XP Corona Theme has the "off by 20 pixels" problem
Wednesday, October 20, 2004 by kkkwj | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
Hi, I am a newbie stardock/windowblinds user, and have a problem with the XP Corona Theme written by Pixstudio. It's in the themes section of the Theme Manager. Windows thinks all the popup windows are shorter than they really are for some reason. When an application like MS Word pops up a dialog (for changing a font style from the Styles and Formatting menu, for example), the dialog box hangs off the bottom of my screen so I can hardly click the buttons on the bottom of the dialog.
I searched the net and came across an introductory skinning tutorial https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/skinning/skinformats.html that talks about Windows thinking a window is 20 pixels higher than it is.
I'm willing to do some work to fix the XP Corona theme, which apparently has this problem, but I don't know where to start. Is there someone out there who can explain what I have to change to get the theme working right? (Other themes do not have this problem.)
Many thanks in advance.
kj
I searched the net and came across an introductory skinning tutorial https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/skinning/skinformats.html that talks about Windows thinking a window is 20 pixels higher than it is.
I'm willing to do some work to fix the XP Corona theme, which apparently has this problem, but I don't know where to start. Is there someone out there who can explain what I have to change to get the theme working right? (Other themes do not have this problem.)
Many thanks in advance.
kj
kkkwj
Reply #2 Wednesday, October 20, 2004 11:24 PM
Reply #2 Wednesday, October 20, 2004 11:24 PM
Hi Yrgal, I use Office 2003, Windows XP (SP1, I backed out of SP2), and resolution of 1280x800 (a widescreen toshiba satellite laptop).
No other themes have the issue except the XP Corona Theme. The dialogs that suffer the worst are the style changing ones that pop up with the Word sequence ctl-f1 (open the task pane), choose Styles and Formatting, and then click on the right side arrow to open up a style dialog.
Thank you for your reply.
No other themes have the issue except the XP Corona Theme. The dialogs that suffer the worst are the style changing ones that pop up with the Word sequence ctl-f1 (open the task pane), choose Styles and Formatting, and then click on the right side arrow to open up a style dialog.
Thank you for your reply.
JanOscar
Reply #3 Wednesday, October 20, 2004 11:35 PM
Reply #3 Wednesday, October 20, 2004 11:35 PM
Everything works normally on my PC, except I can't set the screen resolution to 1280x800. Have you tried changing resolution to see if it's the same in other more common resolutions, like 1024x768 or 1280x960? Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but there will hopefully be someone else who can check this out on a similar laptop/monitor.
kkkwj
Reply #4 Wednesday, October 20, 2004 11:54 PM
Reply #4 Wednesday, October 20, 2004 11:54 PM
Very weird. I have suffered this problem for a loooong time, and have tried to move the dialogs up before clicking OK, thinking that Windows remembered the last location of the dialogs. To no effect, the dialogs would open hanging off the low edge of the screen again.
But this time, just after I responded to your previous message, I realized that I was running the VWM virtual windows manager, and not said that in my previous post. So I disabled it, rebooted, tried out another few themes, and found one that was uncomfortably close to hanging off the bottom of the screen too.
This time when I relocated the dialog and clicked OK (made no changes in the dialog), Windows remembered the new location, and opened up the dialog in the new place where I put it. Thereafter, switching to the XP Corona theme gave the same results-windows opens the dialog where I last closed it.
I have no idea what's going on, how the VWM was involved, or why my previous attempts to relocate the dialog failed to work. I am at a loss. But I know that right now things are working right on the theme I like, so I'm a happy camper.
Thanks again for your help. Even though it doesn't look like you said much, my problem has been resolved through the process of this conversation.
Cheers!
kj
But this time, just after I responded to your previous message, I realized that I was running the VWM virtual windows manager, and not said that in my previous post. So I disabled it, rebooted, tried out another few themes, and found one that was uncomfortably close to hanging off the bottom of the screen too.
This time when I relocated the dialog and clicked OK (made no changes in the dialog), Windows remembered the new location, and opened up the dialog in the new place where I put it. Thereafter, switching to the XP Corona theme gave the same results-windows opens the dialog where I last closed it.
I have no idea what's going on, how the VWM was involved, or why my previous attempts to relocate the dialog failed to work. I am at a loss. But I know that right now things are working right on the theme I like, so I'm a happy camper.
Thanks again for your help. Even though it doesn't look like you said much, my problem has been resolved through the process of this conversation.
Cheers!
kj
kkkwj
Reply #5 Thursday, October 21, 2004 9:04 AM
Reply #5 Thursday, October 21, 2004 9:04 AM
Sorry to say, but the problem has not gone away. More inspection shows that every time Word opens up a styles and formatting dialog, it shifts it down a few pixels (presumably to cascade open windows). So the dialogs march down the screen.
All other visual styles for windowblinds stop properly at the bottom of the screen, so I can still click the OK button, but the XP Corona style marches right off the bottom of the screen, until only half the OK button shows. It's like Windows thinks the bottom edge of the XP Corona style dialogs is 1/4 inch higher up than it really is.
I'm convinced it's something in the XP Corona style. I loaded it up and analyzed it with the analyze button, and it's full of errors. I tried Tools/Fix Errors, and that fixed some errors and left me with only a few serious errors (some things were missing). But there's a loooong list of Hints that look like errors in disguise.
