then adjust the contenmargins of NSC-Host, too

indeed it makes no sense, but you know the best:

the more you dive into the UI-structure of Windows, the more you see, how inconsequent the Msstyle parts are taken for several UI parts.

additionally, it's confusing, how much leftovers of older windows versions in these structures are
(vertical previewpanes and so on, that made it even possible to reactivate multicolor previewpanes like longhorn/older vista beta builds.., they never removed it)

or how crazy UI-Parts are defined (like your example or just check the command-bar of the XPS-Document viewer, with some VS it looks weird, but the themers didn't make a mistake)

the drawing of placeslist pane (not placeslist extended) is strange indeed.
it seems, it gets drawn twice..

so some margins don't work correctly (i've experineced it with a gradient glow line on top of the pane, which gets aligned to right, and not as the margins described it)

in original Aero this shadow is cut in two parts (left part is in programslist pane and right part is in placeslist part - but just on extended panes)

maybe you put the shadow in right part of programslist pane and not in the left part of placeslist pane and adjust the contentmargins, so it should work like you wanna have it.

when i remeber correctly, firefox has an own Textglow setting independent from msstyle.

or the strata skin at least..

nice idea, but i'm sure it also has to be modified in Shell32.dll (as the multicolor folderband) to get it working as rajtheeban mentioned.

Little Off-Topic: i tried to enlarge the height of the library-pane in shellstyle but it did only work in Open/Save Dialog with the settings only in shellstyle.txt.

didn't check it, but maybe defaultpanesize:rect settings to 0,0,0,0 helps?

This one helped with eliminating the OpenBox for realizing the Leftside transparency-blur (image etc has still to be in the sub-class)

2. in 7 the textcolor changes on selected (not hot) state. settings are in explorerframe.dll >MUI
so maybe you have luck when checking the browsui.dll MUI-file

3. shellstyle previewpane works.. not the listview-background..
also here a view in browseui.dll might be the way..

you can only set some imagecounts to 1 when there are no active/inactive subclasses, like in Scrollbars, Pushbuttons or something...

The Aero Frames are in the Stream image, WSB separates them for editing purposes.

these parts are kind of hardcoded and follow some other principles..
For example these AeroFrameImages (as the captionbuttons,too) need an 1px frame in resource, which isn't displayed

in Windows and Caption Buttons > Aero > Dwm Window > Frames > ToolWindow the left and right side are interchanged..

in Aero-Peek the Tool Window sides are correct..

it should be the one in Explorer & Shell > Shell > AeroWizard > TitleBar

keep an eye to the inactive sub-folder, too...

indeed 

in shellstyle.txt the "searchlayoutstyle" Background is a gradient with this Color..

i understand that you're getting kind of frustrated because no one replies..

but you are the one here in this forum, who is as deep in system-resources as no one else..

most modify msstyle, some explorerframe and some less maybe shell32..

we learn a lot from you and are very thankful, but you are already at some place where we all will never come :-)

When Shift-Import doesn't help, i guess it has something to do with some other settings (contentmargins or bool), which cause to break the Blur of one side of startmenu.

Unfortunately your preview doesn't show, if your Startmenu has transparency and which side is affected (i guess the left one).

So what do you two think about what hjyknight did?

yes, i can see in his preview, that he's added an image, but not in the navigation part..
however, i don't know why and how he reactivated the Folder-Expand button..
but it seems, that he has this "random color bug" in the (lower) navigation part, too

anyway, my theory is, that there is some yet unknown place where that navigation-pane is described more detailed..
i'm really sure, it's not completely in the shellstyle.uifile.1.txt

Theory: If you were to add a blank element in between the background and the foreground that had an image it might display properly. It probably won't have a good chance of working but it might.

hmm, don't really understand how to..

in this screenshot you can see that the added gradient in shellstyle as described above is under the solid pane (a very close look shows it on the left and right at the red arrows)
Additionally it might be helpful, that the textcolors and the ListItem in this Pane are set in

Explorer & Shell > Explorer > TreeView > TreeItem

and there is no link to it in shellstyle.dll, shell32.dll nor Explorerframe.dll (for example the ItemsView ListItems are in Explorerframe.dll)

so it must be somewhere else..

At last i guess, most of the ProperTree-Section in shellstyle.dll is not used anymore, it still has the vista-syntax with the ProperTreeExpandoButton etc, which are gone in 7.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I've been everywhere with trying to add images/gradients to the navi pane. Never got anywhere. With images it just shows a random color and gradients only take the first color. I just gave up trying to get it to work. If I recall correctly the list view in Vista did the same thing, but now in 7 it takes images.

