Taskbar Buttons
Framed in black box
Wednesday, June 1, 2005 by dbishop | Discussion: WindowBlinds
I am running WB 4.51 on Windows 2K Pro SP4. Only on some skins that I load, I get black boxes framed around the taskbar buttons. Is it the way the skins are created or something missing on my system?
dbishop
Reply #2 Wednesday, June 1, 2005 11:18 AM
Reply #2 Wednesday, June 1, 2005 11:18 AM
Nope both are checked. Does it have anything to do with my OS? Everybody else is running XP
Daiwa
Reply #3 Wednesday, June 1, 2005 11:50 PM
Reply #3 Wednesday, June 1, 2005 11:50 PM
Which skins in particular are showing this, and what type of video/drivers are you running?
Cavan1's suggestion is a good thing to check, but not where he suggested. The XP Taskbar settings in SkinStudio are ignored on Win2K (unless you are using ObjectBar), so you need to be checking the TaskBar Button settings for the Classic TaskBar in the Windows section of SkinStudio Preview (Desktop/Classic Taskbar in SKS Explorer pane) and I can tell you that those are a problem on Win2K, though the specific problem you describe may be remedied by changing the transparency settings there - I've been trying to precipitate a fix for the native TaskBar display problems by repeatedly nagging about them in the newsgroups, but there seems to be little incentive to fix them because so few Object Desktop subscribers are running 2k (at least according to Stardock). There are either bugs in WB or limitations in the OS that prevent the TaskBar buttons from displaying properly (especially the text settings) in the Classic TaskBar.
Cheers,
Daiwa
Cavan1's suggestion is a good thing to check, but not where he suggested. The XP Taskbar settings in SkinStudio are ignored on Win2K (unless you are using ObjectBar), so you need to be checking the TaskBar Button settings for the Classic TaskBar in the Windows section of SkinStudio Preview (Desktop/Classic Taskbar in SKS Explorer pane) and I can tell you that those are a problem on Win2K, though the specific problem you describe may be remedied by changing the transparency settings there - I've been trying to precipitate a fix for the native TaskBar display problems by repeatedly nagging about them in the newsgroups, but there seems to be little incentive to fix them because so few Object Desktop subscribers are running 2k (at least according to Stardock). There are either bugs in WB or limitations in the OS that prevent the TaskBar buttons from displaying properly (especially the text settings) in the Classic TaskBar.
Cheers,
Daiwa
Cavan1
Reply #4 Thursday, June 2, 2005 2:52 AM
Reply #4 Thursday, June 2, 2005 2:52 AM
Hey Daiwa, I just learned something new about SkinStudio and Win2K, Thank You.
dbishop
Reply #5 Thursday, June 2, 2005 8:34 AM
Reply #5 Thursday, June 2, 2005 8:34 AM
A skin that has this characteristic is Craig Oman's "Argentwb". I have an Intel 82810E Graphics Controller, the video driver is version 5.12.1.2586. I can't seem to find the "Classic Taskbar" section once I have it loaded into SkinStudio. Can you provide a clearer path to it? I just have the free version.
Daiwa
Reply #6 Thursday, June 2, 2005 9:27 AM
Reply #6 Thursday, June 2, 2005 9:27 AM
CC1 - You're welcome. 
dbishop -
If you have SkinStudio open, a skin loaded and the Preview window showing, just click on the Taskbar in the Preview image. Alternatively, at the upper left of the SKS program window is a pane with two tabs - Buttons & Explorer - usually the Explorer tab is displayed by default. In the file tree of the Explorer tab, the bottom root item (below Taskbar) is Desktop - that's the section I'm talking about. Expand that and you'll see the Classic Taskbar items.
As for your video setup, that may be contributing. I'm guessing it is onboard (not an add-in video card) and I have experience with onboard Intel video with a couple of computers - not very good, I'm afraid and things like WB which and WFX which push video performace a bit can be hard for Intel's drivers to handle, with resultant display anomalies. That may or may not be the case with your specific issue, but it's fair to say Intel's onboard video setups have generally not been very good, in large part because hardware acceleration is usually absent.
