Menu color bug with themes
Jon N.
idea why everyone isn't running into it. Here's the problem...
Whenever I work with XP's themes, I always end up with certain (older
apps) like Notepad and Calculator showing white boxes around the text
in the menu bar (you know... "File Edit Format View Help") and larger
white boxes when you mouseover them. I don't have to mess with colors
at all to end up with it. Just the act of saving a theme, switching to
another theme and then back produces it.
To see for yourself (hopefully), do this:
1. Save your current theme if you haven't, already.
2. Switch to the "Windows XP" theme (the one with the Bliss
wallpaper).
3. Don't make any changes. This is where you *would* make changes if
you wanted to customize your theme, using the default theme as the
starting point, but I'm just trying to show that you don't even have
to make any changes to produce the problem.
4. Click on "Save As" and save that theme somewhere.
5. Switch to the "Windows XP" theme again.
6. Switch to the theme that you just saved.
7. Load up Notepad and look at the menu.
This has got to be a bug in XP and the compatibility of older apps
like Notepad and Calculator with XP visual styles. It drives me nuts
because it means that I CANNOT create my own theme, unless I'm willing
to put up with the white boxes or completely change everything.
It's not me or my system. I've seen it on lots of systems, most of
them even fresh installations of XP, with and without SP1 and all
updates. Part of my job is rolling out XP installations and
customizing them, and this bug makes my job harder.
I don't expect to find a solution, since I think that it's a bug in
XP. Perhaps I can draw some attention to it, though, so that MS will
do something about it. If you've encountered this, complain about it
here. If you know of some fix, please mention that, also.
Thanks,
-Jon
j...@cryogen.com
Marius J
"Jon N." <j...@cryogen.com> skrev i melding
news:3facc87.03032...@posting.google.com...
This is a common problem. I have experienced it several times, and there has
been a lot of discussions around it on the windows-newsgroups. I have never
seen any solutions to the problem, other than reinstall of the os. I totally
agree with you, that is a pretty annoying, ugly thing....
Wislu Plethora
Why on earth would anyone want to execute a seven-step
procedure in order to verify something that makes no
difference whatsoever to anyone except anal-retentives
with too much time on their hands?
framitz
existant bug.
Find something useful to do and stop wasting our time.
>.
>
Michel
263c01c2ef20$9c188600$3301...@phx.gbl...
> I don't think anyone cares the least about this non-
> existant bug.
>
> Find something useful to do and stop wasting our time.
Really ? So why do you waste your own time in this group if XP
customization is so futile...
I know this bug. It does exists and appears when you customize themes.
More constructive, here is a solution for Jon :
Use Regedit to set the "Flat Menus" item to "1" in the key :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Appearance\New Schemes\Current Settings
SaveAll\Sizes\0
Perhaps its not just that key, in doubt and with no time to test, i've
set it for all the themes in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Appearance\New Schemes\
But it should be...
--
Me
(anal retentive ? yesssssss !)
Jon N.
tried both ways: the one key and all of the keys. If you have any
other ideas, I'd love to hear them. Thanks for taking the time to help
out.
"Michel" <mic...@michel.com> wrote in message news:<#YMZEWz7...@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl>...
Michel
3facc87.03032...@posting.google.com...
> Thanks for the possible solution, Mike, but it doesn't work for me. I
> tried both ways: the one key and all of the keys. If you have any
> other ideas, I'd love to hear them. Thanks for taking the time to help
> out.
Euh sorry, I made a mistake... in fact, I thought that it worked some
time ago, when I begin to be annoyed with that bug.... and Iv've
forgotten that the real workaround was to edit the theme file (yes, it's
a text file, in fact) with notepad then remove all the section :
"[Control Panel\Colors]"
then save your file and reapply the theme...
I think it's because interface colors are hard coded in *.msstyles files
and theme files saves this colors indication even if you don't modify
them. So it as a precedence over the flatmenu option. The strange thing
is that menus stand "flat" if you customize colors without saving the
theme !...
If you remove the color section, then default colors of the *.msstyles
file are applyed with the flatmenu effect instead of the uggly old
style.
The only way I found to workaround that bug was to create my own
*.msstyles with StyleBuilder and change colors here so that it became
the "default" colors for my theme. But I need to replace the UXTheme.dll
with the patched one for XP SP1 if I intend to use my *.msstyles on
other machines without install StyleBuilder.
Voilà !
--
michel
Jon N.
it. The only problem with that fix is that you can't customize the
stuff in the "Appearance" section. For example, I like to reduce the
"Active Title Bar" to 21 pixels. I think that it looks much better. If
I set that option or any other, though, the entire "[Control
Panel\Colors]" section gets re-written to the theme. I've tried having
that section contain only the "ActiveTitle" line and/or others like
"ButtonFace"... but the problem comes back.
So, not having the color problem anymore is better than having the
title bars look nicer... though it'd still be nice to have both. If
you think of anything else, please share.
Thanks for this fix!
"Michel" <mic...@michel.com> wrote in message news:<eGL1MqC8...@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>...
Michel
Are you sure, to remove only the color related part
[ControlPanel\Colors] and not stuffs that follow ?
My themes files have all settings for having thinner UI parts as you
want achieve, and it does work. My titlebars are 18 pixels hight, by
example...
You should do all the modification you desire, as thinner title part,
then save the theme, then just remove the color related section.
If it can help, I think that UI part size are controled under the
[Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics] section...
--
michel
"Jon N." <j...@cryogen.com> a écrit dans le message de news:
3facc87.03032...@posting.google.com...
Jon N.
the Colors section (sometimes with the "[...]" header; sometimes just
the entries) and it just doesn't work. I did it the order that you
mentioned (save theme and then edit manually) as well as other orders
and I either get the perfect menu color or my thinner UI parts, but
never both at the same time.
My [Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics] section is completely empty
when I have my title bars shrunk, so the setting isn't in there.
Thanks a lot for the help, though. I really have appreciated it.
-Jon
"Michel" <mic...@michel.com> wrote in message news:<e$xg6W28C...@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl>...