WB, Non-XP & Classic TaskBar

How to Make It Work?

Published on February 7, 2005 By Daiwa In WindowBlinds

Not everyone has XP &/or ObjectBar, so I'd still like my skins to skin the
Classic TaskBar well. That has proven to be tricky & I'd appreciate any
expert tips on how to work around a couple of problems if possible.

The TaskBar Height on non-XP systems appears to be fixed at the same value
as the Window Caption Height (TitleBar Height). With skins that have a tall
Window TitleBar, this causes the Classic TaskBar to be too tall relative to
the icons. Further, the QLTray Icon Buttons paint differently than the
TaskBar Buttons, with the latter expanding to take up the entire height of
the TaskBar and the QLTray Buttons staying "normal" size relative to the
QLTray icons. This makes the Classic TaskBar rather sloppy looking. Does
anyone know how to force a height for the Classic TaskBar that's different
than the Window Caption Height? I've got a few skins that require a Caption
Height of 31px and the TaskBar just looks wrong. Changes to Content Margins
of either QLTray Buttons or TaskBar Buttons have no impact on this. I don't
recall for sure, but I believe the Caption Height that makes a single-height
Classic TaskBar look "correct" relative to the icons is 23px.

Another problem relates to the StartButton of the Classic TaskBar. It
appears to be stretched to a fixed size, no matter what setting you use for
Sizing or Content Margins or whether you choose Tile or Stretch painting
options. This means you have to figure out the exact size of the button &
size the graphic to that.

The TaskBar Button Text is also a problem - I can't find any
setting that controls text color, and on one skin I'm working on it is stuck
on white. I've tried changing every other text setting that happened to be
white and nothing changes the TaskBar Button Text color. I have no idea
where that text color setting is coming from. The text color settings for
the button itself have no effect.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Daiwa

Comments

grindlestone

on Apr 27, 2005

Though this is an old post an answer might still help - at least on the first question.

To get around this taskbar height problem I always open the offending skin in SS and set the title bar height to 23. The title bar dispays as designed but the taskbar then stays at the right height. Saving the skin will generate an error message, but I just click 'no" and all is well.

The other questions I don't know about, though I have suffered from the start button issues too.

Daiwa

on Apr 27, 2005

Thanks, grindlestone, and yes, it will definitely help.

I'll give that a try. It also just occurred to me that conceivably the TaskBar Button Text coloor is set the same way the Desktop Icon Text is set - based on the desktop background color - I'll try changing that & see if that WAG is correct.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Daiwa

on Apr 28, 2005

Thanks again, grindlestone - changing the Caption Height fixed the rendering of the bar and buttons. Unfortunately, my WAG was wrong - I can't find anything that fixes the text color and font face in the TaskBar Button. I've set everything I know to set and still get white text on the buttons for all states.

Here's a shot of SKS showing what the remaining problem is - maybe someone will spot the error or know how to fix this:

Any advice would be sincerely appreciated. This has been driving me nuts for nearly a year.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Daiwa

on Apr 28, 2005

I obviously don't know how to properly post an image here. I'll post it in the stardock.windowblinds.binaries NG.

Sorry,
Daiwa

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