How do I chage the titlebar in SkinStudio?

from Stardock Forums

Windows 10, newlly purchased WindowBlinds.  I am trying to change the titlebar and failing.  For testing I am using the Precision skin, in Windowx XP or Windows 7 mode.  The closest I have come is Window frames -> Per Pixel -> Borders -> Caption.  If I edit the image, adding random scribbles for testing, and apply the result, the captions of some things change, but not the titlebars of most programs, including SkinStudio itself.  If I change the text alignment to, say, right-justified, the text alignment does change on these other windows.  How do I change the image itself?

windowblinds
20,320 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Sounds like you're on the right track.

A skin has 2 different frame types/sections, Per Pixel and UIS2.  Some programs will use the Per Pixel frames, other programs will use the UIS2 frames.  You need to also edit Window frames->UIS2 frames.

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I just had a look at Precision and I see that it also has glass frames defined in the Per Pixel frames.  You would also need to edit those.  (So, yes, that's a total of 3 sets of frames.)  One thing that I know uses the glass frames is Windows File Explorer.

You might also want to edit the Maximized Caption and Maximized Caption Glass in the per pixel section.  (Yep, that's a 4th set of captions.)

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Glass frames is the place -- thanks.  I had thought that "glass" was an overlay of some sort on top of the normal frame, so I had not tried editing it directly.  It appears to be a completely independent frame applied (as you point out) in some (or many) cases.  This was a nice first experience on this forum.

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Great :thumbsup:  

Before you get very far I should go through a few things in an effort to help you avoid a few pitfalls:

Any changes you make to any skin are for your own personal use only and it is not to be distributed in any way.

Regarding the skins that ship with WB - As far as I know the only source for the original skins is with the installation of WB, and those skins will get over-written when you do an installation of WB or install a WB update. To deal with that you can either:

Back up the skin before you edit it to retain the original, and backup your edited version so you can replace the version supplied with the update every time

or

Use SkinStudio to create a copy of the skin under a new skin name and edit that copy instead of the original. There's a picture of how to do that in Reply #7 here:

https://forums.wincustomize.com/497543/page/1/#3764012

 

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Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

You bet I back up. All I really want to do with SkinStudio  is recover the old WIndows XP style frames and titlebars.  In the good old days you could easily set active and inactive titlebar colors and text colors and active and inactive frame colors.  Worked hard to get Win 7 to do this, including buying Windows Style Builder, But WIn 10 and its awful framing and coloring have made this much harder.  Stardock's ShadowFX can be used (with some editing of its generated pictures) to get a good frame, but not good colors on the titlebar and not good fonts on the titlebar.  Want also to get something other than that near-white background on menus.  I am not in the business of making art, here, I just want XP back.  A bare style consiting of merely the window metric and color items in the Win 7 or Win XP registry would do me fine.

I picked Precision because it was closest (simplest).  May go and see what a blank new thing does.

Very impressed by SkinStudio vis-a-vis Window Style Builder.  Always liked Stardock, ever since the OS2 days.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

I found a great skin as a base for my adaptations:  True Classic https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/windowblinds/8628/

Must change the frames and some colors to suit my taste, but it is a very very fine piece of work.  As is SkinStudio -- a class act indeed.  As is this forum -- you people are great.

Happy New Year.