Start Panel Transparency

Hello Chasbo,

Well I can only comment on my own skin. For me, it look okay. And I did test Diamond and Comet. I can still see some transparency on them. Not sure if that how it look when it first released. A lot more frosty blur than before, I suppose. As for fix, I am not sure its for Stardock or the Author of the skin.

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

Chasbo,

I agree with basi that Transparency works fine here. I tried a few of those skins. Lets just use Diamond. Look at the SS. I see it for a lot of transparency so you can see it clearly works. It works no matter where I move the top slider which is the only one I ever use to adjust this. 

I wanted to report this because I'm also on the older version of windows 1803. Same as you. Using same version of Start 10. I was using WB version 1065 and trans worked fine. I just now updated to the latest version 10.74 and it still works fine. 

Can't answer why it doesn't work on your end, but wanted to let you know I have same version except for WB. I would suggest you update to the latest version of WB and see if that solves your situation as 10.74 works fine on Win 1803. Yes, I'm well aware you know your way around SD programs. Just trying to let you know I'm using the same Win 10 version. PS: I'm showing the Diamond WB.

Well, I fired up my Win 8 VM and test Diamond skin on it. There is difference between Win 8 and Win 10 Startpanel transparency. Both system is running WB 10.74. My thought is that Start10 somehow added some blur effect on it Startpanel. Maybe more sshot from others might help.

WINDOWS 8

WINDOWS 10

Clearly more frosty blur

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

There must be some other situation going on. My SS is Win 10 and using what I said above on my system. The transparency also works the same on win 7/8 here. When I change the transparency using WB I only modify and move the top slider to the left and click apply.

There have been several situations where something has worked for one and not others. Things like that can be very had to find and fix I guess.

Need to know which slider you are talking about.

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

I have the same problem with Naked Noir. You have to move the start menu transparency slider to the left a little. Same goes for taskbar and the title bar.

Jaz, open WB. Highlight the skin you want to change. Click on "modify style". Click on Transparency. Top slider to the Left (above where it says "Force blur effect"  Move it to the left to show more transparency. Click Apply style to desktop. Note I don't check "force blue effect" and just leave it un-checked. Doesn't seem to matter checked or not actually. 

When you are done don't forget when you have it the way you want it click "Stop modifying.

Got it. I known about those sliders just not sure which one you was referring to.

I tend to over explain things.

Did it work for you?

If not I don't have a clue but you can see from my SS it works fine on all my skins.

For me a skin should look basically the same by default without need to adjust anything.

Naked Noir looks like this on default. It seems to have an acrylic look to it.

I'm with you. However those things are in WB because so many have asked for them.

I was just saying for me I would have no problem changing it if I had wanted to. Was again just showing in my screen shot it worked fine for me making the change using WindowBlinds. That is all I was doing.

There is a setting in Start10 that affects blur.  You can only access it while you have the default Windows skin applied within WB.  It's been awhile and a few versions of Win10 and WB since I played with it, but at that point I decided I wanted "Use Acrylic Blur..." unchecked. It does (did?) affect the blur within WB, and I think it may have also impacted transparency or the ability to adjust transparency within WB.  It might be worth checking.  There is also a "Transparency" setting right underneath it but I don't think that affects WB, not sure.

After reading all these posts I have come to a few conclusions. The first one is that Windows 10 really sucks in terms of customizing. If you read everything here you'll see that skins that have been made with transparency are not displaying correctly for some. Count me in with the some. I tinkered around with the start 10 settings as DaveRI showed but forget it. Some, not all, skins that have been made with transparency as part of the start panel simply aren't rendering properly. For me this makes those skins useless because none of the widgets I use, that I made now match the start panel. Even more distressing is that those skins, some of them Master skins aren't displaying as the person who created them intended. To me this is a big problem. Let me say this: I do not blame Stardock for this. When Microsoft puts out this goofy operating system and then throws out updates that don't work right I realize that it's next to impossible for Stardock to cope with, keep up with perfectly. I think this problem with the transparency just started recently so maybe there'll be a fix at some point. What choice do I have? I've invested quite a bit of dough in Stardock software and Master Skins. I'm not inclined to just say screw it, go to Linux or invest in a Apple computer. I'm used to Windows. I've no choice but to just write off transparency in Windowblinds skins and use ones that don't have any transparency. Frankly it sucks. There were examples shown by others which leaves no doubt that this is not a problem that only affects me and my machine. I hope that there can be a fix for this problem going forward.

Quoting ALMonty, reply 11

Naked Noir looks like this on default. It seems to have an acrylic look to it.

Here's a good example of the problem from another user. That's not the way Naked Noir is supposed to look. That's how it looks on my machine. It's wrong. It's a problem that needs to be fixed. 

Looks like at this point the only blur that the "Use Acrylic Blur.." setting affects is the taskbar.  The window frames and start menu are using acrylic blur regardless of it being on or off.

Windows 10 Home (17763.rs5_release.180914-1434) WB 10.74 (054 - Windows 10 Edition) - 64 bit OS.  Top image is a fresh install of Naked Noir with "Use Acrylic Blur..." not checked.  Bottom image is with it checked.  Only thing that changes is the taskbar.

Doesn't bother me one way or another, but that looks like what it's doing.

I have forwarded this issue to Stardock Support team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Basj

Stardock Community Assistant.

Thanks Basj, "He who never sleeps"   

I help whenever I can.   I sleep whenever I awake.  

Progress: Updated to Win 10 Ver 1809. Now I have the latest Windows 10 version and the latest Windowblinds version. The problem is a bit better but the start panel transparency is still not perfect. When I say perfect I mean on some skins like Naked Noir it's not exactly as it should be, as the author of the skin intended it should be. 1809 is working very well though.

" You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you can get what you need" - The Rolling Stones

Quoting DaveBax, reply 2

Chasbo,

I agree with basi that Transparency works fine here. I tried a few of those skins. Lets just use Diamond. Look at the SS. I see it for a lot of transparency so you can see it clearly works. It works no matter where I move the top slider which is the only one I ever use to adjust this. 

I wanted to report this because I'm also on the older version of windows 1803. Same as you. Using same version of Start 10. I was using WB version 1065 and trans worked fine. I just now updated to the latest version 10.74 and it still works fine. 

 

Can't answer why it doesn't work on your end, but wanted to let you know I have same version except for WB. I would suggest you update to the latest version of WB and see if that solves your situation as 10.74 works fine on Win 1803. Yes, I'm well aware you know your way around SD programs. Just trying to let you know I'm using the same Win 10 version. PS: I'm showing the Diamond WB.

Reduced 34%

Original 1920 x 1080

 

Dave, Your start panel is messed up. look in the middle of the right side vertically. 

Anyway this problem has not gone away and I see no one at Stardock doing anything about it. The bottom line is that with Start 10 the start panels with transparency are not displaying as intended by the creators of the skins. Some of the skins affected are master skins. Either do not sell master skins with transparency in the start panel, because the buyer of said master skins are not getting what they paid for or FIX THE PROBLEM.

I know from seeing screenshots posted in this thread that this problem is not just on my end but it is affecting other users as well.

Hello,

I have pushed this issue to Stardock Support Team (reply#17), and I will do it again right after posting this.

We do appreciate your feedback and patience.

Basj

Stardock Community Assistant.

Thank you Basj. 

The way it is now it's like ordering a car with a black interior and when you get the car it has a grey interior.