Themes and Schemes in Vista - Using Vista’s Color Scheme

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Vista’s Aero color scheme changes the game somewhat when it comes to tweaking the appearance of windows and other elements such as the Start menu.

First, let’s revisit how to enable the Aero interface in the event that it’s turned off. And remember that Aero is enabled by default if your computer has the hardware guts to support it. To turn on the Vista Aero color scheme:

1. Open the Control Panel’s Personalization application.

2. Follow the Window Color and Appearance link.

3. From the Appearance Settings dialog box, choose Windows Aero.

4. After a brief wait, you should now be dealing with transparent windows, live preview thumbnails, and all other elements that describe the Aero color scheme.

Now, then: the point of this section is not to detail turning on and off the Windows Aero color scheme, but rather to point out the differences in the Window Color and Appearance dialog box once Aero is on.

With Aero enabled, and after following the steps just listed, you will see a very different Window Color and Appearance dialog box. In fact, it will look much like the one shown in Figure 4-26.

As you can see, several color options here let users select a color of glass to use and then set a level of transparency with a single click. The Transparency slider can change how easy it is to see through the current window.

For even more options that will dictate window color, click the “Show color mixer” button, as I did before grabbing the screenshot shown in Figure 4-26. With these options showing, users can manipulate the hue, saturation, and brightness of the window color by using the corresponding slide controls.

Figure 4-26.  Window Color and Appearance options with Aero

Additionally, users still have the ability to manipulate any of the individual Vista graphical elements no matter what theme (if any) they are using. If you want to configure a different look and feel for message boxes, for example, or if you want to change how the application title bars display their text, you can. Just follow these steps when using Aero:

1. Open the Control Panel’s Personalization application, and then follow the Window Color and Appearance link.
   
2. From the dialog box shown in Figure 4-26, click the “Open classic appearance properties for more color options” link.
   
3. In the Appearance Settings dialog box, click the Advanced button.
   
4. You now see the Advanced Appearance dialog box, as shown in Figure4-27.

From this dialog box, it’s now just a matter of selecting the item from the drop-down menu and then using the other configuration options to make the desired changes.

Note that not every element will use every configuration option. You won’t configure a font, for example, for the Desktop item (and it’s probably worth mentioning that changing the desktop color won’t have any effect on appearance if you’re using wallpaper for a desktop background). Select the ToolTip item, on the other hand, and you can then specify a font, size, and color for the displayed ToolTip text.

Figure 4-27.  Configure appearance for specific window elements here

In previous chapters, we discussed how to use Windows Flip 3D. But there are a few items worth pointing out that let you customize how this program’s switching functionality works.

Next: Limiting the number of windows available in Windows Flip 3D >>
 

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This article is excerpted from chapter four of Windows Vista Administration: The Definitive Guide, written by Brian Culp (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596529597). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.