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Windows themes
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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by ReNo on Sat Jun 4th at 5:12am 2005

I know we've talked about Mozilla/Firefox/Etc... extensions and themes in the past, but I've never seen anybody here talk about Windows themes/shells. I only just heard about custom windows shells (basically new user interfaces for windows) and now I'm kinda hooked - don't think I could go back to the ugly WinXP theme or Windows classic theme now!

I grabbed myself LiteStep (apparently the most popular custom shell) and downloaded a few themes to play around with. LiteStep lets theme designers Do pretty much whatever they like with the interfaces and is very modular, letting you turn on and off features with ease (so you can be minimalist or....maximumist, or anything in between). While they don't tend to be quite as user friendly or simple to tweak as the standard windows themes, if you spend a little time tweaking settings in script files you can get quite a bit of control.

Here is a picture of my newly tweaked desktop, using LiteStep with the "non | step" theme...

image

Funnily enough, my only real issue with this theme, and something I can't seem to find out how to change, is how to get my desktop icons showing again <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif">

If any of you want to look into custom shells, I suggest you check out LiteStep. The offical site is down (and apparently has been for some time) but you can download it and find out more info here...

http://beyondconvention.net/ohussain/lsinstaller/

A good place to grab themes for it, and lots of other shells and programs...

http://www.customize.org/list/ls




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by Madedog on Sat Jun 4th at 5:22am 2005

Well... as for me, I prefer Linux and KDE <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_lol.gif"> XD



HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by Leperous on Sat Jun 4th at 9:21am 2005

Is Litestep free? I used to use ThemeXP or something but it was only 30-day shareware, though there were some good themes with it. I'll have to try this one out <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by Myrk- on Sat Jun 4th at 9:23am 2005

I use Tuneup XP, has a built in theme program majigger.


-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by thursday- on Sat Jun 4th at 9:41am 2005

Litestep is free. That non-step theme is nice I only have one problem. The bar is on the top and won't move to the bottom <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/sad.gif">


http://www.jamesdeth.co.uk

I WANT TO KEEP MY SNARKPIT NAME AS THURSDAY- AND NOT CHANGE IT TO MY NEW ALIAS OF THALDARIN! WHY? NOSTALGIC PURPOSES FOR ME! STOP ASKING ME IF I WANT TO GET IT CH



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by ReNo on Sat Jun 4th at 9:55am 2005

Thursday - click the button with the backwards L shape on it, and a menu will pop up that lets you change the taskbar to the bottom, as well as change its colour theme. You have to do a fair bit of digging to find out how to change lots of things, and most things require a bit of scripting (I've been playing around adding in "bang" commands, which let you do pretty much anything through the command line on the taskbar), but I think its worth it in the end to finally have things the way you actually want them. These things don't seem to come in a very useable form - I spent a good few hours setting up right click menus and what have you <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by thursday- on Sat Jun 4th at 9:59am 2005

Ah there we go. Now I put it at the bottom the Opera Browser logo won't appear like it did before. Argh.... I will figure it out somehow, bit like the desktop icon thing.


http://www.jamesdeth.co.uk

I WANT TO KEEP MY SNARKPIT NAME AS THURSDAY- AND NOT CHANGE IT TO MY NEW ALIAS OF THALDARIN! WHY? NOSTALGIC PURPOSES FOR ME! STOP ASKING ME IF I WANT TO GET IT CH



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by Madedog on Sat Jun 4th at 11:10am 2005

I am waiting for Longhorn (or the eXPedition... <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_lol.gif">) which has a 3D window manager :-P



HL2 tutorials 'n' stuff: http://madedog.pri.ee
217.159.236.34:27050 - CSS Server - Clean | koffer.ee



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by Loco on Sat Jun 4th at 11:35am 2005

I use Microsofts new official "Royale" theme based on Windows Media Centre Edition. Shame they kept so quiet about it, as it's quite a nice theme. You can get it here if you're interested.



