Anyone making (or is making) a WindowBlinds with bigger max-min-exit buttons?

Making a request

Thursday, May 8, 2014 by joeKnowledge | Discussion: WindowBlinds

Hello everyone out there in customization land!

 

I am wondering if anyone is making a WindowbBlinds theme that has big max/min and exit buttons so I can put it on my mothers commuter as well as mine. For my mom it would make it easier to close stuff and minimize while for me I have a Dell XPS 12 touch screen so having bigger buttons would be helpful (although Microsoft, to their credit, fixed many issues with missing the buttons when you touch them)

 

>>> Also if anyone knows of current WindowBilnds themes that have bg buttons let me know. At this point I can only use UIS 0 themes so that the buttons are large. 

 

PS

if you are making a WindowBlinds skin with big buttons, could you add a roll-up button?

6 Reply 11 Referrals
JW0914
Reply #1 Sunday, August 3, 2014 11:41 AM

You can do this yourself, and it is fairly easy, though a bit time consuming... You have two options, and I would recommend the 2nd:

  • Open the theme you want big buttons in within Skin Studio (right click on theme within WB and select edit, or open Skin Studio and open the theme)
    1. Navigate to: Edit Titlebars and WindowFrames - Edit Per Pixel Buttons (I use the advanced settings [I am an experienced user...] and basic will be selected by default... if you can't find the proper category in basic, change to advanced via the Preferences menu). Select Edit Image.., which will open the image, by default, within Paint.  You will then need to zoom to 800x (the max), and every box you see is an individual pixel.  The outermost colored boxes are the border... simply create a bigger border and fill the expanded interior with a color of your choice.  Paint is a primitive image editing program and therefor does not recognize the Alpha channel, of which is used for differing levels of transparency, ranging from 0 (opaque) to 255 (completely transparent).  You can achieve full transparency within Paint by using Hot Pink [255(R),0(G),255(B].
    2. Use Photoshop (or equivalent advanced photo editor) instead of Paint. While the instructions above will be the same, we must first change the default editor before starting them.  
      • Go to: Tools-Preferences-Advanced.  Select Pick Custom App under Editing Images, and navigate to the folder where Photoshop is installed and select the Photoshop executable file.  
      • Advanced Photo Editors must be able to open and save the .TGA extension, as this file type is required for the Alpha channel. Most are familiar with RGB [Red, Green, Blue; all in values of 0,0,0 [Black] to 255,255,255 [White]), however, there is a 4th channel, A [Alpha].  In photos, including video, RGB is represented by ARGB.  

gmc2
Reply #2 Sunday, August 3, 2014 3:14 PM

jmonroe0914
reply 1

Also, make sure you tick the box Do Not Convert TGA to PNG, regardless if you use Paint or an advanced photo editor. Failing to do this will make your job massively more difficult if you attempt to edit your theme picture files in the future with an advanced photo editor.

how come? any graphics made or changed for a specific windowblind and saved to the temppngs folder as a png will automatically be converted from png to tga when imported from the temppng folder.


DaveBax
Reply #3 Sunday, August 3, 2014 3:48 PM

gmc2
reply 2

how come? any graphics made or changed for a specific windowblind and saved to the temppngs folder as a png will automatically be converted from png to tga when imported from the temppng folder.

Amen. 

 

joeKnowledge: Make your screen resolution lower. It will make all buttons and text larger and easier to see. I have done this on a few people I know that have a problem seeing and it works fine for them. Just a suggestion.


JW0914
Reply #4 Sunday, August 3, 2014 9:44 PM

I didn't realize that, as I never used the folder since I wanted all changes to the skin to be the default option.  I have edited my post to reflect the correct information


JW0914
Reply #5 Sunday, August 3, 2014 10:05 PM

DaveBax
reply 3


Make your screen resolution lower. It will make all buttons and text larger and easier to see. I have done this on a few people I know that have a problem seeing and it works fine for them. Just a suggestion.

 

While this is a quick and easy fix, it does so at the expense of use experience with less space allocated for windows and lower video output quality. I personally wouldn't do it that way, however many others are fine with it that way... it comes down to personal preference and weighing the pros and the cons, whether quality or time spent is more important.


gmc2
Reply #6 Sunday, August 3, 2014 11:21 PM

jmonroe0914
reply 1

Advanced Photo Editors must be able to open and save the .TGA extension, as this file type is required for the Alpha channel.

I apologize jmonroe. This is not entirely accurate. Graphics that are edited out of sks come up as a png file and again, saved as such in the temp folder. I'm probably the only one that uses Painstshoppro7 which is okay with a png but a tga file, no way.


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