Cheers,
Daiwa
dbishop -
If you have SkinStudio open, a skin loaded and the Preview window showing, just click on the Taskbar in the Preview image. Alternatively, at the upper left of the SKS program window is a pane with two tabs - Buttons & Explorer - usually the Explorer tab is displayed by default. In the file tree of the Explorer tab, the bottom root item (below Taskbar) is Desktop - that's the section I'm talking about. Expand that and you'll see the Classic Taskbar items.
As for your video setup, that may be contributing. I'm guessing it is onboard (not an add-in video card) and I have experience with onboard Intel video with a couple of computers - not very good, I'm afraid and things like WB which and WFX which push video performace a bit can be hard for Intel's drivers to handle, with resultant display anomalies. That may or may not be the case with your specific issue, but it's fair to say Intel's onboard video setups have generally not been very good, in large part because hardware acceleration is usually absent.
Cheers,
Daiwa
Koasati
Reply #7 Thursday, June 2, 2005 9:32 AM
Reply #7 Thursday, June 2, 2005 9:32 AM
In the left tree view, go to the bottom.... Desktop > Classic Taskbar.
Koasati
Reply #8 Thursday, June 2, 2005 9:35 AM
Reply #8 Thursday, June 2, 2005 9:35 AM
sorry.... Daiwa's comment was not there a minute ago. 
dbishop
Reply #9 Thursday, June 2, 2005 5:34 PM
Reply #9 Thursday, June 2, 2005 5:34 PM
Thanks for all of the above, found it, already set for transparency. I've been thinking about this more. If it was the hardware/software video system, it should be happening on all skins. It only happens on some. It really seems like a setting or a design issue with these particular skins. I even have skins from the same author that work and don't work. ????????
Daiwa
Reply #10 Friday, June 3, 2005 12:03 AM
Reply #10 Friday, June 3, 2005 12:03 AM
Not all skins use transparency for those buttons, they could be .tga's in some and .bmp's in others, so the buttons could vary from skin to skin if your video drivers have a problem with transparency. A thought. If I had to bet, I'd bet on the Intel video drivers being the problem.
Cheers,
Daiwa
Cheers,
Daiwa
Koasati
Reply #11 Friday, June 3, 2005 7:51 AM
Reply #11 Friday, June 3, 2005 7:51 AM
Give us a link to one of the skins that's giving you the problem. And one that isn't.
dbishop
Reply #12 Saturday, June 4, 2005 8:53 PM
Reply #12 Saturday, June 4, 2005 8:53 PM
I checked out the skins in SkinStudio, anytime the button images are .tga, I have the problem, when they are .bmp, they look fine. I upgraded my video driver, but it did not make a difference.
Argentwb - doesn't work
Mako - works
Argentwb - doesn't work
Mako - works
Tominated
Reply #13 Sunday, June 5, 2005 4:37 AM
Reply #13 Sunday, June 5, 2005 4:37 AM
i get a similar problem, mainly with pixtudio and treetog's work
Daiwa
Reply #14 Sunday, June 5, 2005 10:26 PM
Reply #14 Sunday, June 5, 2005 10:26 PM
Regrettably, onboard Intel video may still be the problem, even with updated drivers. I had lots of graphic anomalies with skins, with onboard ATI video as it happens, until I installed a dedicated video card. The problems with onboard video are insufficient VRAM and lack of hardware acceleration (usually).
Cheers,
Daiwa
Cheers,
Daiwa
Daiwa
Reply #15 Sunday, June 5, 2005 10:27 PM
Reply #15 Sunday, June 5, 2005 10:27 PM
Oh, and pixtudio & treetog happen to use a lot of .tga images in their skins, so stands to reason.
Cheers,
Daiwa
Cheers,
Daiwa
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Reply #1 Wednesday, June 1, 2005 5:59 AM