My site



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by OtZman on Sat Jun 4th at 1:14pm 2005

Nice app. Trying it out now, trying to find a good theme.

Something for all nerds: http://www.customize.org/details/34281



What the Snarkpitters listen to!



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by French Toast on Sat Jun 4th at 1:16pm 2005

I'm quite a fan of Royale, Loco, just got it.




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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by Forceflow on Sat Jun 4th at 1:28pm 2005

? quote:
I am waiting for Longhorn (or the eXPedition... ) which has a 3D window manager :-P


SphereXP can do that now. And it's free. Pretty cool, really.



:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by Wild Card on Sat Jun 4th at 2:16pm 2005

I have Smartbar XP on the right side of my screen, with the Windows task bar disabled and the screen res 1152*864

I'd get a screen shot, but my Photobucket account exceeded it's bandwidth...




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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by Natus on Sat Jun 4th at 3:10pm 2005

i once used some mac themes and object dock, but for some reason it deleted my shortcuts and then i started to hate it.



Boo f**king Hoo



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by G4MER on Sat Jun 4th at 4:25pm 2005

I have LiteStep on my system now. I dont use it much. Its not a theme prgram as much as a new UI, heck it unloads most of windows and uses just what it needs to still be a Windows Based Machine.



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by French Toast on Sat Jun 4th at 4:56pm 2005

[quote[ SphereXP can do that now. And it's free. Pretty cool, really.

I tried that out, and I really hated it. It was so wierd, and only my desktop icons would move, none of my regular windows would. It's a neat idea though.




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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by satchmo on Sat Jun 4th at 5:08pm 2005

I use the "Olive Green" theme that came pre-packaged with Windows XP. It serves the purpose well, but it might not be the prettiest. I am so used to it by now that I see no point of changing to anything else.

At one point in my life, before I turned twenty, I used to mess around with icons and themes all the time. I even customized the Windows startup animation screen, and I had all sorts of custom sounds for each Windows event. This was with Windows 3.1!

Man, that really dates me, doesn't it?




"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by Campaignjunkie on Sat Jun 4th at 6:14pm 2005

I always turn off all the advanced graphic feature things (except font antialiasing), and change the themes back to Windows 2000 style. I think it's a bit more practical that way.




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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by ReNo on Sat Jun 4th at 7:07pm 2005

The cool thing about litestep is that it really lets you make it as practical or as fancy as you like. I think I've probably got it setup to be more productive than standard windows UI's and there is still a lot of room for improvement.

For example, I mentioned briefly about being able to do scripting and create commands you can run from your taskbar. An example is being able to type "? <args>" and have it pop open your browser and search for your arguments in your search engine of choice, or you can create specifics such as my "?image <args>" to search for google images, or "?amazon <args>" to search on amazon. I can just type "!snarkpit" or "!mapcore" and get to websites without needing to open my browser or clutter my desktop with links. You can also use it exactly like the windows "run..." command - type in any address on your computer and be taken there, execute any program (including non-pathed ones such as "calc" or "ping"), and do anything you'd normally have to bring up a cmd window for basically.

Another fairly neat feature I've not quite gotten used to but think could be handy is the multiple desktop system. This lets you have several desktops that can be cycled between or selected from the taskbar, allowing you to, for instance, minimise/restore multiple things at once.

So yeah, basically having a replacement shell, particularly one as modular and tweakable as LiteStep, really lets you go crazy with customising things for your own productivity.




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



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 Re: Windows themes
Posted by fishy on Sun Jun 5th at 2:55am 2005

i used to enjoy 'themeing' the screens at work. a few years ago, i found out the name of the old 'it is now safe to turn off your computer' file. it was a small bmp but had a .sys extension, so i made a new one in paint that said the computer had encountered a serious error and would explode in 10 seconds. it wouldn't really have been funny if i'd done it on my own computer instead of my managers. worked a treat. and the touch screen pic i made as a desktop background worked pretty well as a dafty magnet.


i eat paint




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