Aero Blue Menu

[Guest]

I love the bells and whistles with Aeoro mode, but i had to turn it off
because of the blue menu's i'm forced to look at. For example,
Designbypepper.com is black and gold. very pretty site, but clashes terribly
with with blue menu system. I tried changing personalized settings, but no
matter what you do, you are stuck with blue menus. Even worse is trying to
compose a website now for a client, religousmerchandise.com is pale green and
peach and brown, very church like, it's a nitemare to compose anything
artistic with blue being forced on the creator. I had to turn aero off.
this is sad, wonder if anyone one knows if there is a way to run aero without
blue menus

 

[Guest]

you missed the point. i had to turn aero off to do this. question was, can
i run aero with color change to the menu system?

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Absolutely you have a choice of many many colors for menus and other
areas.
You could use the pulldown

Rt. click desktop>personalization>(or Control
Panel>Personalization)>Window
Color and Appearance>Open Classic Properties for More Options (scroll down
for this hyperlink)>Advanced Button>Menu on the Pulldown>Color on the
right.

I used a different pulldown choice for the .jpg because I'd already made
it
to answer a similar question a while back--just use Menu>Color instead.
You
have a huge choice of colors and you can mix the colors by clicking on
"Show
Color Mixer."

This isn't what she is asking about. She wants to change the colour of the
browser chrome, and there is no way to do that without hacking the visual
style files, which contain .png graphics.

In time there will be custom visual styles, as there are for XP, and most of
them will be cheesy and unusable. Another option available is Windows
Blinds, but that too radically alters the GUI for my tastes.

If you can change the browser chrome by messing about with that dialogue
box, please post a screenshot.

ss.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

I love the bells and whistles with Aeoro mode, but i had to turn it off
because of the blue menu's i'm forced to look at. For example,
Designbypepper.com is black and gold. very pretty site, but clashes
terribly
with with blue menu system. I tried changing personalized settings, but
no
matter what you do, you are stuck with blue menus. Even worse is trying
to
compose a website now for a client, religousmerchandise.com is pale green
and
peach and brown, very church like, it's a nitemare to compose anything
artistic with blue being forced on the creator. I had to turn aero off.
this is sad, wonder if anyone one knows if there is a way to run aero
without
blue menus

There is no way to change the colour of the blue part of the GUI in Vista
using any inbuilt way. You can Use WindowBlinds which can radically change
the GUI, but most of the Visual Styles are amateurish.

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/wb5/

In time there will be custom Visual Styles that work in the standard way,
requiring a modified uxtheme.dll which doesn't require Microsoft signed
styles.

Is it the browser chrome that bothers you, or the look of the web design
program you use? I doubt you really mean the menus. But seeing as your
seem to be using Frontpage, I can imagine that app will be very blue, as it
is in Office 2007. But you can change the colour of the theme in Office
2007 from Blue to Silver or Black. I think earlier versions of Office apps
just appear in the standard Windows visual style.

Maybe you should consider upgrading from Frontpage anyway? I use
Dreamweaver 8, which is a nice light beige colour in Vista (and looks better
when you disable visual themes on the Compatibility tab).

There is also Microsoft Expression Web, which has replaced Frontpage, and is
supposed to be a big improvement when it comes to web standards, but I have
no idea how it appears in Vista, or whether you can change the colour of the
interface. There is a free trial.

http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/expression-web/default.mspx

ss.

 

[Dale]

The thing with custom themes for XP is that most downloadable ones contain
spyware. You can expect the same for downloadable themes for Vista.

This lack of personalization is another example of Microsoft's direction of
less personalization and more standardization and another indication of
their view that they own the experience, and not you. I suppose that
wouldn't be so bad if we'd never had it but we've all been very spoiled by
many years of Microsoft emphasizing personalization and now we much of it
yanked out from underneath us.

Dale

 

[Chad Harris]

Pepper I don't know what is meant by "menu system" and SS equates that to
"She wants to change the colour of the browser chrome." I missed the
point because you were a little less than specific and explicit about
wexactly what you want to get done.

Can you run Aero (Glass is what you mean not Aero alone) with a change to
what menu system where? Because background colors for menus can be tweaked
without 3rd party on the advanced pulldown at the appearances tab where I
described and screenshot. That's a far cry from browser chrome.

From What SS writes and how he got to browser chrome from menu system, you
need to do trial downloads of Style XP from TGTSoft or Object Desktop or
Window Blinds from www.stardock.com/

CH

 

[Chad Harris]

I don't see any "blue menus" or menus at all on the web site
www.designbypepper.com and I'm not sure what you mean by "browser chrome" or
where the menus are Pepper referenced.

CH

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

The thing with custom themes for XP is that most downloadable ones contain
spyware. You can expect the same for downloadable themes for Vista.

No. This is only true with sites that package the themes within installers.
ThemeXP.org didn't do this when I was involved with trying to get rid of the
horrible XP visual style, but I ecentually found a very nice MacOSX ripoff
that was very polished and worked very well. I also got the Watercolor
theme, which was teh original look for XP during the betas. With those
themes, I never needed any others, but when I tried looking for another
theme (Royale Blue and the rarer Royale Black, from XPMCE) I found that
ThemeXP.org was packaging files within installers containing adware. There
are many other places to look for themes, like the designer's own homepage,
or deviantart.com.

This lack of personalization is another example of Microsoft's direction
of less personalization and more standardization and another indication of
their view that they own the experience, and not you. I suppose that
wouldn't be so bad if we'd never had it but we've all been very spoiled by
many years of Microsoft emphasizing personalization and now we much of it
yanked out from underneath us.