Thanks for trying to help..
i've experienced the same, what you described.

the only thing just have to say is, as i tried to add the gradient in ListItems-part by adding the gradient in shellstyle.uifile, it only took the first gradient color, too.
at last, mr.grim's image in one of his themes led me the way, that it is in explorerframe..
maybe we'll find the right resource for the navigation-pane.

i tried to add a gradient to the navigation pane.. didn't work yet..

first i added a gradient from the readingpane-class to the ItemsView background by changing the 40960 in explorerframe.dll.... works fine..
the Navigationpanebackground is set somewhere else, but not in shellstyle.uifile

when i add the same text to Propertree in shellstyle (where it takes that solid fillcolor), there stays a solid fillcolor (but the first one of the gradient-ones)

original:
<style resid="propertreestyle">
<ProperTreeModule
background="themeable(gtc(PROPERTREE, 2, 0, 3821),  window)"
foreground="themeable(gtc(TooltipStyle, 2, 0, 3803), windowtext)"
/>
<ProperTreeHost
font="IconFont"
background="themeable(gtc(PROPERTREE, 2, 0, 3821),  window)"
foreground="windowtext"
/>

to:
<style resid="propertreestyle">
<ProperTreeModule
background="themeable(Gradient(gtc(ReadingPane, 1, 0, 3810), gtc(ReadingPane, 1, 0, 3811), gtc(ReadingPane, 1, 0, 3812), 4), window)"
foreground="themeable(gtc(TooltipStyle, 2, 0, 3803), windowtext)"
/>
<ProperTreeHost
font="IconFont"
background="themeable(Gradient(gtc(ReadingPane, 1, 0, 3810), gtc(ReadingPane, 1, 0, 3811), gtc(ReadingPane, 1, 0, 3812), 4), window)"
foreground="windowtext"
/>



but i guess it's under the solid-color-pane, because my separator line is transparent at the bottom, and the gradient is visible there (not in the screenshot)

where the hell is that pane set?

the first one:

in vista the separator (sizer) is 5px wide. it's set somewhere in the shellstyle.txt propertree-section, you can change it there, even removing it
in WIN7 it's only 3px wide..

the second one is a fillcolor, but i don't know actually where it is, i had changed it in an older theme, maybe it helps searching for fillcolors with that RGB-value..

i've experienced it, too

when you draw the shellstylepane larger, the text moves up..
but the pane will be very large..

when you want to heighten the text position like in your screenshot, take a look at the PADDING-values in shellstyle.txt and replace them with the ones from "documentslayoutstyle"

You're crazy !

indeed!

respect for being so consequent..

In propertree?

Yes it was an 1x1px image in propertree for the vista "favourite links"-Pane

The background of ProperTree and the ListView just do that when you use bitmaps.

  i remember, in vista it was a bitmap, so i thought it could simply be reactivated..

I'm interested too
I personally tried a dozen different configurations between shellstyle and the .msstyles file but I have not succeeded 

The properties and changes that I extrapolated from the explorerFrame.dll don't seem to work.
Hope Panda X, SunBeam or Idas, who are accustomed to this kind of thing, will succeed  8)

it didn't work like i thought 

i've changed the fillcolor-link to an imagelink in shellstyle.dll but it only produced random fillcolors in propertree

i hoped it would work like this (there is an image in WSB, but resizing the WSB window makes it disappear, as you know):



so the search goes on...

Can i add an image into the navigation pane ? I want to add my image from the control panel. I tried to add a gradient property to it but it didnt work ( dont really know what im doing to be honest  )

If i can , what size will i have to make the image or will my existing bitmap image size be ok ?

i think it should work with adding a link to msstyle in shellstyle.dll>mui.txt in the concerning background-part
like Background=(themeable(dtb.... ) (i have no WSB here atm, so i can't describe the whole line)
like panda described in the DirectUI-XML-Notes here in the Forum...

Why does this happen on x86 and not x64?

i believe to remember, Panda-X had this "bug" when making M7R1 for Vista, only then x86 worked fine and X64 had some problems..

we even found out that some of them appear on only some computers..
he has a fade-out effect on his actual project, which doesn't work correctly on my system.. (both x64)

maybe Graphic-Driver issues..

it appears sometimes, when importing some graphics with "Shift-Hold" in while building the theme..
or sometimes VSB doesn't render standard imported images correctly..

try to reimport the images again, mostly then it works..
i've experienced this bug several times for blank image-parts..

[0,0]

I got the task buttons moving all around but no matter what the taskbar doesnt get smaller than 46px..is this due to the start button?  Do you have to use that hack whre it allows a smaller taskbar than the startbutton?

reduce both contentmargins to x,x,0,0 then it must go smaller, i've testet it

the Taskbar & System Tray > TaskBand > Basic > TaskBand > BackgroundBottom says how much space is between taskbar and buttons
the Taskbar & System Tray > TaskBand > Basic > TaskBand > TaskItemButton says how much space is between icon inside the button and buttonframe..

when both values are 0,0 it must be at minimal space possible..

it's an interaction between the Y-Axis Contentmargins in

Taskbar & System Tray > TaskBand > Basic > TaskBand > BackgroundBottom

Taskbar & System Tray > TaskBand > Basic > TaskBand > TaskItemButton

which makes the Taskband and Buttons higher or lower..

