VistaStyleBuilder

WSB 1.6 Ideas:

• • Goto have the ability to use the same path as difftool (<ButtonStyle>.<1>.<1>)
• • Goto have the ability to use DirectUI like paths (BUTTONSTYLE, 1, 1)
• • COLORIZATIONCOLOR:INT show color rather than integer / Use color picker
• • Font replacer (Replace font that matches x with y)
• • Font preview in property box
• • Color replacer (Replace color that matches x with y)
• • Image alpha tagger¹
• • DWMWindowIsChanged::Bool²
• • Font picker automatically opens upon adding
• • Color picker automatically opens upon adding
• • When opening a theme copy Shell to %temp%
• • Open help in new window button.
• • On Test/Apply reuse last DWM Colorization Color.

¹On import VSB will add a value into the image to represent whether or not the image has been alpha fixed. When export then imported again VSB will check this value then either import by its default function or import and skip the alpha conversion based on this value.

²WSB will check if the end-user has modified any classes in DWMWindow. If not the stream will be ignored on compile preventing pixel alignment errors.

I want to be able to save bookmarks, that would save many clicks.  ;)

1) We've implemented a documentation and a wiki that were both requested yet never get used.
2) What?
   a) What? UXStyle's Rafael's UXTheme patcher.
   b) Context Menu
3) The system doesn't return an error so there's no way of knowing what went wrong. Windows wasn't meant to have custom themes.
4) Windows Style Builder. Has been since 1.5. Has nothing to do with the program.
5) It's waiting for export. Also in the context menu.
6) What?

2)
 a) Oh UxStyle ahahahahah. Oh my that thing is so old. It never made it to the final product.
 b) When you click export marked properties to stylehack Dialog #211 shows. When you click the Stylehacks button in the CommandBar Dialog #212 shows.
6) When you try to save a file that's applied by the system (it's already in use). Click use Aero and it'll bring up a second dialog to apply it or not.
(http://www.cubeupload.com/files/b52000inuse.png)(http://www.cubeupload.com/files/b5ea00use.png)

-  A screenshot preview system showing how the elements looks before and after your changes

-  Animation tester for elements like the Touch indicator and the spinning busy cursor

-  Option to automatically move more troublesome settings from Direct UI files to the MsStyles with colour coding in VSB to show the new entries previously in the shellstyle.dll

-  An indicator of some kind on graphic elements which usually require an alpha fix on import

-  Add as many controls, and their various possible states as possible for testing to the control preview window

-  Implement the caption button sizer into the MsStyles somehow (not sure if it is possible)

-  Add a style repository with previews for opening styles

-  New styles from template (kinda like automatically applied style hacks)


Not all of these are great ideas, but they are ideas all the same!!!

hey Panda, good ideas for 1.6!

i only miss 2 more functions:

an optional image export function  with "back to original" alpha.. (if technically possible)
because exported images stay darkened, i want to change a small part, but it doesn't work anymore..
(i need this for previewpane-shinelayers etc)

When starting VSB, it should load the last saved theme or opening a concerning dialog.
Often it happens, when working on a VS, saving it with new buildname, then starting vsb next time it loads a previous version, which i start to work on and just later i see, its an older build..
(yes i know, i have to look in the titlebar  :D )
but that was better solved in 1.4...

the rest is perfect for me...

another suggestion:

- be able to change the sizingmargins and contentmargins by dragging the guidelines in the preview window.

What about timer that shows how long have you made your style :D, would be cool to look.

is "On Test/Apply reuse last DWM Colorization Color."  the ability to retain the color scheme after a test
instead of switching back to the ugly aero blue?

Yes.

The only thing that I can think of to improve this is also adding a replace [*:COLOR]

• with [*:COLOR][y] for all the color properties. (example: FILLCOLOR:COLOR)

Like all red changed to blue? Or...?

Yeah, something like that. It could be like: ( where |*| is a drop-down combo box and [RGB] is what the color box normally looks like in the properties pane )

|COLOR| |FILLCOLOR| swap all [255, 0, 0] with [0, 0, 255]

Yeah I posted that in the first post along with a font replacer idea that does the same.

Yeah, that would be a great add on for WSB.

Why not create a hack that hacks Windows 7 to allow pictures in the "all programs" area of the startmenu?

What do you mean by pictures?

Photo, graphic, background.

RBCC you need to realise that Windows Style Builder, is not here to hack into windows' DWM or Theme engine, it is to provide a way to make themes that work with it, including its limitations.

If you want to do those things, try Windows Blinds...

Generate a .theme file.

Also, a shellstyle editor! That would be brilliant :D

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

Is it possible to reference shellstyle locations in msstyles so they can be part of the WSB tree and changed there?

There are a lot of places in shellstyle that should be in msstyles.

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.

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.