If i remember correctly thats a vista bug thing  try to make the buttons with as little borders as possible, or try to make as square buttons as possible to hide it. That you dont see it in other places in the skin is probably because they are on a light background about the same White color as around the buttons....

I've not tried texturing the tab background in vista, but looks like the buttonface is showing thru around the buttons, I'd suggest just not using a texture there.

I have confirmed it is a Vista wb bug. only classic buttonface will show around buttons.

Well, that sucks!  Now I will have to change the tab buttons too...dang!  I think you are right about the bleed thru...I think it is the button face too.  I'll post back here and let you know if changing the background fixes the problem.  Thanks!

Well, changing the background to just a plain dark bmp didn't change anything either.  And, in the process of trying to import some different buttons as a test, SKS crapped out on me, and the skin went to classic!  Geez!  Well, managed to change to another skin and had to re-boot twice for it to take hold.  But, now everything is ok.  I had to delete the skin I was working on, but, thankfully I had made a wba file just before I started messing with this stuff.  So, now I am afraid to change those buttons...lol.  I guess the only thing I can do is make the background the same color as the button face. 

What a pain!

Affirmative.

and.. I feel ur pain

Okay, I got the issue resolved...made the background bmp the same color as the button face.  And, just had to change one of the tab item buttons.

I have another question:

I was browsing through the wba file, and noticed tons of Vista (blah-blah-bh) ~ files.  Is it safe to delete those?  I already know it is safe to delete the backup folder from when you clean the skin, but I don't know about this.

I'm finding a lot of things that suck, when you try to skin Vista...geez...but, if I ever get this blind done, it will be pretty cool...there are things you can skin for Vista but not XP.

I am almost done, I think, with the vista skin.  Now I have to go back to my XP version and make changes there...so that both blinds look sorta alike...lol.

Then I will need someone to test the vista version for me.  I had already had the XP version tested before I started the Vista version, so I am not worried about that one.

Looking smoth there Jazzy!

I thought you knew this already, its been around since the beginning of vista blinds

I wonder what the problem is? why it isnt as in XP.... any WB/SKS developer that can answer this?

Hehe yeah i know it sucks you cant do those wild buttons you want, not if it is supposed to look good in vista anyway...

( problem is well-rounded corners or like pillow emboss, but you can put it on a square pic and then do a rounded button on top of it to get around the buttonface color)

I did, I just had it confirmed by someone at SD

2nd opinions never hurt.

Hey AV...do you feel like testing my blind for me?

I was able to keep my rounded buttons by changing the bacground to a regular (no texture) bmp that is the same light color that was hanging out with my buttons!

Ahh ok did you get a why it does what it does?

Doesn't really matter to me why it works or doesnt..I'm not a coder... I just try to skin what works... as is..sometimes you can skin around issues, sometimes you can't... some of it is hardcoding in areas of the windows UI, other areas perhaps areas of the OS that haven't been fully developed yet for WB.

I let the developers worry about overcoming shortfalls in the UI engine and try to get on with skinning what I can.

Serenity.. i guess.

Sure but it would be great if a list of shortcomings where available so you can plan skinnning after that, as a new skinner info like

"Buttonface color shines thru on pushbuttons where there is alpha in vista"

And "Folderbar text in vista explorer is hardcoded"

or "calculator button color is hardcoded in red and blue"

as is "Favorite bar text in firefox are hardcoded black"

would save alot of headache, tears, suicides and broken keyboards...

I seem to remember there is a post somewhere about skinning vista tips, it should be pinned....

Well ill guess when it comes to it im pretty much like you workaround it and breath deep, what did you call it? ahh yes serenity

*voidcore puts indexfingers and thumbs together and goes

"OOOOOMMMMMMMMM......... OOOOOOOOMMMMMM........... OOOOOOMMMMMM"

I just ran into this problem a couple of days ago.

Had I seen this thread then, I wouldn't have had to figure it out myself!

Well, at least we both know how to fix this problem