button text
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed CommandLink button to retain fidelity on its bottom edge when stretched vertically
[Round/Basic] Fixed gradient banding on the gloss of the Start menu & Taskbar on clsRound and clsBasic, much thanks to ~sweatyfish
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed unreadable Help window and Alternate Toolbar area ([link] ) to match the other toolbars for a consistent look
[Round/Basic] Aligned group menu icons with the icon on the grouped taskbar button
[Sharp/Basic] Added matching vertical progressbars
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed x64 graphical glitches (seperator, indeterminate progress bar, explorer navigation pane, disabled button, commandlink)!

Hopefully these are the last of the major bugs. Perfection and compatability with everything is an impossible task with custom msstyles on Vista, but I want to get as close to it as possible! The reason why it is impossible: Some programs use their own code along with code pulled from the msstyles -- that can spawn problems as the programmer created the program to work with the default Vista Aero theme. Also, because Vista msstyles does a lot of sharing with global properties. I had to implement many properties in many different parts and states for custom styling! xD So let's hope this version goes smoothly so we can get some variations going for V4!

V3 (BUG FIXES & POLISHING):

[Sharp] Fixed Breadcrumb bar vertical seperators to match Round (how it was originally supposed to be)
[Sharp] Changed TreeItem hot state to match the sharp corners of others
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Redid Scrollbars for better contrast, redid slider trackbars for a sharper look.
[Sharp] Changed Padded Border Width to 1 from 0 to prevent dialog window frames from breaking.
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Placeslist images reworked (truesize value now set to stretched to fit other languages with more/wider characters)
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed taskbar 1px bottom row of inactivity
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed start menu program name clipping
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Made Folderband/Communications/Media/Toolbar buttons transparent -- Help menu now visible
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Recolored indeterminate progress bar to match normal progressbar and saved as 32-bit PNG
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Centered Scrollbar Gripper on bottom scrollbar
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Darkened disabled checkboxes and radio buttons a bit
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Made flashing taskbar window button's orange glow more vibrant
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Made transparent tab area solid -- no more black gaps in some apps in the filter sort
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Changed contentmargins to fit the icons within the addressbar and searchbar (seen in FireFox default skin), thanks to Sweatyfish

V2:

- No more third party theme changer needed (hopefully)!
- Packed in "No Folderband Autohide" shellstyle

COMING SOON

- Smaller Taskbar (Next Version)
- Optional Full Transparency on Maximize (Next Version)
- Userpicture Option (Next Version)
- ... and eventually Windows 7 port

Clearscreen Basic (currently viewing)
Clearscreen Sharp
Clearscreen Round

Description

Hey all,

I've been working on these themes since last year. I redid 99% of the images in the .msstyles, and left the ones I didn't know alone. Lots of little details and hackish (but working) implementations... which 99% of it you won't notice (alignment, for instance). I'm not satisfied with it yet, but I figured I might as well upload them for you guys who are still enjoying Windows Vista (me included). Windows 7 is supposed to be released soon, and I will likely upgrade and update the theme whenever I get the time to.

Remember that this theme is in the BETA phase. Only two others have used it, and neither reported anything back to me, so I suppose it works well enough? I played around with lots of apps while using this theme to ensure that the theme doesn't break the usability of your programs -- pleased to say that it worked well with all my programs!

INFO & DOWNLOAD

Clearscreen Round is the darker and rounder version of Clearscreen Sharp.

This is the first of three themes.

* You can download all the versions in one easy link: *Uploading

* Or download the currently viewed theme by clicking "Download" to your top left.

--

Installation: Check out this great guide at WinMatrix -> [link]

You can also apply the themes without messing with any of your files by downloading StyleSelector (32-bit OS only), AveStyler (Shareware), Tuneup Utilities 2009 (Shareware), or UXStyle (Free & Shareware).

BUGS

You can go ahead and report any bugs you find -- I already know of a few but haven't figured up a solution for them, yet. The main issue is that many of the text colors and images are shared, so altering one will often screw with the other. It becomes a game of whac-a-mole. Except that it's all tedious, and no fun.

