I posted theese "bugs" a while ago in some other forum.

from WinCustomize Forums
1. When Visual C++ .NET 2003 is minimized and gets restored from that state, it first draws the original, unskinned border into the background, and then the semi-transparent border. The unskinned border in the background only gets removed if the background refreshes, which is not that often.

2. Sadly the super cool Arrow skin makes the above mentioned application unusable, since no text, well, absolutely nothing gets displayed inside the application window (just some useless black lines).

3. Rollup does not work on all applications (Windows Media Player for instance)

4. MDI-child windows don't get skinned (for instance pages in the Opera Browser, editors in Visual C++, ...)

5. OpenGL Buffers in applications get screwed up (until refresh), that is, borders burn into the buffers. Also, sometimes partial screenshots of OpenGL buffers appear on other areas of the desktop (outside of their application).

6. I'd like to see an option in wbconfig.exe's Basic Settings which allows the current Background Color & Wallpaper to remain untouched when a new skin is applied. Many cool skins have a horrible (too bright) background color setting, which I then need to delete from the skin so that my own color (which I chose in desktop properties - desktop) remains active and doesn't get overridden after each boot, same applies to the wallpaper.

7. Unable to post in this forum with the Opera browser since this text input form cannot get attached (ok, this is not a wb bug...)

Other then that, wb5 is really an impressive new version.

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8. Some skins have transparent menues, which is quite cool, but makes the text hard to read at high resolutions, disturbing an effective workflow, this makes those nice looking skins useless to me, It would be cool to see an option in the config to prevent transparency on menues.

Reegards,
Daniel
windowblinds
3,798 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
1) I use Visual Studio .NET 2003 every day. I just minimized the window and re-stored it and if it does what you say it happens so quickly on my machine it's not even noticable. Not sure this is a bug, or simply the way it's always been done but it might run a little slower on your machine.

2) Used arrow some didn't have any problems but I like Aura better so I'm using it.

3) WB doesn't skin applications that have custom painted windows like WMP. Therefore Rollup/down will not work on those windows as it is a feature of WB that is probably only available on windows that are controlled/painted by WB.

4) The built in skinning in windows doesn't even skin those windows so why/how would WB. MY guess is that MDI child windows are not true windows but some contained dialog or something along those lines. I've never run Spy++ on an MDI window to see exactly what type of window it is but skinning them seems excessive at best.

5) Not really sure what you mean here. Are you referring to problems with games you play? Or is this software you are developing?

6) You can absolutely stop WB from changing your wallpaper. In WBConfig go to Basic Settings, under the Enhance Desktop Elements section make sure "Apply any wallpaper supplied" is unchecked. this will stop the supplied wallpaper if any from being applied.

7) Probably if the usage of Opera improves enough to justify the work it would take to fix the edit control, I'm sure it will get done. Until then use FF or IE.

8) Seems like an issue to be brought up with skin authors. I mean, if a skin makes your UI inherently less usable then it's not really a good skin now is it..

Hope some of these address your issues!
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I post from Opera daily.
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
1) I use Visual Studio .NET 2003 every day. I just minimized the window and re-stored it and if it does what you say it happens so quickly on my machine it's not even noticable. Not sure this is a bug, or simply the way it's always been done but it might run a little slower on your machine.


this has been fixed.


2) Used arrow some didn't have any problems but I like Aura better so I'm using it.


this has been fixed


3) WB doesn't skin applications that have custom painted windows like WMP. Therefore Rollup/down will not work on those windows as it is a feature of WB that is probably only available on windows that are controlled/painted by WB.


this has not been fixed. It is occurring with all type of skins, on Visual Studio, Media Player, and other apps. I'm using a German Windows, maybe that causes the problem.


4) The built in skinning in windows doesn't even skin those windows so why/how would WB. MY guess is that MDI child windows are not true windows but some contained dialog or something along those lines. I've never run Spy++ on an MDI window to see exactly what type of window it is but skinning them seems excessive at best.


I could have sworn I saw skinned mdi windows a couple of months ago. I was even able to roll them up/down.


5) Not really sure what you mean here. Are you referring to problems with games you play? Or is this software you are developing?


