Color Intensity / Hue / Saturation / Brightness in WSB?

[JebDude]

I've found the basics in WSB (thanks to forum searches).  And I know that the .theme file plays a big role as well.  I have the color picker tool that shows the correct ARGB value in HEX (for .theme file) and DEC (for the .msstyles file).

It seems that those basics are working for me, except that only the inactive window borders are taking the color, not the active window, nor the taskbar.  As you can see in the pic below, the color settings are in fact 100% orange, not red like my settings are supposed to be.  I have been using the "Windows" default theme, and I think the color settings below are close to the default color scheme.  I know the default color scheme is for windows to decide the color, which is orange-ish based on the default yellow/orange wallpaper.

Do settings for Color Intensity / Hue / Saturation / Brightness exist in WSB?  Or is that what "colorization" is supposed to be?



Even the Personalization window shows that RED is indeed the color I picked for my theme file.



Here's the taskbar result.  I have messed with the image in the Taskbar a bit, and it's 100% transparent except for that silly blue border design you can see.



The taskbar I get, I haven't gone too deep to see what the settings are yet. It's basically the same color as the active border, but with some transparency.  But I've been all over the WINDOW settings in WSB, and I can't for the life of me figure out why the colorization settings are turning out that way for the active window.

I plan on doing up my own images for the window borders, but I want to mess around with transparency in the images, and if I don't figure this out properly then I know I'll get all kinds of weird results as the Colorization and my transparent images mix/clash.

I've attached my theme in case anyone wants a closer look.  Thanks for any advice on this one... I'm running out of ideas.  Not giving up though :-D

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EDIT (haven't even posted yet!):

And now this just happened.  I started messing around with the Saturation / Hue / Brightness bits just to see if I can add anything more of value to this post / question and now when I switch to the Windows default theme and back to my theme it stays red.  At first I thought that I could set the Saturation / Hue / Brightness and hit "Save changes" and it would save it in the theme, but the more i mess with it, it don't matter, it just keeps going back to red.

I expected that before I started writing this post, but not now!  I can't tell if these settings are actually being applied properly or not.  I'm gonna keep tinkering...



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EDIT: Just wanted to confirm something.  When I change the ColorizationColor, initially, the proper color is not inherited properly when I toggle themes.  After I mess with the Hue / Saturation / Brightness and save it, then it starts displaying properly.  Odd...

[3am]

What exactly do you want to do?

Have you colored the images at Windows & Caption Buttons > Aero > DWM Window > Frames > Window yet? The same color you have in Fonts, Colors, & System Metrics > Colors (Globals) > ColorizationColor and in your theme file ColorizationColor?

Have you experimented with the Opacity, ColorizationColor and ColorizationOpacity properties at Windows & Caption Buttons > Aero > DWM Window > Frames > Window > Top > Active, Inactive, MaxActive and MaxInactive yet?

Do you want solid or translucent frames?

Ok I looked at your stuff. You haven't done any of this. Also why is the DisplayName in your theme file MyTheme(zes)?

[JebDude]

What exactly do you want to do?

Sorry if that was all confusing.  I'm just trying to mess with the frame color and understand the settings better.  I know it's not the program, it's me.

Do you want solid or translucent frames?

Well in the end I want translucent frames.  I'm going one step at a time to get there.  I know if I mess with translucency that I will need to master Colorization first.  I tried doing solid colors in the images and that was easy enough.  I'm trying to learn to do things the harder way to get more cool effects.

Have you colored the images at Windows & Caption Buttons > Aero > DWM Window > Frames > Window yet? The same color you have in Fonts, Colors, & System Metrics > Colors (Globals) > ColorizationColor and in your theme file ColorizationColor?
...
Ok I looked at your stuff. You haven't done any of this.

Well, I did the parts you mentioned in this post:

.msstyles >>> Colors, & System Metrics > Colors (Globals) > ColorizationColor = -65535 (red)
.theme >>> [VisualStyles] > ColorizationColor = 0xFFFF0000

The only part I didn't do was to color the images of the frames.  I noticed the default image had transparency, so I'm guessing that means all the colors are being controlled by something else other than the image at this stage.  I just double-checked the zip file I attached in my first post.  It's all there.  Am I really that far off?

Have you experimented with the Opacity, ColorizationColor and ColorizationOpacity properties at Windows & Caption Buttons > Aero > DWM Window > Frames > Window > Top > Active, Inactive, MaxActive and MaxInactive yet?

Oops.  No, and I can't say why not, as many times as I've looked at the settings under that key.  That will be my next experiment!  Thanks!

Question about that.  If ColorizationColor in that location is 0 then should it use the ColorizationColor from:
.msstyles >>> Colors, & System Metrics > Colors (Globals) > ColorizationColor = -65535 (red)
.theme >>> [VisualStyles] > ColorizationColor = 0xFFFF0000
???????

Also why is the DisplayName in your theme file MyTheme(zes)?

Well, I'm just messing around with the settings so I didn't want to get too creative on a theme name.  I'm just trying to see what effects what.

As for "zes".  It's a silly little inside joke between my wife and I.  I guess I felt like being slightly more creative than just "MyTheme" after all :-P

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I really appreciate your help.  Sorry if it seemed like I was asking a question that had already been answered.  I tried to show that I had done what was answered before... my bad.  There's just so many settings that interact.  It's kind of a mind screw at first.

I'm clearly missing something, just not sure yet.  Are the Saturation / Hue / Brightness settings set by a theme's colorization settings?

[JebDude]

Well, my original MyTheme.msstyles file ended up getting some error reported by WSB.  I replaced it with aero.msstyles and renamed it.  (aero.msstyles was my template)

Now colorization is working fine.  I don't even have to set the colorization of the frames for both the active and inactive frames to take the theme's colorization color (as I thought it should with default settings).  But when I do the TEST in WSB it shows everything the right color after I click the first OK (NtResumeProcess) all the correct colors show.  After the 2nd OK active windows and the taskbar show a different color.  Usually the same color as the last theme I picked.

Other than that, just picking my theme from the Personalization settings seems to work just fine.  I've definitely got more tinkering to do.  Thanks again!

Sorry for the huge posts.  I thought I was on to something.

[JebDude]

Ok, now that I have a fresh template and I see that Colorization appears to be working properly, how do I get transparent borders?  The default images in Aero are already transparent, but the frames are not when rendered.

I'm messing with Opacity / ColorizationColor / ColoricationOpacity in the DWM Window > Fames > Window part.

Seems to have no effect :-/

[3am]

To get glass frames etc like in 7 you need:  http://www.glass8.eu/

I can't help you with this because I only use solid color frames. Refer to this forum:

http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/180-aero-glass-for-windows-8/

[JebDude]

Sorry for the delayed response.  I appreciate the help.  I was hoping that since there is still transparency in the taskbar that maybe there was still a way on the window borders.  Oh well, I've used Aero Glass before, looks like I'll be using it again.