Known Bugs

Resource Monitor shares with the titlebar text color (white) -- becomes difficult to read on the gray gradient it sits on. This will have to be fixed outside the theme by hacking the Resource Monitor (maybe hexing the gradient or replacing the image)... wouldn't know where to look.

PERSONAL NOTE

This is not a 'designer' theme. I wanted this theme to be usable, functional and accessible. I had originally started doing the *.dll mods but it became very time consuming and confusing for me -- if you would like to help me on this part, please send me a message! I will credit you here Anyway, I omitted the *.dll which is why the navigation and shutdown buttons are the same (they are located in another DLL file), but would like to continue on these parts.

Thanks to: PandaX, Ave, ~ZEUSosX , =Satukoro , ~sweatyfish , ~invaderjohn , and anyone else I missed.

/etc: I used Photoshop CS3 and Vista Style Builder to create these themes.

CHANGELOG

V3.5 (MORE BUG FIXES & POLISHING):

[Sharp/Round/Basic] Swapped solid bordering on buttons with transparent ones
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed text clipping in menu's for longer/wide-character languages (like Chinese)
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed text clipping in Windows Security Center
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed text clipping with Toolbar button text
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed CommandLink button to retain fidelity on its bottom edge when stretched vertically
[Round/Basic] Fixed gradient banding on the gloss of the Start menu & Taskbar on clsRound and clsBasic, much thanks to ~sweatyfish
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed unreadable Help window and Alternate Toolbar area ([link] ) to match the other toolbars for a consistent look
[Round/Basic] Aligned group menu icons with the icon on the grouped taskbar button
[Sharp/Basic] Added matching vertical progressbars
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed x64 graphical glitches (seperator, indeterminate progress bar, explorer navigation pane, disabled button, commandlink)!

Hopefully these are the last of the major bugs. Perfection and compatability with everything is an impossible task with custom msstyles on Vista, but I want to get as close to it as possible! The reason why it is impossible: Some programs use their own code along with code pulled from the msstyles -- that can spawn problems as the programmer created the program to work with the default Vista Aero theme. Also, because Vista msstyles does a lot of sharing with global properties. I had to implement many properties in many different parts and states for custom styling! xD So let's hope this version goes smoothly so we can get some variations going for V4!

V3 (BUG FIXES & POLISHING):

[Sharp] Fixed Breadcrumb bar vertical seperators to match Round (how it was originally supposed to be)
[Sharp] Changed TreeItem hot state to match the sharp corners of others
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Redid Scrollbars for better contrast, redid slider trackbars for a sharper look.
[Sharp] Changed Padded Border Width to 1 from 0 to prevent dialog window frames from breaking.
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Placeslist images reworked (truesize value now set to stretched to fit other languages with more/wider characters)
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed taskbar 1px bottom row of inactivity
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Fixed start menu program name clipping
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Made Folderband/Communications/Media/Toolbar buttons transparent -- Help menu now visible
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Recolored indeterminate progress bar to match normal progressbar and saved as 32-bit PNG
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Centered Scrollbar Gripper on bottom scrollbar
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Darkened disabled checkboxes and radio buttons a bit
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Made flashing taskbar window button's orange glow more vibrant
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Made transparent tab area solid -- no more black gaps in some apps in the filter sort
[Sharp/Round/Basic] Changed contentmargins to fit the icons within the addressbar and searchbar (seen in FireFox default skin), thanks to Sweatyfish

V2:

- No more third party theme changer needed (hopefully)!
- Packed in "No Folderband Autohide" shellstyle

COMING SOON

- Smaller Taskbar (Next Version)
- Optional Full Transparency on Maximize (Next Version)
- Userpicture Option (Next Version)
- ... and eventually Windows 7 port

Clearscreen Basic (currently viewing)
Clearscreen Sharp
Clearscreen Round