I'm developing plugins for Maya 6.0. When I have a window covering the OpenGL portion of the UI and move that window away, then everything is ok (I think maya refreshes the buffer every time a new area gets visible). But when I move the Mayas window, then the covering window burns into the buffer, that means that the ex-covered area of the OpenGL buffer won't be visible until I reposition the Camera in the Viewport (the buffer then gets rebuild completely).

I think in prior (<11/11) betas this even happened when I moved a window which was covering the Viewport area.

Download http://nehe.gamedev.net/data/lessons/lesson.asp?lesson=08 and execute it in windowed mode. Then cover it partially with another window. You'll see errors on the borders of the covering app. Move the OpenGL window, you'll see artifacts in the Buffer, whese dissappear as soon as the mouse goes up, in case of maya they don't dissapear until something in the scene changes since it does not do gamelike refreshing (i guess gamelike swapping the of buffer.)


6) You can absolutely stop WB from changing your wallpaper. In WBConfig go to Basic Settings, under the Enhance Desktop Elements section make sure "Apply any wallpaper supplied" is unchecked. this will stop the supplied wallpaper if any from being applied.


It's more about the background color than about the wallpaper. I open the skin in the Skin Editor, go to miscellaneous and remove the background color attribute and then the skin won't override my own chosen background color. I'd just like not to have to open the skin, remove attribute, save as another skin, apply new skin, if this could be done with a simple checkbox in the wb config. (wallpaper is working ok now)


7) Probably if the usage of Opera improves enough to justify the work it would take to fix the edit control, I'm sure it will get done. Until then use FF or IE.


I dropped Opera.


8) Seems like an issue to be brought up with skin authors. I mean, if a skin makes your UI inherently less usable then it's not really a good skin now is it..


Same as in point 6. With the difference that I won't go into the Skin Editor to change the opacity, I'll stop using that skin even if I like the remaining 95% of it and that's sad.

Hope some of these address your issues!

Sure they did, thanks!

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
The MDI windows used to be skinned in 4.6. This has not been (fully) implemented in the WB5 betas yet.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

MDI windows should be skinning with WB5 just as they do with WB4.6.

The only restrictions are they cannot have per pixel on them (they use the non per pixel frames - this will not be changing) and when maximized the min, max, close buttons in the menubar are not skinned when using a per pixel skin.

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
3) WB doesn't skin applications that have custom painted windows like WMP. Therefore Rollup/down will not work on those windows as it is a feature of WB that is probably only available on windows that are controlled/painted by WB.


Rollup works here for WMP using WB 4.6
It is also skinned (Menu section). Perhaps this is a WB5 limitation only, which has yet to be resolved.
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Unable to post in this forum with the Opera browser since this text input form cannot get attached (ok, this is not a wb bug...)


You are reading an Opera post-- maybe check your settings-- Accepting 3rd party cookies has helped some peeps (credit to Ms iseekserendipity)
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Rollup works here for WMP using WB 4.6
It is also skinned (Menu section). Perhaps this is a WB5 limitation only, which has yet to be resolved.


Roll-up on WMP skins only works for me if I make the non-custom painted title bar area visible, and even then it doesn't roll-up the same way other skins do because the default WMP skin seems to have a minimum size or something that won't allow you to fold it up completely. Maybe other skins work better but I for one can't stand WMP and will use anything that will keep me from having to run it.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ok.

Skinning of mdi-children is like in 4.x (actually Spy gets it's child windows skinned, Opera and some other not, they may be using another technique)

Rollup does still not work here, Visual Studio 2005 is about 5 cm in height (at least 15cm in Stardock Central) when rolled up. Even after a clean WinXP install, did you check other language os?

Now, what I have found out is that if I apply a version 4.x skin like my alltime favourite Souluna2, everything works just like in WB4.x, as soon as skins with WB5 features are loaded then the problem begins.

The problem is actually only the rollup.

The issue with the unskinned top border (caption) of Visual Studio appearing when it is restored from minimized, over which then the transparent border would get rendered, has been fixed.

OpenGL buffer issue is still there, but it's tolerable compared to the rollup.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Rollup has been fixed now.

One issue still remaining, need to see how to explain it correctly, since it's weired to explain. Basically it's about the margins being drawn over other windows, or windows moving below the margins of other windows but above the content of those other windows.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central