So I guess my question is still open. Does anyone know what's different about XP Corona that would give it this weird behavior, and can anyone point me to a starting point to fix it? (As I said in my first post, maybe it has something to do with asymmetric borders around the window, like the tutorial said.)
Thanks
All other visual styles for windowblinds stop properly at the bottom of the screen, so I can still click the OK button, but the XP Corona style marches right off the bottom of the screen, until only half the OK button shows. It's like Windows thinks the bottom edge of the XP Corona style dialogs is 1/4 inch higher up than it really is.
I'm convinced it's something in the XP Corona style. I loaded it up and analyzed it with the analyze button, and it's full of errors. I tried Tools/Fix Errors, and that fixed some errors and left me with only a few serious errors (some things were missing). But there's a loooong list of Hints that look like errors in disguise.
So I guess my question is still open. Does anyone know what's different about XP Corona that would give it this weird behavior, and can anyone point me to a starting point to fix it? (As I said in my first post, maybe it has something to do with asymmetric borders around the window, like the tutorial said.)
Thanks
eieio
Reply #6 Thursday, October 21, 2004 9:31 AM
Reply #6 Thursday, October 21, 2004 9:31 AM
I'm not sure if it's relevant, but I noticed the Screen Edge Clip for both Top and Bottom are set to 4. Might be worth trying to set both to a smaller number to see if that has an effect. I normally see these set to 1 or 2.
kkkwj
Reply #7 Thursday, October 21, 2004 9:48 AM
Reply #7 Thursday, October 21, 2004 9:48 AM
Thanks for the suggestion. I will try that next. In the meantime, (not really knowing what I am doing), I ran the Tools / Correct Skin Errors option on the skin, deleted all the leftover hints, deleted attributes that looked like they shouldn't be there, used existing bitmap backgrounds for backgrounds that were missing, randomly used a "rollover" button to replace a missing image for Button4 (which says "system button" beside it), and changed the titlebar height? captionheight? from 23 to 46.
Now the successive word styles and formatting dialogs do not march downward any more. But they slowly march to the right, a few pixels at a time.
I'm guessing that maybe the captionheight being 23 told windows the dialog was shorter in height than it really was, so when I increased it to 46 (thank heavens for the SS error message), windows could calculate the proper height for the dialog window.
Now there must be some equivalent thing for the sideways motion. I'm not getting any skin error messages any more, so no more easy help from the system..
I looked at the window borders fields, and everything looks more or less symmetric except for the side margins. Left frame edge margins are ",,46,19" and right is ",,47,12". Could that be the problem? I don't know what the numbers mean.
Now the successive word styles and formatting dialogs do not march downward any more. But they slowly march to the right, a few pixels at a time.
I'm guessing that maybe the captionheight being 23 told windows the dialog was shorter in height than it really was, so when I increased it to 46 (thank heavens for the SS error message), windows could calculate the proper height for the dialog window.
Now there must be some equivalent thing for the sideways motion. I'm not getting any skin error messages any more, so no more easy help from the system..
I looked at the window borders fields, and everything looks more or less symmetric except for the side margins. Left frame edge margins are ",,46,19" and right is ",,47,12". Could that be the problem? I don't know what the numbers mean.
kkkwj
Reply #8 Thursday, October 21, 2004 10:05 AM
Reply #8 Thursday, October 21, 2004 10:05 AM
Ah.., I am learning as I go. The margin numbers split the images into 3 portions, so they are not the problem. Asymmetry is ok there.
The screen edge clips are for how much to clip the borders of maximized windows, so they do not apply to my "marching dialog" issues. But I adjusted the left side clip to make the maximized windows look better, thank you.
I found the width of the left border bitmap is 15, and the right side border bitmap is 8, so there is some asymmetry there. The top border bitmap is 322 (draw method stretch), the bottom bitmap 397 (draw method tile). I would like to calculate the window size and see if the bitmap sizes fit the calculated size, to search for a skew that would make the dialog window march rightward. (Kind of like the title bar problem, where the image was 46 high, but the captionheight said 23.)
But I can't find anything that specifies the size of the window, so maybe it's just calculated from the bitmaps? The question is, how wide is the window? I have 15 (left) + 322 (title) + 8 (right), but the 322 says "stretch to fit". Stretch to fit what? The bottom image width (397). But the bottom image says "tile to fit", so fit to what?
The screen edge clips are for how much to clip the borders of maximized windows, so they do not apply to my "marching dialog" issues. But I adjusted the left side clip to make the maximized windows look better, thank you.
I found the width of the left border bitmap is 15, and the right side border bitmap is 8, so there is some asymmetry there. The top border bitmap is 322 (draw method stretch), the bottom bitmap 397 (draw method tile). I would like to calculate the window size and see if the bitmap sizes fit the calculated size, to search for a skew that would make the dialog window march rightward. (Kind of like the title bar problem, where the image was 46 high, but the captionheight said 23.)
But I can't find anything that specifies the size of the window, so maybe it's just calculated from the bitmaps? The question is, how wide is the window? I have 15 (left) + 322 (title) + 8 (right), but the 322 says "stretch to fit". Stretch to fit what? The bottom image width (397). But the bottom image says "tile to fit", so fit to what?
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Reply #1 Wednesday, October 20, 2004 10:06 PM