Thanks to explorerTool clashing with Fences, I had to try to find another solution to fix the unusable grey mess that is Windows 11 File Explorer.
So I tried to turn to WindowsBlinds to try to at least change the background of the app to black (since, unfortunately, Curtains no longer works. On Windows 10 I had this solved by selecting basic transparency, picking black and then setting the transparency values to 254)
All themes on WindowsBlinds are designed to make the OS look like something from 20 years ago. Which is not what I'm looking for.
And since we can't create a copy of the default theme to edit, I found the theme "SteamPowered" which does minimal changes to the core design. So I decided to mess around with the colours etc to try to bring it more in line with what I want.
Problem is, I'm facing an issue with text that simply remains black in some areas of the UI and I have no idea which values to change (since all the ones I find with "text" are already set to white). Here are two images of the vanilla grey version of Windows 11 File Explorer and the themed one with WindowsBlinds 11.
If anyone has any idea how to fix this, I'd appreciate the help.
Thanks.
Big Square: Looks like you need to change the System Color/Explorer Text:
Little square at the bottom: Looks like you need to change the Statusbar Text Color. That'll change it for all the statusbars, so you need to be sure it works with the Statusbar Background Image directly above it in SKS:
Thanks for your help.
Unfortunately, this didn't work. It applies to the names of folders and to the side panel text, but not to the titles of the groups when have "group by" enabled.
This didn't work either. My SSS doesn't even have the same UI as yours...
The only modifications that actually produce minimally usable results are the ones made through "modify style" in WindowsBlinds 11.
In fact, most edits in Skin Studio only mess everything up and never actually translates properly into changes on Windows 11 itself. Nothing in the UI reflects any UI of Windows 11, bar the taskbar.
Looks like you have SKS set to use "Section based view". The area I pointed you to would be here in that view and I believe it should change the text (The text that you're wanting to change reads "# items", right?):
If you want the more comprehensive tree view in SKS, use the command line command Tools/Preferences and select [Edit mode] "Tree mode with search"
I'm still looking around for something on the Group Headers. Do know that there are a few text categories in Explorer that will not change from black, I don't know if that's one of them - not a layout I use. I have found when using a dark color for the Explorer Background I'm better off using something like 40/40/40 or 60/60/60 instead of 0/0/0, that will allow those text areas to at least be somewhat legible.
And this could be the problem with the status bar text color - for that setting to be applied, an image needs to be defined on the Sub sections [Image] page. Is one defined there?
Sorry but I do believe the Group Headers are indeed locked at black. I could of course be wrong and anyone can feel free to correct me.
The weird thing is that, on the default Grey Theme, that text shows in white. So the themes are definitely affecting it in some way.
Yup. The theme brings an images defined there.
Yup, I found it. Option 2 was set to "Auto from light". But changing it to white didn't change anything. No change to that area seems to be reflected on W11 Explorer.
I will switch to the other view you pointed out to, though. It seems better organised and easier to navigate.
Just a tip: Sometimes when changing fonts and colours in SkinStudio, the changes don't apply. Apply another theme and then reapply the modified one sometimes work, but safest/best way for changes to take effect is to log off.
The text color setting for "Dark" in this section appears to be ignored. It does not appear to be specific to this skin. In Dark mode Explorer shows the text black, the couple of applications I checked continue to use the "Light" color. If you set WBConfig (or Window Personalize / Colors / Custom / App Mode) to "Light" the chosen color applies as it should.
I also noticed that if you look at the screenshot for the "SteamPowered" skin, both the Grouping Headers and the statusbar text is showing as black. Given the amount of effort he put into the skin I'd imagine he was stuck with that.
So, if you want to run in Dark Mode and be able to read those two areas, I'm afraid you're going to have to lighten the Explorer Background Color and the Statusbar Background Color some.
Did this experiment: put the custom Windows app colour in "light" -> applied the SSS theme (which sets it back to "dark"). The bottom items number text became white and, thus, visible.
However, the Grouping Headers remained unreadable. Even if I switch it back to "light". So the grouping settings must be hidden somewhere else.
I tried to tweak another theme and it seems to be happening in all of them. Windows 11's Explorer just changed the Grouping headers text to black for some reason and there's no tweaking I can find that fixes it. Which means I'm not going to achieve the very simple thing I wanted.
I have a feeling this would all be far easier if WindowsBlinds 11 was actually prepared to deal with Windows 11 and had a pre-installed Windows 11 theme we could tweak properly with SSS.
At this point I'll just take the hit on the waste of money that WindowsBlinds 11 was, uninstall it and go back to Windows 10 and Curtains. This is way too much work and way too many hours trying to fix Microsoft's shitty designs.
You're welcome. I can see where Curtains might be better suited for what it sounds like you're trying to accomplish.
You probably already know this, but I should mention it: Microsoft's support for Win10 ends in October of this year. I did see a while ago that Microsoft was intending to offer extended service contracts for Win10, I have not paid any further attention to that. There is another company which supplies extended support for expired Windows versions, members of this forum have had good luck with it:
https://0patch.com/
Feel free to search these forums for "0patch" if you'd like to read what has been said.
Yeah. I really just wanted to change the background of the File Explorer to black. With Curtains on Windows 10 I just had to pick "basic transparency", set the colour to black and then set the value to 254. Done.
Unfortunately there's no Curtains for Windows 11. And while I did try to install it in backwards compatibility mode, it doesn't work with the background of Explorer. It works if I wanted Windows Vista's Aero transparency (that Apple recently "invented") or if I wanted the background to be completely invisible. Otherwise setting values on the basic transparency did nothing. Shame.
I had the issue solved with explorerTool (from here https://github.com/Maplespe/explorerTool) but it was clashing with Fences and causing Explorer to render an MTweaker error (which explorerTool apparently uses).
So yeah. I ran out of options ahahaha
I'm now back on Windows 10. I know support ends in October but, honestly?, I don't care. Microsoft did extend support for an extra year if you use a Microsoft account with the PC (which I do). So they have until 2026 to fix the mess that is Windows 11 or push out Windows 12.
OR - which is what I'm hoping for - for the European Commission to step in and force them to extend support here in Europe.
I am aware of the folks at 0patch though, already have them in the backpocket should none of the above happen. As it is, moving to Windows 11 is not an option for me. I tried it...God knows I did.
Again, thanks for your help!
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