Yes. I agree.

ss.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

I don't see any "blue menus" or menus at all on the web site
www.designbypepper.com and I'm not sure what you mean by "browser chrome"
or where the menus are Pepper referenced.

Hey Chad

Browser chrome is a common term used by webdesigners.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?sour...LJ,GGLJ:2006-49,GGLJ:en-GB&q="browser+chrome"

What I think that Pepper meant by the menus, is the blue area that contains
the menu and toolbars in the average application. That blue area is always
blue, unless you start messing with Visual Styles.

ss.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

From What SS writes and how he got to browser chrome from menu system, you
need to do trial downloads of Style XP from TGTSoft or Object Desktop or
Window Blinds from www.stardock.com/

StyleXP is not actually necessary if you manually install the hacked
uxtheme.dll that allows the use of unsigned .msstyle files, and I really
don't think Style XP is going to work with Vista, is it??

ss.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for explaining the GUI of Aero to me, I understand now that I
cannot change the blue crome menu system within microsoft system. I may not
be the greatest designer, but would you put a blue picture frame around the
Mona Lisa?
I need a neutral shade bordering my pallate as I try my hardest to design
something for a client, Blue around orange is just offensive to my artistic
sense, if you know what i mean. Probably Microsoft designed everything
around their own website, which is blue, and it does look fantastic around
Weather.org which is a blue website, but some of the other more creative
sites look dreadful.

I found great UI Tweaks for IE7 that moved menu to the top, so now i must
hunt down a tweak for the AERO GUI. IF I find the answer somewhere, I will
post it here.

Thanks again for all your help.

PS Does anyone know of a File Manager Program now, I can't make heads or
tails out of "Computer" which replaced "My Computer". Bring Back XTREE!!!!!

smile...

Pepper in Seattle.

 

[Chad Harris]

As you say there are many alternative theme applications like

http://anti-tgtsoft.com/repository/uxtheme/Windows Vista/SP0

www.themexp.org/how_install.php

You may be right. I don't see Vista downloads yet on TGTSoft's site, so I
may have spoken too soon but I have seen threads on Vista betas from them.

CH

 

[Chad Harris]

Thanks.

The borders of a Web browser window, which include the window frames, menus,
toolbars ...


CH

 

[Chad Harris]

Pepper, sorry on the first part of your question. It's best handled by
people familiar with web designers like SS who know Aero Glass and Aero.

But as to Explorer in Vista and Explorer folders, I think that if you'll
just "click around" you'll find it a more formidiable file manager than you
might consider it right now--I find a lot of people don't get control of all
its features.

Also check out some of the articles in Help and Support on your start menu
or the Vista Help site by just typing Explorer in Search at

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/default.mspx

Working with Folders

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/05907408-8e9a-4737-9d1f-99b615c8bd251033.mspx

Folder FAQs
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/8eb3b0f8-533a-4e63-b967-b090a7912cc71033.mspx

I'm sure a lot of the Explorer alternatives will be rushing out 3rd party
subs for Explorer in the next coupld months.

CH

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

As you say there are many alternative theme applications like

http://anti-tgtsoft.com/repository/uxtheme/Windows Vista/SP0

www.themexp.org/how_install.php

You may be right. I don't see Vista downloads yet on TGTSoft's site, so I
may have spoken too soon but I have seen threads on Vista betas from them.

They must be XP Visual Style to give XP a Vista-like look. There are loads
of these on deviantart.com, which makes it very difficult to actually find
Vista Visual Styles, which are starting to appear now.

ss.

 

[Peter Shute]

PS Does anyone know of a File Manager Program now, I can't make heads or
tails out of "Computer" which replaced "My Computer". Bring Back XTREE!!!!!

Try Ztree, from http://www.ztree.com:
"ZTree is a powerful 32bit text-mode file/directory manager, modeled
closely on the legendary XTreeGold(tm), but enhanced to take advantage
of today's popular operating systems. It is available in two versions:
ZTreeWin for Windows (all versions, 95 through XP), ZTreeBold for OS/2
and eComStation."

It's almost identical to the original, but much enhanced. Try the alt-
k option - it can display the size of the current branch beside each
directory name (i.e. the size of the directory and everything below
it).

 

[Guest]

I'm trying to get rid of the hideous blue color in the Aero environment and
with no success. I just want nice neutral tones so the colors of what's
important pops... like my photos and icons. That pukey aquamarine windows
active border....wow what drugs were they on when they came up with that
color. Plus editing photos with baby blue menu bar really gripes my arse.
Don't get me wrong I like Vista but who ever was the main designer needs to
go work for a circus PR department. I wish Microsoft would hire the Apple's
graphic designers and fire all these guys in the Microsoft Art Department
with the cheesy layouts of both the OS and the website :O. Anyways I'm in
the same boat as the OP here and wish they would fix it where we can choose
colors better in the Aero environment. I like the effects of Aero, but I wish
that the color choices where a bit better.... sometimes the simple colors are
the best, especially when one uses their computer mostly for editing art and
images. God help those who worry about all the wonderful bright saturated
colors they can put on a screen at one time, evidently the designers for
Microsoft are of that mold.
Regards,
Larry

 

[Erik Funkenbusch]

I'm trying to get rid of the hideous blue color in the Aero environment and
with no success. I just want nice neutral tones so the colors of what's
important pops...

Right Click Destkop->Personalize->Window Color and Appearance

Choose one of the predefined colors, or click "Show Color Mixer" to choose
any color or hue you like. Why is that such a big deal?

 

[Guest]

Why is so hard to read the whole post erick... You can choose frame jell
color sure but you can't get rid of the blue and aquamarine. Plus if you go
choose deeper color options you lose Aero. sigh