Look & Feel: Transparency & Blur

Look & Feel: Transparency & Blur

Locate & click on the menu option near the top of the window on the sub-menu.

This tab gives you the ability to change the level of transparency & blur of a skin. Even if the skin you like doesn't include these features, you can add them through this area. Transparency can be applied to the: taskbar, menus, start menu and window frames. Transparency is how see-thru something is, the less transparent the more opaque (solid in color).

Transparency & Blur tab.

When blur is added to a transparent area, it makes objects (i.e. text, icons, wallpaper) behind look fuzzy. Without blur, the objects appear sharp in detail and text is readable. The preview area will reflect any changes made on this screen. Here are some examples of transparency and blur to give you a better idea of what this looks like. The "Classic" (Vista) Yellow skin is still in use, other skins may vary.

"Classic" (Vista) yellow skin - with default level of transparency (middle on scale), no blur added.	More transparency and blur added.

Full transparency, no blur.	Full transparency and blur.

Preview
The preview area allows you to see changes made to the skin you selected. Sometimes, you can get a better view of the changes by selecting

and seeing it first hand on your desktop. The gray/white area on the left represents the Start menu.

Presets
Below the preview pane is the pull-down menu for Presets, including any you created on the other tabs.

You can leave the default of "Change setting for all skins", select a preset you created or create/delete a new preset.

Creating a Preset
To create a new preset, click on "Create / delete preset..." and you will see the following window:

As you can see, the presets created on the

tab are listed here. The same preset you create either on the

tab or

tab can to used for both. If you hadn't created any presets, no presets would be listed until you created one. Clicking the

button will open a dialog box asking you for to type in the name of the preset. You can name it anything, use something descriptive, spaces are okay.

You need to select from the pull-down menu, which substyle you want to use as a base for your changes.

In this case, I've selected "Classic (Vista) Yellow". You can select any item on the menu, even if your running Windows XP you can select the "(Vista)" version. Now click on the

button and you will see the preset listed in the box. If you change your mind and you don't want to create a preset, you could have clicked either the

button or the close

icon (in the upper right corner) to cancel any changes.

Deleting a Preset
I've created additional presets as the following screen shows. If at any time you want to delete a preset, from this screen simply click on the one you want to delete and click the

button.

When deleting a preset, you will be prompted with a confirmation (Yes/No). Click on the

button to delete the preset. To cancel the delete, either click on the

button or the close

icon.

Viewing List of Saved Presets
Click

on the "Create and delete preset" window. Now you will see a preset listed in the saved presets. Click on the preset pull-down again and see the list of other saved presets. Here we select "Joe gaming skin colors". Now whatever changes are made will automatically be saved to this preset.

Transparency & Blur
To change how transparent an area is, drag the slider

icon or click along the horizontal line and watch the preview.

Transparency

The further you move the to the left, the more transparent (i.e. see-thru) the skin comes. Moving it to the far right makes it less transparent (i.e. less see-thru, more opaque, solid in color). Click on "Skin default" to return the to the original setting of the skin.

Blur
The default setting for Blur is "Only blur the background if the skin has blur enabled".

You can change the setting to disable blur by selecting (radio button) for "Never blur the background even if the skin has blur enabled". The last option is to "Always blur the background", so it's always on regardless if the skin supports the feature or not.

I Want to Change...
Below the Presets is another pull-down menu, which includes these options:

You can make changes to the: Taskbar (bar typically on the bottom of your screen), menus, Start menu and window frames. Changes are made independently of each other, so you can change some or all areas. You can also make changes to say the start menu, and something different for the taskbar. Watch the preview as you make changes. To make changes, simply select one from the list and make changes to the Transparency and/or Blur.

Windows XP Exceptions

I want to change how	Allows you to change
...the taskbar looks	Transparency & Blur.
...menus look	Only transparency.
...the startmenu looks	Only transparency.
...window frames look	Transparency & Blur - only if the skin (visual style) supports Per Pixel (semi-transparent) Frames. This is denoted on the tab, on the left-side information menu for the skin. If you see "Perpixel" (i.e. "Perpixel UIS1", "Perpixel UIS2") then the skin supports it and you will be able to change the transparency and/or blur.

Examples

Normal Taskbar (Classic Yellow Visual Style).

Taskbar - fully transparent. You can see
the wallpaper through the taskbar.

Right-click Menu on desktop - shows transparency & blur.

Menu - Right-click on desktop & this menu will appear.
This shows some transparency & blur enabled.
You can see the desktop icons & wallpaper blurred.

Window Frame - showing Notepad.
Inactive - mouse clicked on desktop, changes
colour of frame, appearing more transparent.

Window Frame - showing Notepad
Active - mouse clicked on Notepad, changes colour of frame.

Vista-ize^TM Me
The Vista-ize^TM me feature is located under the preview, and to the far right. It allows adds 95% transparency and blur (if your version of Windows supports it) to these areas: title bar, menus, and taskbar. If your running Vista and the skin you selected isn't using these features you can add them. If your running Windows XP, you can make your desktop look like Vista.

When you click on the "Vista-ize^TM me" link, you see the above message box. You can click

to select the feature and see the preview before clicking

to change your desktop. Or you can cancel by clicking the

button. If you check the box for "Do not show me this message again", the next time you click "Vista-ize^TM me" you won't see that message box. To disable the feature, click on "Reset defaults" and click on

.

Transparency & Blur Quick Reference

Action	Do this
Create a new preset.	From the above menu, click on "Create new / delete preset...". Click . Type in the name of the new preset. Select the substyle. and click . Click to return to the tab
Select region to add transparency and/or blur too.	From the above menu, select the region you want to change. Make changes using the transparency slider icon and blur radio buttons. Click when done.
Change transparency.	Under "How transparent would you like this to be?", move the slider icon and watch the preview for the desired results. Click when done.
Change transparency back to original skin setting (default).	Click on "Skin default", and then click .
Always enable blur.	Select "Always blur the background" & click .
Disable blur.	Select "Never blur the background even if the skin has blur enabled" & click .
Let skin decide if blur is used.	Select "Only blur the background if the skin has blur enabled" & click .
Make skin look like Vista.	Click on "Vista-ize^TM me". Click . Click .
UnVista-izeTM me.	Click on "Reset defaults", and then click on .
Apply changes to skin.	After making the desired changes, click on the button