Taskbar color question

[Yajiro]

I'm sure this must be an easy question. I changed my taskbar to black under personalize. But when I have a window open the presssed in color or whatever you call it is gray. So if you have many programs/folders open it can be a bit difficult to spot it right away to minimize it. I thought it might be under the advance options, but playing around with some didn't change it. Though I'm not sure what I would change it to either since I never thought about it for Vista.

 

[WalkerA WinTeam]

Hi Yajiro,

Is this what you're talking about? http://www.sevenforums.com/customization/23568-dont-like-taskbar-selected-window-highlight.html

Cheers,

Walker
Windows Outreach Team

 

[Yajiro]

Hmm, that might be what I was saying. But that thread had no fix. I'm already using 7 Taskbar Tweaker to ungroup programs/folders and I don't see anything like what I want for appearance. I'm also using small icons and never combine. I actually really would prefer the pressed in look that Vista does. But I didn't know if that could be done and would probably be easier to just change color from gray to something else.

 

[dunfiddlin]

Hmm, that might be what I was saying. But that thread had no fix. I'm already using 7 Taskbar Tweaker to ungroup programs/folders and I don't see anything like what I want for appearance. I'm also using small icons and never combine. I actually really would prefer the pressed in look that Vista does. But I didn't know if that could be done and would probably be easier to just change color from gray to something else.

Well it would be a lot easier for us if you could take some screen shots so that we can see the problem, give us some details as to what theme you are using etc. etc.

 

[Yajiro]

I'm using the basic theme you start with except I've changed the taskbar color to black and turned off transparency.

This is what the taskbar looks like when I have the IE window open viewing this thread:


I wish to change it from that gray color to a different one or the pressed in look that Vista has.

 

[dunfiddlin]

Thanks for the additional info but I'm afraid it's bad news. That can only be changed by using a third party theme or visual style or adopting a different colour for the whole taskbar. But in the latter case you only get a faded version of the new bar colour instead of a faded version of black so that may not be any real improvement.

 

[WalkerA WinTeam]

I know what you mean, Yajiro. It does seem less intuitive to highlight the taskbar button when active, rather than to make it sunken like it was in XP. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any information on how to change this. Hopefully someone else can, and if you end up finding it somewhere else, please post back your solution.

Thanks,

Walker
Windows Outreach Team

 

[dunfiddlin]

I know what you mean, Yajiro. It does seem less intuitive to highlight the taskbar button when active, rather than to make it sunken like it was in XP. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any information on how to change this. Hopefully someone else can, and if you end up finding it somewhere else, please post back your solution.

As I said, this can almost certainly be achieved within a visual style. It's just that I haven't seen any themes in which it is. I frequent such places as such a thing might turn up in so I'll let you know if I spot one.

 

[WalkerA WinTeam]

Awesome, thanks dunfiddlin!

Walker
Windows Outreach Team

 

[Yajiro]

Yeah, thanks dunfiddlin. I honestly didn't think it was going to be something difficult to change.

 

[dunfiddlin]

I haven't found anything in the way of a reverse bevel anything like clear enough to work with but I have done some very quick experimenting and it's certainly possible to mark operational buttons in some way. The pic shows a very rudimentary border, for example, added to those buttons that have active applications with the taskbar in the Windows 7 aero theme adjusted to black, no transparency.

I'm happy to work up some more elegant examples if they'd be of interest and am open to suggestions as to what marking, colours etc. would be most useful (a glow around the icon, perhaps, X marks the spot, whatever). The only thing to bear in mind is that it will be the background so the icon will always be on top (not much point in putting anything in the centre of the button smaller than the icon for starters!)

 

[WalkerA WinTeam]

Wow that's awesome! If you want to take on a little project dunfiddlin, I'm sure Yajiro would be appreciative

Walker
Windows Outreach Team

 

[Yajiro]

Hmm, it's interesting. But maybe a bit more complicated than I really need. Color change or pressed in seems the simplest solutions to me. Though that's probably because I'm just strange and seem to have taken up a mission to make my windows 7 looks like vista.