Hi,

First of all, sorry if this isn't the right place for this thread, but I thought it was best suited.  Secondly, let me know if this is a ridiculous idea.

I really love the Vista Inspirat 2 Bricopack, but there were a few things that I thought could still be improved.

First of all is that I would love to see the details panel back.  I was hoping it could be moved to the bottom of the window in a horizontal fashion much like how the tasks panel was moved to the top.

Secondly, I thought that since Lefreut's True Transparency program can make transparent window frames for XP using PNG support, I thought maybe if the right program was used (I know Style Builder doesn't work) then the windows theme could be made to have transparency without needing a separate application to do so.

Below is a sort of visual aid to the changes I'd like to make:
Fullsize: http://www.untitled-studios.net/filehost/Demo.jpg

Also here is just an image of the window.  Right now it's like a 70 layer PSD I made so I can use that to help make skins if anyone knows how to implement these changes.

Again, I would love to make this, but I'm not sure how other than making some image files. (I don't know how to move the details panel or add PNGs to the window as compared to BMPs)

Let me know if anyone is interested on doing this.

Thanks,
Sunshift

Hello!

I agree with you on details panel position.

about transparency :
I tried every technique for that. finally settled with Vista Inspirat 2 +
Windowblinds 6 with Ys shadows turned off.
by default windows support  bitmap skins.  the parts filled with  pink (ff00ff)
are shown as transparent.Also no transparency is allowed inside window
(and not on toolbars) as in your creation.

Well as for the transparency outside the window, I'm pretty sure that's possible just to replace the little blue edges with a different edge, just as was done with True Transparency.  No transparent toolbars is really too bad though

I would still love to have the bottom details bar though.

I really appreciate your idea but things are not easy as they appear to be , creating the transparency in PS is onething and making it reality is another thing , it is impossible in XP to make borders transparent without using any software , TrueTransparency might be a good application for achieving such transparencies but the skins of even such a simple program are not as easy to make as they appear.
For the info panel , you will need to edit the shellstyle.dll file in a hexeditor , I have never tried it yet so can't help you anymore , you will for sure find some good guides about it on the net

I know the transparency is tough, I already found out Style Builder can't handle it.  But I think Windows CAN because it can make shadows and applications like True Transparency can do it.

I'm playing around with ResHack and seeing if I can swap the BMPs for some PNG files.  I'll try it on my virtual machine and see if the style can take that.

Let me tell you the problem in more detail , Windows XP treats the pure pink color (FF00FF) as transparency , to get a semi-transparent border it is most likely for everyone to make a pink document in PS and then putting a round-edged white rectangle with its opacity set to 50% , but guess what when you save this image as bitmap the semi-transparent white color will be considered fused with the pink background resulting in a new color (FF80FF) and you will get this color on the place you wanted the transparent border in .

I hope you understand what I have just said , my English is not very good