Here are the pic i want to use for the clock.

ROFL!!! This can't be serious!!!

its nice but not the same, besides isn't the font in the caption also Segoe UI regular

it also helps not use totally black fonts but some values lighter

Here is a picture that shows what i want to do, Thank you, John

try to switch the sizingtype from stretch to tile and use only one of these patterns.

but seriously, JOHN:

i very respect your ambitions to learn themeing Windows-UI,
but you've chosen a very complex section of Graphic design, not to say one of the most sophisticated.

if someone doesn't have any previous knowledge in Computer Graphic Design and additionally some small understanding how "the windows world turns around", it will be a very very long way.
the second aspect is, try to find out things for yourself, test them, fail, test them other way, only then you will REALLY understand it.
this forum has an excellent search-function. most of your questions are already answered.

For my person, i'm very lucky that people like panda and pierdelp helped me with some first steps, but at last it never would have been possible to learn this all, if i didn't have any ideas by myself and some experience with graphic design before. This is what i obvoiusly miss in your case.

So please stop asking every single WSB class, if you don't even know, for what it is. search for it, try it, whatever.
this is not a 1337-forum, but actually it's very hard to read all these questions..


 

What I want   is:

Instead of having to go to <if id="atom(TopViewPrefix)"> or <if class="location_includes"> to change 2 textcolors

I could open up WSB 1.6 and go to something like Explorer & Shell > Explorer > CommandModule 9 > 4 or 10  > 2 and change the textcolors there instead?

That's all.  Give these 2 parts of the shellstyle  actual new parts of the WSB tree.

Is this possible? And if it isn't then why not?

it isn't, because the original shellstyle.dll doesn't "know" what WSB/msstyle does, so you can't influence it this way. you have to modify the shellstyle.dll>1.txt and draw the concerning part to that desired msstyle part.
Panda documented it in his directui xml notes here on the forum, how it works. if you do so, it will work already with actual WSB.
that's all i did with my shellstyle.

Like these for example:  http://vistastylebuilder.com/forum/index.php?topic=1089.0

Put them in Explorer & Shell > Explorer > CommandModule?

you can have this with actual WSB, just download my latest theme on dA, it has a multicolor shellstyle.dll which is steered almost completely by the msstyle file (fonts, textcolors, different panes etc..) it uses even the previewpane >1>2 image for the games-explorer as separate shinelayer (or make it as solid background if you want) and has an separate shellstyle image for the save dialog. Also the library pane part is now in the msstyle. (documentation included). i've used panda's directui xml notes to make this possible
the only thing you have to attend is the windows fillcolor is now the first gradient color of the reading pane part.

Also, a shellstyle editor! That would be brilliant

nearly everything on Win7 is now inside the msstyle not in the shellstyle.dll

Your Gmail account blocks the mail 

i get mailer-deamon back

PM me your email, won't upload it anywhere..

if interested, download my latest theme on dA http://sunbeam2000.deviantart.com/art/Firedance-Evolution-157217798

i've drawn the Library-Pane Fonts and  (Multicolor-)PreviewPane Fonts including Textcolors to the msstyle.

Documentation included.

Feel free to use the Shellstyle.dll for your themes, but don't forget to credit.

i guess, Ave already has left WSB a long time ago..

the homepage isn't actualized since ages...
and panda was working on WSB1.6..
now he is off for a undefined timeperiod..
we have to live with 1.5 and the "bug" for now..

anyway, i have absolutely no problems with that "bug".
everything works perfect and i very often use white transparent gradients.
WSB doesn't like exported, overworked and reimported images..
but new images all work fine..
but at last i switched from Photoshop to MicrosoftExpressionDesign3 (the update license is very cheap on amazon)
and the images come very sharp and clear..

i highly recommend it, check the 60day trial..
it's all vectorized and it takes some time to come in, but it seems, Windows and WSB like the PNG's made with it..

WindowsDWM seems to have a problem with white gradients, so they get rerendered at import for correct display

"shift import" ignores it, but in most cases its not useful, the images get messy, when importing something with white gradients (opaque parts stay correct)

i see only one way: completely redrawing the image with 100% own content, then standard import

No Bug, it's one of the best functions WSB has.

WSB rerenders the images fitting to WindowsDWM when importing.

but for example exported, overworked and then reimported pics get messy..

try holding shift, when importing those image. then it imports the image, as it is..