LOVE the direction that version 6 is going; ABOUT TIME!

WindowBlinds (and StarDock in general) has always been a love-hate relationship with me. I tried WindowBlinds as far back as version 1 (hated it); ditto v. 2, & 3; v. 4 was OK, v. 5 was the first really usable (sort of).

Up until now I hate to tell you just how many times I have uninstalled WindowBlinds (and other StarDock products) and swore that I would never again use them due to one overlying problem that was mostly out of my control… FONTS.

Yes, FONTS…
• Hard to read too small fonts (generally not resizable by the user).
• Hard to read, low contrast fonts with weird, poor color choices such as…
o Black text on purple background.
o Grey text on purple or darker grey background.
o Black text on brown background.
o White (or light grey) text on light blue background.
o What are the developers thinking?
• All too many skins are not very readable especially on a high resolution monitor such as my 24 inch 1200 x 1920 screen where all fonts are smaller; combine that with the low contrast fonts and you have many totally unusable skins.
• All too many skins are ‘cute’ or pretty but not very useful due to the overall font mess that has in the past been a product called WindowBlinds.
• On some skins I could overcome the problem with Windows Advanced Appearance font setting dialog, but all too many skins would not respond to this, so that also made them totally unusable.
• Skins that would respond to Windows Advance Appearance would revert back if I tried another skin than returned to my original one. I would then have to re-do all the font settings again (totally maddening).
• SkinStudio was a joke… it is simply too darn hard to use.
• The end results being that there were all too many times where I have gone for up to a year (or more) with no StarDock products in my computer due to the unreadable nature (and other problems) of the products.
• Hopefully, v. 6 of WindowBlinds will change all that once and for all.

Suggestions - Improvements…
• Grabbing (with double arrow) the top edge of any re-sizable window does not align up properly. The double arrow has to be about 1/8th inch ABOVE the glass edge before you can grab the edge (Diamond XP). Left, right and bottom edges are OK.

• Change font color… needs to be added as a font attribute..
o This is VERY important for me as all too many fonts are unreadable due to the poor contrast (color choices) of many skin developers.

• Font Centering in Title Bar… Fonts are not centering (in the vertical axis) on the Title Bar; rather they are at the bottom of the Title Bar and all the font descenders are cut off.

• What each font does… needs to be added…
o What area of the skin each font affects so I can better know just which font to change.
o This is sort of already there but needs to be expanded upon possibly with a pop-up as I hover the mouse over a font in the Select Font to Edit screen.

• Change All Fonts… setting (for the current skin) needs to be added…
o I seldom like the default fonts found in most skins. I most always want to change them ALL to Microsoft Sans Serif or Arial and find having to do each one at a time to be too time consuming.
o I want to change all the fonts on a new skin to Microsoft Sans Serif then I can tweak the few that I may want to change to something else.
o This feature should incorporate ALL font attributes including… Size, Color, and other normal attributes.

• Global Change All Fonts… setting (for ALL installed skins) needs to be added...
o Globally change font attributes for ALL installed skins to my standard (readable) font attributes.
o It is absurd to have to change every font on every new skin; this is a LOT of work that most people are simply not going to put up with as some people have a real job and do not have inordinate amounts of time to screw with this nonsense.
o I want my Start menu to have the same exact font attributes no matter which skin I may be using at the time. Ditto for MS Outlook tree & menus, ditto for ACDSee, ditto for my file manager, ditto for the many other programs that get screwed up by WindowBlinds fonts.
o Just because I add a new skin does not mean that I want my Start menu or many other programs changed to some weird font attribute. I want them just as readable no matter which skin I use.
o It just makes good sense to have a Global Font setting and will save the user countless hours of screwing around with individual font attributes on individual skins.

• Font Attribute Window… needs to be added.
o The font size selector is currently called up through a wimpy down arrow.
o Font size needs to be combined with the other font attributes so most of the often used fonts can be seen without having to do a lot of scrolling.
o Most programs use a standard font attribute window that’s seems to work well; it usually combines all font attributes together in one window for easy selection.

• Configuration Tasks and See Also screen (on the main WindowBlinds Configuration screen) needs to be more readable…
o Tasks and See also box… white text on a light blue background does not do it for me; it is not as readable as it could be due to the low contrast colors.
o Tasks and See also box… should be a little wider so the lines of text wrap around less thereby providing more space between each line to help make it more readable and to allow for possibly more choices. Many of the lines that currently wrap would fit nicely in one line thereby improving the readability of the screen. Additional space could be added between lines also improving readability.

