HOME | DD
K-Johnson —
Clearscreen Sharp for Windows7
by-nc-nd
Published: 2009-10-25 01:51:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 941492; Favourites: 1946; Downloads: 218437
Redirect to original
Description
THANKS fediaFedia FOR THE DAILY DEVIATION and I'm glad that people out there still enjoy using this theme!
)--
Note: For current news regarding Clearscreen Sharp for Windows 7, please view: [link]
--
Hi all,
Here is the Clearscreen port for Windows 7. Much has been polished and much had to be redone, thus some things have been changed -- some compromises here as Windows 7 shares even more resources between different parts of the theme. So expect some details to be lost (like the etched look on the group sorting headers -- Windows 7 ignores the property and only allows a 1px height for the seperator), or the unique "New Application" button state for the Start Menu (that image is shared and grossly distorted in another area), amongst other things.
You may be wondering where the navigation buttons and other resources are -- I am having trouble replacing my resources in System32. Replacing Explorer.exe works fine, but as soon as I replace a .dll file, things go to crap. I had to repair my OS 8 times yesterday and don't feel like having another go for a while. I'm taking the same steps as I had on Vista x64, and I had no problem on Vista, so this is very strange. Any help is appreciated
I am working on Clearscreen Round, which shouldn't take as long, as the base that these two themes share is now complete. Won't give an ETA; it'll be done when it's done.
Known Bugs / Limitations:
- Because of the nonstandard frame and padding size (both set to 1) of this theme, you may see the frames distort in some areas... unfortunately, there's not much I can do there as Vista's default Aero also has problems when scaling it down to this size; fidelity of the edges and corners are lost. [limitation]
- Aero Wizard dialog uses the bodytext color property (which is set to black in my theme) for the titlebar text for whatever reason (coding laziness?) -- basically, black text on black shadow == difficult to read... [limitation]
Volume mixer line goes a few pixels too far -- this is because the padding size is low, which allows for more vertical and horizontal space, allowing the vertical seperator to come into view and cross the horizontal volume mixer line. [limitation]- Resource Monitor accordion text color is white and sits on a light gray background. [limitation]
- Start Menu may show up blurless near the top when you first open it, but it fixes afterwards. This is because DWM assumes that there is a solid graphic there like in the default Aero, so it doesn't blur it. Unfortunately, there is an intentional gap up there to fit the style, and I don't want to change it. It's not a big problem, but a minor annoyance for some.
Updates
- Fixed x86 white/blank graphic bug (Systray, IE8 Search)...again.
v3.2 (November 1, 2009):
- Fixed Start Menu's Userpic in Top Superbar orientation.
- Revisted the Superbar Thumbnails section, still not sure about it, but I think it looks better than it did.
- Improved Start Menu blurless area limitation (seen when you first open it, DWM fixes it afterwards) by expanding the white area (Programslist) horizontally to cover it. I can't fix the top part, unfortunately, or that would mean that there will be no gap up there, and I like the gap
- Removed Fading Animation in Explorer Documents section/template. It was an experimentation that I forgot to remove.
- Fixed Vertical taskbar graphics to stretch proportionately
v3.1 (October 31, 2009): Bug fixes & Polishing
- Fixed x86 white/blank graphic bug (Systray, IE8 Search)
- Fixed SIZINGMARGIN property for progress bar left and right edge -- edge retains fidelity when progress bar is stretched or shrunken.
v3 (October 30, 2009):
- Fixed Treeview bug (Seen in CCleaner, Regedit)
- Fixed Start Menu panels from distorting in Large Icons mode
- Fixed Shadowless frames (left and right) to match top and bottom frames
- Optimized frames for current padding/sizing border (1)
- Added a bit more contrast to highlighted text (highlighted text now set to #000000; highlight fill = #CDCDCD)
- Fixed Disabled SplitButton Dropdown graphic
- Updated Explorer.exe to current version [6.1.7600.16404] (x86 & x64) -- thanks to ~drake04 !
- Fixed Large Icons view in Start Menu from distorting the menu panels.
v2.5 (October 26, 2009):
v2 (October 25, 2009):
FAQ
- Q: Where can I get the green wallpaper in the preview?
A: Sorry, that isn't a wallpaper. It is a background made for presentation purposes. Maybe when I have the time I can create a wallpaper like it. - Q: What about the ones in Explorer? Where can I get those wallpapers?
A: I do not remember where I got them from, so out of respect to the authors I won't share them.
