WinCustomize Forums
This is a windowblind I am working on... Comments, suggestions, ideas? This is my first blind, it will be for Windows 7 only. Am going for a very clean, easy to use blind with a fully transparent task bar application area so the icons "float" on the desktop.
I think it looks pretty cool! I really like the start menu and window. For a person (me) who hides the taskbar time/date though, that rectangle of grey and white might look odd being there all by itself. Good work!
That is an excellent point Karmat... perhaps I should make the clock/notification area transparent too? Then you're stuck not seeing the "show desktop" area visually as well, but maybe that is an OK tradeoff. Or I could make two substyles, one with a transparent clock/notification and one this way. Would be very little extra work I would think. Will think on that! 
Noo.... funny, my wife asked where the rest of her was in the screen shot as well! 
Here is an update on my progress so far... I am probably going to abandon the idea of the invisible task bar. It presents many, many problems with usability in practice unless you have VERY specific color choices for wallpapers/desktop/icons. Oh well, was a good idea anyway and I am liking my minimalist taskbar here as shown. As always, comments and suggestions for improvements welcome!
I love that start button and panel. Unique, witty just a good idea. 
Time for another update... it has been slow going. SkinStudio is very difficult to learn I must say and my hour or so per day to work on this doesn't go as far as I'd lilke it. I had anticipated making the graphics would be the hard part, how wrong I have been! 
Anyway, I've got the main parts of the interface skinned now, but still a long way to go with controls and misc. items all over the place to do. However, the main components are usable and seem to work pretty well.
I do have one question if anyone knows the answer... if you look at the start menu, the top item on the right side disappears fairly regularly. I believe this may have something to do with the user icon (which I turned off) overwriting it with nothing. Anyone have an idea of how to fix this?
I'm not positive but I think that top right item problem you're having might have something to do with the top of the start panel not being tall enough. There has to be enough room for the user icon, even if you aren't using it (something to do with the mouseover item...I can't remember which thread I remember reading that in right now). Anyway, try adding some transparent space to your start panel top and see if that fixes it.
Awesome! That does seem to have fixed it, and I would NEVER have thought of trying it. Thanks so much for the tip!
OK... So I believe I have a more or less working blind. I've only got Windows 7, and the blind is only intended for that platform. I'm looking for a few intrepid souls to test out the blind to see if they can find any problems before I release it on an unsuspecting world. Please PM me if you have Windows 7 and you'd be interested in testing. 
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