Aqua-Soft ForumsWindowBlinds 4.5 includes the new ability to change the color of visual styles through hue shifting along with modifying the brightness and saturation of the visual style. It also includes the ability to have alpha blended Start menus and standard menus which enable users to have semi-transparent pieces to those parts of Windows XP and eliminates the "jagged" look around the edges of the interface.
[ann] WindowBlinds 4.5
yeah stardock has just released version 4.5.
thanks to you. i am now using it now. very nice there's additional graphics in the menu.
i am very happy for having this apps on the day of the release. woooohhhh.
The alpha blended start menu's etc are a nice touch. Hopefully they will be widely used so the effect can be adopted to the other areas WB can skin.
I dont see no option to that effect.. to enable the alphablending on the start menu..
Does the skin need to support that feature? Or can the feature be applied to older skins too
the skin will need to support that feature of course.
Thx for info!! I'm using it now but I can see only few changes! But can't find alpha blending either!
Thx for info!! I'm using it now but I can see only few changes! But can't find alpha blending either!
Bz already answered that question...
Does the alpha-channel ability extend past the start menu (to ie; titlebar corners)?
Welll I downloaded both the skin studio update and windowblinds 4.5 this morning. Been working on samui some... AlphaBlending seems to work okay so far. The start menu can be blended no problem but the other menus seem to really only blend the corners well... but I am still testing.
@sexxi... The corners cant be blended yet for the window pieces but this is a precursor to that. I imagine that if things to well with this then they will at .tga support for the other window components.
One of the best things about this new version though is the on the fly skin coloring. It works amazingly good... allowing you to change any skins color simply. (somatic anyone?)
anyhow... this release shows promise but will hopefully get even better soon.
Bz already answered that question...
Yes but you might noticed that we've sent our post in almost same time... Thats the reason why my post stands after BZ's
any pic with that new feature running? (and showing how much memory consumes?)
currently using 1,100 k.... ill upload a picture later.
One of the skins included with this new release takes advantage of the alphablending.... Pearlescent I think is the name.
I believe Stardock has said that assume this goes well, they will work in more and more alphablending of other parts of the interface.
Once it's in the titlebars that'll be great. I don't use explorer at all here. I run objectbar, RK Dock, etc. over a Litestep setup with no visual modules except to put a shadow under my menubar.
Doesn't anyone else find it odd that Stardock is touting how great Alpha-blending on the start menu is but they don't have any screenshots? Lame...
Doesn't anyone else find it odd that Stardock is touting how great Alpha-blending on the start menu is but they don't have any screenshots? Lame...
Probably because it's buggy at this stage. At least for me it is. It's hit or miss on whether it alphablends without any artifacts when hovering the alphablended parts.
Chris
Global hooks are not for production use.
Global hooks are evil.
Global hooks are poor craftmanship.
Especially the middle phrase should be the "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse deleandam." of the 21st century.
Modified a few skins to alpha blended menu's etc and it seems to work fine, no real problems thus far.
What I find odd is the alpha-blended menu's. Unless you make the colour of the main window, different to the menus, then you wouldn't know it is blended. But in doing so makes the menu's hard to use.
Trouble with having the menu's attached to every window unlike Mac's where the effect works well.
Oh yeah, turning on HyperPaint helps the alphablending quite a bit.