VistaStyleBuilder

Hi all,

I've been modifying Saarineames' Aero Classic 2.5.3 theme for my own use. 

I've been successful in changing the background color of just about everything from white (which bothers my eyes) to a nice gray, but I want to go further and restore the classic white-text-on-dark-blue colors on just about everything selected or highlighted.  The dark blue background has been pretty easy, but in a lot of places, the text (hot, selected, or otherwise) stubbornly refuses to be any color other than black (which makes it completely illegible against the dark blue background). Most notably, the treeview pane on the left side of the explorer window. 

In the standard Windows 7 Aero theme, changing the highlighted/selected text color to white is easy; just set Fonts & System Metrics > Highlighttext.  It doesn't work in Aero Classic, though, and I've been unable to figure out how to change it.  I've even tried setting every color:textcolor in the entire .msstyles to a random color to see if one of them will happen to change it (none did).  I've tried adding all kinds of properties to dozens of elements that seem like they might be related, but I did not have any luck at all.  I tried swapping in the shellstyle.dll from W7 Aero, but it didn't work (and resulted in the drop arrows being replaced by tiny little boxes in Explorer). 

Can anyone suggest where to look next?  Surely it has to be in there somewhere, since the stock aero .msstyles allows it.

Thanks! 

Just add Textcolors to Explorer & Shell > Explorer > TreeView > TreeItem > Hot, Selected, SelectedNotFocus and HotSelected. Here I added red textcolors:

(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu41/3am_2009/Untitled_zpsd9gmhyy9.png)

That doesn't change anything in the folder tree in Explorer.  I added color:textcolor properties to Selected and HotSelected, and set them to white (and then reloaded the test in WSB).  The changes can be seen in the tree view in WSB, though, and it works as you described in the default Aero theme too.  For some reason, though, the treeview in explorer does not respond to the changes.

Thanks for the reply! 

What are you talking about?

The text colors in the Explorer TreeView in the above picture obviously changed to red in Classic AE 2.5.3.

Here's another picture with a blue highlight with white textcolors:

(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu41/3am_2009/Untitled_zpsu0mkat8r.png)

Edit:  I thought previously that adding the change you mentioned above into the otherwise unmodified Aero Classic theme had worked.  Now it again is doing the same thing-- black text only, completely ignoring the textcolor and fillcolor settings in Selected and HotSelected.  Clearly, though, it worked for you; I see the screenshots.  Now I can't be sure it worked for me before... maybe I was mistaken and I was looking at another treeview (most probably, the one in WSB itself).   

My previous version of this post is below for reference.

Wow, I'll be... you're right; when I do it with the unmodified Aero Classic theme, it does work.  I had been using my modified version where I'd already changed a ton of things.  I can export all of the modified images and recreate it (more carefully)... but I really am curious to know what would be preventing this from working in my modded version, if you have any ideas.  I will go through my various incremental saved files (I must have 40 of them) and see if I can narrow down when the change was made.  

It should have been obvious to test it with the unmodded theme.  It is even more annoying that I didn't think of that because I did just that (tested changes on a fresh copy of the theme) with several other issues I had (and solved, eventually).  

Thanks again for your help!  

Attached is a copy of the msstyle I modified.

If this doesn't work for you then I have no idea why not.

Your version does the same as mine... in the tree view in WSB and in the folder pane of the load/save dialog, the blue highlight/white text works, but in regular explorer windows, it is the light blue background with black text. 

My system is Windows 7 x64... the original shellstyle.dll files are in system32 and system64.  I used Universal Theme Patcher x64 to allow the use of the modified .msstyles.  I am using the test button on WSB 1.5.6.3 to apply the styles for testing.  I have Classic Shell installed.  I tried re-enabling everything in the Windows System/Advanced/Performance options; didn't work.  I had Window Blinds test version installed for a day or two but it has since been uninstalled.

Anything else it could be?  I'm new here, but I have read a bunch of your posts, and if it has you stumped, I don't like my odds of figuring it out!  Something has to be strange in my system somewhere-- but everything seems to be working fine, other than that. 

Thanks for the input! 

I wrote:

"I have Classic Shell installed."

That was the problem!  Removing it made the theme you posted work as it should. 

I was thinking about that line above above since I wrote it...  then it dawned on me that Classic Shell modifies the Explorer window (where the theme was not working but should have been) but not the Load/Save dialog (which means I can't have the path instead of breadcrumbs or the up button there), and the theme WAS working in the Load/Save dialog.  The hunch about that proved to be correct!

So now I can figure out if there is a workaround to get themes and Classic Shell to get along, find an alternative, or just live without it, until Classic Shell is fixed.  I think I will let them know about this issue too, since people who are into themes (particularly Classic type ones) probably overlap with Classic Shell's user base to a high degree.

Thanks for your help, 3am-- without you telling me that the mods you suggested definitely do work with the Classic AE theme, I don't know how long it would have taken me to discover the issue, if I did at all. 

To get a textcolor change when highlighted in Items View (right side of Explorer) in 7 is more difficult.

You have to go into ExplorerFrame.dll UIFILE 40960 and add foregrounds to all instances of:

ItemsView::ListView, 1, 2     or Explorer & Shell > Explorer > Items View > ListView > ListItem > Hot
ItemsView::ListView, 1, 3        Explorer & Shell > Explorer > Items View > ListView > ListItem > Selected
ItemsView::ListView, 1, 5        Explorer & Shell > Explorer > Items View > ListView > ListItem > SelectedNotFocus
ItemsView::ListView, 1, 6        Explorer & Shell > Explorer > Items View > ListView > ListItem > HotSelected

In 8 you can do this in WSB but not in 7.

You will get this result:


(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu41/3am_2009/Untitled_zpsfc2sq5aa.png)


You should realize that there are a lot of places where you can't change the black textcolors when highlighted at all.

That's why people who do classic themes for 7 or 8 can never do dark blue highlights completely. It's impossible.

I used Explorer & Shell > Explorer > Items view > Itemsview > TEXTCOLOR:COLOR for that.  Is that not the same thing?



They cannot be changed even by modifying DLLs?  Sigh.  I had wondered if that was the case with the Classic AE series and their prominent lack of the classic-style dark blue highlights. 

I think I may have found one of the unchangeable ones.  I have been trying to figure out how to change the text color of the pressed but non-hovered jumplist.  The only way I could get the highlighted text color to change to white on the jumplist-opening items in the start menu was to set the color through Start Menu > Panels > Basic > Programs List > HOTTRACKING:COLOR.  None of the TEXTCOLOR properties in any of the JumpList* items under Start Menu > Panels > Basic did anything at all (Asterisk used as a wildcard here). 

The result of this is that it seems to be working fine at first, but after the jumplist opens, if I move the mouse pointer off of the jumplist split button and into the list that appeared in the right panel, the dark blue highlight remains on the item in the left panel, but the text changes back to black, rendering it illegible.

I tried an alternate solution... if I could get the pressed, non-hovered jumplist item in the left panel to change to a light grey color, the black text would be okay, and it would still illustrate the program the jumplist items came from.  It would look like a standard selected, not focus item... but in every attempt I made, the pressed FILLCOLOR overrode the hot/hovered color.  Is this possible?

Thanks!

1) it's the same only if you are in an Icon view
2) There are black textcolors when highlighted that you can never change.
3) No idea. Try adding Fillcolors. This theme has almost no images just fillcolors everywhere.

Nuts.  Ah well, I can live without the dark blue highlighted color!  Thanks for the help.  At least I was able to get rid of the white backgrounds that bothered my eyes!