Answered

Colorize/Texture Taskbar Buttons in Win 10 (like in Win 7)??

4 years ago • updated 4 years ago • 2

Simple Question, which may or may-not have a simple answer.

I'm one of those folks who have a vertical Taskbar. I tend to have many collections of topics open as I work, and those topics are grouped. With the Win 10 concept of the taskbar buttons being "transparent" the groups are no longer easily apparent. If it would be at all possible to add a "texture" or "shade" to the buttons so they could resemble the Win7 behavior, this would be Wonderful!

The setup I use is OpenShell for start menu customization, and am now using the taskbar "shading" behavior built-in to that. So, able to give the Taskbar background some "depth". Using AeroGlass to skin the window frames, and using 7+TT for the rest! It's worked out well for years in Win7, but now moving over to Win10 the "invisible" Taskbar buttons is the last "sticky point".

If this is not possible, would it be possible to provide an explanation? Not trying to be rude by asking, but genuinely am trying to understand the limitations. Spent a bunch of time understanding how AeroGlass did some things, and even looked through the source code for OpenShell, but found that I really didn't understand enough about the Windows DWM inner workings to try to hack this into that myself.

Much Gratitude!

MtKenSan

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Answered

4 years ago

Hi MtKenSan,

If this is not possible, would it be possible to provide an explanation?

It is possible, as pretty much everything is. But I don't have infinite time, and different tasks have different priorities for me. You're not the first user to ask about theming customization. Currently 7+ Taskbar Tweaker doesn't provide such functionality at all, and I'm not sure it ever will. It's a broad topic - you want to add some "depth" to the buttons, another user might want to remove the line under the buttons, a third user might want to change the color of the taskbar, or change the start button image, etc. etc.

In fact, I haven't researched it at all, so I, just like you, am not quite sure how DWM works or what's the best way to change the appearance of the taskbar. The tweaks I implemented are a bit different, most of them are not about the visual appearance. I might research this topic one day, but currently it's not something I'm planning to do.

4 years ago

Thanks for your Reply. Agreed it can turn into an infinite rathole.

Good to understand the scope of your efforts and your interests.

Thanks again for your efforts at helping to make the general Windows UI more usable and friendly.

Best,

ken

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