[request] Mac OS X with translucency [WB]

Bear with me here. =)

Basically, what I'd love to see is an Tiger-based WB theme with elements of both the new WB5 translucency and the unified titlebar/window. The unified is less important.

I like the new Aero look pretty well, but for one thing, it's dark (especially the taskbar), and the "start" button is incredibly ugly (looks like a bad mockup drawing). It'd be wonderful to see the aqua design (which already has scrollbars, for example, that have a translucent look to them) carried through with these new capabilities.

OK, so more specifically, it'd be awesome if someone could do a theme in which the titlebar had the OS X buttons (complete with glow effects), but wasn't solid. It would be interesting to try something in which the active window was a translucent blue like the current scroll bars, but the inactive windows were translucent white or gray. The task bar would look good if it were a basic modification of what it is now, with translucency highlighting its convex shape.

I've tried so many different WB themes now, but I keep coming back to the unsurpassed Mac OS X Tiger...now that there are finally possibilities that went unexplored in that style, I'd love to see them added (tastefully) to make something that would hopefully surpass OS X in terms of being the pinnacle of smooth, yet gorgeous UI.

Does anyone agree?

#323945

Yes, but considerign that WB5 hasn't been released publicly, I don't think there will be one for a while.

Wait 3 months then ask again

BTW, WB5 will be great for vista skins

~Wuzzie

#324051

BTW, WB5 will be great for vista skins

~Wuzzie

I know, but like I said, I don't like the Vista style. =)

Still, most developers, you would think, would have WB5 beta by now.

Either way, I'll make sure I ask again in 3 months. =)

#324155

Bull**** it'll be good for Vista skins.

All the people who are making skins are making glass that is way too transparent to use.

Unless they add blur or something else along those lines, the vista style is screwed.

I'd port a mac theme over to WB5 but I don't have the version of skinstudio that is compatible with it.

#327277

AFAIK, using alpha blended frame (window borders) will not allow us to have left sided glyphs at least with the current version of WB5 and skinstudio :(

#327280

damn it - one step closer, two steps further away..... but it is only beta.

#329035

Stardock already said they are "Left Side Only" And no rollup! It really sucks

#329041

Rollup works on WB5 beta...does for me anyway. Where did they say that there would be no left side glyphs?

#329513

Now that WB5 has been officially released, can anyone update us on the matter? As many people know we have some very talented artists here at Aqua-Soft, and I think being this IS Aqua soft, a proper Tiger theme should our point of attention. Aqua is still a beautiful theme. It's like The Beatles or Bob Dylan, no matter what stage in life your personal tastes have taken you, can always go back to it and enjoy it without complaining.

#335439

Hello, I would like to know if there is another way to update the top frames to the so called pixel perfect other than the beta of skin studio... in other words, can I make a new tga to replace to pixelated one? or do we need skinstdio for that?

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Julieta, Italian Girl Power

#335607

we can have right sided glyphs with the official release. However, the buttons won't have any connection whatsoever to each other, which means 3 buttons highlighted a la Mac will not be available if we use alpha blended border :(

Also, there will be no rollup for alpha blended border either. :confused:

#335700

For the question above, I've tried to edit the targa images, opening them, going to channels and editing, then saving as a 320bit tga. I've also just created images from scratch with transparency, saving them also as 32-bit tga's. In both instances, the transparency is not preserved when I try to apply the theme.

If anyone knows how to create new transparent images and save them sffectively, or how to edit the old ones, without using skinstudio, I'd be very happy to find out.

I don't have objectdesktop, only windowblinds5, so I can't get the version of skinstudio that supports the alpha transparency in the titlebars.

#335726

you should enable translucency when using tga, this can be done with skinstudio.

#335728

@duyvan82, in other words, without skinstudio is not possible.

I obtained the same result as Mr.monkey...

What does translucency does to an image??

Can you apply that "translucency" to a tga using other apps?

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Julieta, Italian Girl Power

#335747

@Julieta: I believe so, basically it tells Windowblinds that an image has transparency (real transparency, not the magic pink thingie). AFAIK Skinstudio is the only choice if you're to edit a WB skin, although I've heard you could possibly edit a WB skin with a text editor too, which i never try :P

#335760