• Change colors in skin… has always bugged me…
o Everything is too darn small, thin and wimpy.
o Make the lines thicker, wider and easier to see.
o Make the sliders bigger, clearer and easier to grab. They are currently too darn small and of poor contrast and simply too hard to see.
o Make the sliders slide more smoothly… they are currently very jerky in movement.
o Add the standard Windows color picker so the user can truly change the color of any skin. Currently, only small color shifts can be accomplished but no real color change can be made. If a skin is basically green, only shades of green (or near green) can often be made but it is often impossible to totally change the skin to a completely different color of the user’s choice.

• Window Border, Title Bar and Scroll Bar… (change the width of Borders, Title Bar and Scroll Bars) needs to be added.
o These are features that I often apply using Windows Advanced Appearance dialog.
o They should be in the Change Skin Fonts section of WindowBlinds Configuration.
o The user should be able to change window Border Thickness, Title Bar height and Scroll bar width.

I neglected to reboot between uninstalling Windowblinds 5 and installing 6, ended up with 6 prompting me to reboot every time I loaded it. So I uninstalled 6, rebooted, installed, rebooted, and it loaded but wouldn't apply skins. SO now I've uninstalled 6, rebooted, I'm installing 5 now, and will start the whole process over again, properly this time. 6 Looks sweet, guys. I can't wait to get er going    

Completely unusable. I'm guessing because I installed on Vista, with a standard user and UAC enabled.

If I try and run Windowblinds from the Start Menu (with or without Admin rights) if fails to load with 'You do not have access rights'.

Running from within Stardock central does work, but skins do not apply, it just changes Vista Aero to Classic.
Your computer has a Windows Experience Index base score of 4.3

Your Windows Graphics Experience score is 4.5

WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 6 (6.0 (beta build 30 x86 - Vista Edition))

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC

WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC

(Generic PnP Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600

Wblind.dll 2007/08/01 10:45:20
Wbsrv.dll 2007/08/01 15:27:02
Wbconfig.exe 2007/08/01 15:27:45
Wbload.exe 2007/07/30 13:14:11
Wbhelp.dll 2007/07/24 10:21:07
Tray.dll 2007/07/24 10:21:49
Wbload.dll 2007/07/24 10:33:56

The onlt problem I had was that the right click crashed explorer.exe and was completely unusable. I uninstalled WB6, rebooted, installed WB5, rebooted and have no problem with the right click.

Septimus: It sounds like the install was not run with admin rights.  Please uninstall WB, reboot and reinstall WB.  Then do not reboot until the command prompt which is open has finished.

I see the same thing on XP as well. Also, it doesn't blur ObjectDock and Gadgets. Seem to be that layered windows isn't included into the composition. Hopefully this isn't a limitation in the OS, but I fear it might be...

BTW, I am running Windows Media Center w/ SP2.

Works in vista.

Snowman -

The currently used icon set is cached, so wouldn't have changed even it IP was gone. I can't imagine how IP would have been uninstalled - are you sure it's not there in the Programs/Stardock folder?

DocLotus: Many of the things you want are the kind of thing that would go in an editor, not in WindowBlinds.

WindowBlinds allows the user to have some control over a skin, but for the kind of thing you want you are going to have to edit the skin. 

Regarding the size of the colour sliders, they are standard windows slider controls and will be the same size as any other sliders.  If you find the text and controls too small, I would suggest considering using 120 dpi mode.

If you want to increase the contrast in wbconfig, use the black UI option (Bottom left, change language settings link)

Neil has answered this at least as far as over lapped titlebars, no blur is correct in XP. (reply 74)

Where can I find Stardock Central 2.46 Build 154 or later? SDC options say to check for any beta release but it doesn't give Build 154.

Wb6 installed flawlessly. I used the latest version of sdc. Actually wb6 looks great. I am running winxp on a DELL with 440 processor and 512 mg ram. No complaints.

TheDude20165 -

Go to Stardock.net & select downloads. SDC is at the top. Download & install that version. It will prompt you for the 2.46/154 update when you first run it.

I changed the server in SDC to US - 2 and refreshed XML Data. I now have Build 154. All is well with the Free World once again...