Hello everyone! I am new to this whole skinning Windows and using custom themes thing. So far Windows Blinds seems really cool. I just have one issue that is really bugging me.
Text colors.
Some of the themes change my taskbar and application pulldown menus to colors that are almost identical to the text colors. I've played around with the options in Windows Blinds under the colors tab and change skin system colors. I was able to track down the menu and menu text items to adjust the background and text colors of my Desktop toolbar menu but I can not for the life of me find where to adjust the color of the text on the taskbar itself.
Also some of the text on the pulldown menus in IE is white but some of it is black and doesn't appear until I hover the mouse pointer over it. I can not locate this text in the list of items under change skin system colors.
Are there some items that can only be changed within Windows itself?
Any help anyone can give a noob is much appreciated.
I think that the text color for the taskbar buttons can only be changed in Skin Studio. Likewise for the IE pulldown menus...with IE 8, however, you cannot actually change any of the colors or skin that menu....it is not possible at this time. The text color for the text in the drop down IE menu(from the menu bar at the top of the window, not the one that is next to the IE tabs) is derived from the start panel pop up menu, and that can only be changed through Skin Studio. As far as the Favorites Menu that is next to the IE tabs, the text colors are derived from different areas of the system colors...and those colors affect other places in the skin, and should only be done in Skin Studio...and even with that, it is almost impossibe to get the text to look like you want it to....this is one area of the blind that us skinners hate with a passion!
Thanks for the reply. I'm leaning heavily towards getting the full-blown Object Desktop software. Just have to justiy the $50 purchase to the wife...
I just don't understand why pretty much every skin I try, the pull down menus (Print, Page, Etc.) for any internet browser I use, (IE or Google Chrome) are black and the text is unreadable until you mouse over the selection. This is a huge problem I can't believe hasn't been addressed.
those particular menus need to be a light color as the text colors appear to hardwired by the os and they also appear to have a shadow. it is real frustrating when attempting to do a dark blind. I'm not sure that this issue can be addressed through SKS. it's a work around.
Those menu colors and text are derived from the start menu pop up menus colors. We don't have the ability to directly skin them in IE 8 as we did with earlier versions of IE. Microsoft has those areas hard coded into the browser. The workaround is to make sure that the start menu pop up menu is a light color, because that is where the color of those menus come from. And the text colors come from that same menu. The only thing that we can skin in those menus is the mouseover. And, like I said above, that can only be done in Skin Studio.
jazzy, I have that issue with other programs as well, not just IE.
Also, what IE are you on and what OS?
I'm running IE 8 and Windows Vista Home eddition.
I'm currently running the Tron Legacy Windows Blind. https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/all/search/Tron+Legacy
The Home, Print, Page and other pull down menus on the right side of IE have a black background and none of the options in the menu can be seen until you mouse over and then the custom graphic and text is visible. It also appears to have a graphical background for my Quick Launch and Desktop toolbars which is then covered by a solid black background with the text on top.
Several other skins (such as the skins that come with Windows Blinds) have light back grounds to these menus and the text is visible.
I guess what I'm looking for is a master list of what each of these elements is called. When I go to Change Skin System Colors (still using the Tron skin as an example) and I wanted to change the start menu background, there's nothing in the list that says "Sytem Color: Start Menu." There is one that says "System Color: Menu" which through trial and error I have figured out changes Toolbar menu background colors. So is the Start Menu one of the many items named "System Color (folowed by a number)" I can't realisitcally go through each item, change the color, apply the change and check to see if it changed what I wanted to change.
Thanks again for the replies.
Well, here's a quick folow up. Apparently in the Tron Legacy skin, changing the System Color: Menu value changes the toolbar menu color AND the color of the pull down menus in IE. And even more odd, it changed the color but not to the color I selected.
I could swear on another skin it only changed toolbar menus.
So let me ask another question. Do the names of those items vary from skin to skin depending on the skin creator or are they standard from skin to skin?
hope this answers that; the file name can be anything, there a few exceptions, however the identifier will always be the same. the "taskbar" will be the taskbar but you could name the file just about anything. most people stay with the sks convention for names but....
If you want to change the text color on the taskbar buttons, it's pretty easy, but you do need SkinStudio (the free version will work). Open up the skin > Start Menu and Taskbar > Horizontal taskbar (or vertical if that's what you're using) > Buttons > Text tab > there's a dropdown for each button state (normal, pressed, etc) and you'll need to select a new color for each state.
Some skinners name their colors/fonts according to what section they're used in, some just leave them unnamed (wish they all named them using the first method).
There are places to change the color of fonts other than the System Defined or Skin Defined Colors section in SKS. You would have to brouse to that section in SKS and change it for that part, like in Bebi's example.
The best way to get the colors you want for text colors, etc., is to do it through Skin Studio...that way you would have better control over the colors. Doing it through Windowblinds will not always give you what you are looking for, as you have already discovered. In order to change the color of the start menu itself, you could use the colors tab in Windowblinds config ...but that would change the color of the skin globally, not just the start menu. The only other way to change the start menu color is to open the skin in Skin Studio, navigate to the Start Menu Section, find the pieces of the start menu, open those in a graphics program, change the color, then re-import those pieces into Skin Studio. It is a pain in the butt to do, but there is no other way to do that. Now, you are learning what us skinners go through when making blinds!
LOL! I'm one of the guilty parties....I do name my main fonts the actual name of the font, and any special fonts I use I name them for where they are used. However, I generally just number my colors...it just works better for me.
i'm pretty sure that not all text colors are changeable, I sort of, kind of remember that these pull down menus mouseover default to white but can be changed to black by removing the mouseover graphic, reappling the skin and then reinstating the mouseover, but then you're stuck with black.
I looked for a post where I had asked the same question but it has long been gone, back in my XP days, if this has been changed with win7 or the newest versions of SKS/WB, I'm not aware of it, cause it still impacts my work.
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