More shadow

The shadow is part of the graphics. There isn't a way to change that manually. That is how the skin Author preferred it.

Windows FX once was able to do that but I haven't messed with windows FX in a long time. You might check that out.

WindowsFX will not apply shadows to per-pixel WB skins. 

I wish WB shadows (author designed) could be toggled and user shadows applied.

Now that is disappointing! You mean I have to edit the border frame graphics somehow to change the amount of shadow? Well, I will not waste my time doing this. Waste, because I am not experienced with this and don't have the time and nerve to learn it.

Somebody that wants to change 'Elegance' to a shadow that looks like the well-known photoshop effect in all the magazines out there? (And remove that green taskbar notifier button...how crazy is that? It ruins the whole skin somewhow...)

I really wonder why the authors don't see that the more shadow they give the clearer and easier it is on a big desktop with lots of windows to see which one is the top and currently focused one. I have two monitors 1920x1200 each here, and this would be really cool and helpful.

Thanks for the info.

For that skin, the focused window is the one that has the blue/grey color around the min/max/close glyphs. I don't think the shadow intensity changes for a focused window versus a non-focused window. In the screenshot, they look the same. Check it out Elegance , the window on top has the blue/grey, the windows behind it (non-focused) have the same color around the glyphs as the rest of the top frame.

If all your worried about is knowing which window is active or not.. use a skin that more clearly signifies this. most skins make it pretty obvious.

In the old days . . the user could easily apply any of the WinFX  shadows for skins where teh WB was  . . unclear.  I miss that.

Well the fact is, without the author making and additional non shadowed set of frames and WinFX being able to tell WB which set to use via some kind of switch option.. this will never come to pass.

Personally I think heavy shadowing on frames looks bloody awful, there are several other ways to Identify active windows. Diff. color frames, diff color\opacity titlebar buttons, active taskbar buttons, etc.

If a the author of a blind does not incorporate some way to ID it, I would move on to a diff author\skin.

IMHO this indication is much too 'small' and therefore not sufficient.



You are right, at least with Elegance (did not check others). So what I would like is even more complicated - or even impossible? To have a heavy shadow only on the focussed window? Can there be different window frames for focused/non-focused windows?

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated.

I think this program is what you are looking for: Y'z Shadow 1.9 (latest version) -> Adds a shadow (and transparent effects -> optional) to Windows

i've been using it for a long time, and it works perfectly. you can adjust the darkness of the shadow and the left-right-down-up side of shadows aound the window frames. let's try it! and post comments...

I wonder how that would look with a skin that already has a shadow, like elegance. Does it draw a shadow starting at the bottom of the frame or at the bottom of the existing shadow. The latter would look horrendous.

Well, I can't believe this is true - yes, exactly what I wanted to have!

Guys, you really should try this one. I use Elegance with these Settings:
Active Windows: Left/Right 25, Bottom 30, Depth 180. Temp turn off when moving.
Inactive Window: Left/Right 13, Bottom 16, Depth 180.

Offset 2 for both. If you change the offset to 0 the windows get a very small left/right border, tranparent (!), which also looks nice.

You can easily see the difference between Elegance without and with additional shadow by clicking on the YZShadow symbol in the systray. The whole desktop pops into your face and becomes 3-dimensional - that's what I expected and could not see before with the poor shadows on the WB skins!

But it doesn't stop there: YZShadow gives shadow also to the menus - stunning 3-D effect again!

n44p, in case we ever meet: I owe you more than a beer!

Small correction: the numbers I gave are a bit too high. I was fooled by the on/off test with the tray icon. If you do this then the active window looses the focus, so...

Otherwise: Unbelievable, and already from 2002. How comes I never heared of this one before?

oh, happy to be helpful   and the best thing is that the program doesn't use cpu and you forget to have it... until you see the shadow effect