I think the ones in the preview came from Flickr. You may be able to find them in some of my favorite photographers galleries and shrink them down to your resolution yourself:
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]
Q: Are you going to make a large triangular Start button?
A: Sure, when I get the time. The reason for its current absence is because the triangular Start button is shared in all four Superbar orientations.
Q: Help! I can't make out the text in X program!
A: Programs that rely on their own graphics or font colors along with resources from the theme (colors, font, images) for their GUI will often have usability issues (black font on black background, for example). This is unfortunately out of my hands. Programmers design their program around the default Aero theme as that's what the overwhelming majority would use.
Related content
Comments: 708
Hey mate, Ive got a question
Im running win7 x64 and I was wondering if I need to replace the explorer.exe to make it work?
Other than that, am I right in assume all i gotta do is put the clsSharp folder in Windows/Resources?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
wow! This is the best theme i have ever had looks great! Thanks so much!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hi, I was wondering if in the future you could include the bitmap form of the start buttons in the download pack. Now that the Start Orb Changer - [link] - works, it's more convenient than trying to replace explorer.exe (even with the Take Ownership Tool - [link] ).
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Can I extract the user picture frame that your provided in the explorer.exe file for my tool with your credit?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
that looks very very good
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Man, I love this theme!! I can't wait for a round version
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Is there a guide on how to install this.
Thanks
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is amazing. I love this skin. Just today though when I booted up my machine my windows theme reverted to the Classic theme. Northing happens when I try to reactivate Clearscreen either. Anyone have any ideas on what might be wrong or how to fix it?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
After using this theme for some time, I like everything about it BUT the taskbar. Seems it could be softer. It just doesn't look right.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
one of my fav theme in win7
keep up the good work. ill be waiting for the rounded version
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is REALLY nice. Very simple, sharp and well done. I am happy to have found this.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Looks like the buttons of Air Glow Final too. Nice work.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I have 2 favorites themes for Windows 7 
/Rechain
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I find myself keep coming back to this theme, simply because it is the clearest I have used.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
holly hell.........i didn't like it at all!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you for sharing this cool theme, i love your creations.. [link]
Keep up the good work..
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
~edge0275
I've installed it through TuneUp and worked just fine. But if you want to tweak the Start Orb and Start Menu you have to replace your explorer.exe with the one that comes with the theme, and TuneUp can't do this for you.
~K-Johnson
Congrats for such beautiful, stylish and clean themes! Are you planning on porting the cls.Round to Win7 as well? That would be great!
Greetings from Brazil.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
~edge0275
And yes, it does work fine with W7 x64, that's my OS. It's OK to replace the explorer.exe too, you just have to take ownership of the file and change the permissions.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
does this work fine on W7 x64? and work on tune up utilities?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I love the round version of this theme... I hope you are working on Clearscreen Round for 7
if you are i really cant wait!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Great theme, mate, I just have one request: Is it possible to make the start button in small icon mode the same as the start button for ClearScreen in Vista?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hey Thanks Alot everything looks nice but, the start button never changed ??? What do I do???
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
To change the start button you'll have to replace explorer.exe
If you don't know what you're doing, either let someone who does know what he's doing do it for you, or just don't do it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
A real stupid question to ask here, pal. How can I use the theme? Just double click it or do I need some other software/s to do something to my theme first? I'm confused, please help. Thanks.
Can't wait to use this amazing theme.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Find a 'uxtheme' patch. Apply the patch then place this skin in c:\windows\resources or something similar to that
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
What about the explorer.exe which is also included within the .zip file?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Lovely theme, 3 gripes of mine though:
1: While active explorer.exe crashes every 2 hours or so, Win7x64 Ultimate, while using the stock theme explorer doesn't crash, turn on clearscreen again and it does, no idea if this is unique to me or not.
2: The black text shadow of the titlebar text is a huge dark blob, make it more transparent and lower radius to make it outline the text instead of making it an opaque blob behind the text.
3: The top right window controls look awesome (would be a bit cleaner without a divider between each control), but the active state (clicked) is a bit lame, just a small square, make it wider and make it a colored effect, the x should have a red fuzzy color blob, not sure what the other 2 should have, yellow? green?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Please, Please, K-Johnson post link Orb Style (.bmp) please
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Great theme! Just wanted to know, how did you make the small taskbar so small? what settings in VSB did you use? i can't seem to achieve a taskbar that small without problems. Could it be that im using VSB 1.4? and not 1.5?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Totally love this theme. I remember trying this several months back. But, I had moved on due to the white patch on the system tray. Glad that it has now been fixed.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
<= Prev | | Next =>