The feature to add shadows under windows, menus, the taskbar and start menu.

The same kind that allows you to add blur under the GUI, option that I'd really like Stardock to improve seriously, for Windowsblind 8 maybe ??

If a blur option is indeed a good option, one that mimic the skin is by far The solution that should exist ! I mean the blurred area to be the exact form of the skin not a rectangular one the size of the skin.

I'm quite sure to have played with it or is it that I'm already that old ??  ..smile....

Thank you for your input, unfortunately that's not it !

Let's test it... If I open the top Sirus skin I use every day, perpixel vertical frames doesn't show any shadow but when I enable it in WB, tadaa... Shadow everywhere !

Where is that switch ? Stardock ? Anyone ? Come on !!!

Hmmmm.... looking again, maybe not. BUT, if you open the skin in SKS and go to Edit per pixel frames, Vista/7 shadows, and click on Top Shadow, and then Extra Settings, then disable the "add shadows to the skin", that seems to get rid of them on the windows............

And the winners are... BoXXi, Xiandi, Thanks to you both !

Unfortunately, if the blur option in windowblinds is as barely efficient as a potato on a bike, the shadow option is just.. a toothpaste made of maggots, leaving bits and pieces between the teeth !

Come on stardock, the shadow isn't even the size of the blur, nor the shape... !?!

Is it possible for the customers (and the skinners) to acquire a mature product, one to, at least, be the sofware PC's still lack. One that offers creativity to express itself along options well thought, implemented and documented ? Is it too much to ask for ?

Of course, one could say that knowing that, building a skin is only creating it from outside in, but isn't that the exact opposite of how things should work, i.e sets of program directives allowing people to express themselves, not people having to squeeze in whatever possibilities they've been offered ?

The Vista shadows option will use the fixed OS shadows unless the skin defines custom shadow images.  This is not a bug and the choice to use the option is one for the skin author.  If the skin author wants radically different shadow shapes then the best solution is to make the shadow part of the window frames themselves.  Then they have complete control.

Likewise the blur function is limited by the OS which cannot handle anything other than a rounded rectangle for blur on titlebars and frames.  Complex shapes are unlikely to ever be supported with blur on frames, though they are supported on the startmenu and this will automatically line up with the skin graphics.

Unfortunately we have to work within the limitations of the OS and while it is frustrating there is little we can do about some limitations.

There is a choice by the skin author to use the OS standard shadows provided by Windows or to use their own created shadows. But everything has limitations. If you have an abnormally large border with large round edges. Use custom shadows it would be the better option.

To explain it, basically you can choose whether Windows deals with the shadows or not. If not then you have to define each side of the window, each side has 2 frames 1 active 1 inactive.  Think of it as a layer below the window, you set margins to handle the dealings of each corner of the window frame. I think the best blind to examplify this would be Corporate by DanilloOc for Stardock.

That skin is not Aero.  Aero is the default Windows Vista / 7 skin.

The OS shadows feature can only paint from the edge of the window border and so if the skin has transparency around the borders then a gap would be visible.  If you look closely that skin already has shadows as part of the borders so obviously there would be a problem.  There is no reason why anyone would turn on that setting when they already put shadows in the frame images!

As I have said before this is not a bug in WindowBlinds and neither are the blur limitations.  These are OS level limitations that relate to how the DWM handles things and I am sorry but these limitations will remain.  For obvious reasons I am not about to explain the full details on this so you will have to take my word on this.  You must remember that WindowBlinds is very different to a single widget window which can be in full control of how it does things.  A window has contents thats not owned by WindowBlinds and so we have to coexist with it.

If you want more advanced shadow shapes then you have to make them part of the border images rather than using the shadow sections and if you have an complex shape for your borders then blur is not an option for you.

Indeed I meant AeroS and my point isn't the way WB should handle shadows, i.e no option at all and let windows handle them, I too thinks it's fine the way it is having the option to make my own. What I'm saying is that the actual handle isn't quite right...

Let me take a consumer point of view.

AeroS provides shadows but they are so tiny, discreet, that I decide, as a customer trying options given by the software I've bought, to use the windows shadows option on top of this skin. Or better, underneath. Of course, I understand that the result wouldn't, couldn't, maybe or not, be perfect : gaps, overlapping, etc...

I do agree with you, AeroS is a master skin. It is well designed, light, fast, aesthetic and it's a fact that it's parts are flawless, in terms of graphical conception and in compliance with WB parameters. I mean, no distorted, oversized/undersized graphic items. They're all 'sized' by their integration in skinstudio. The last/least particularity could be that it was designed for an earlier WB version but and so, cannot provide any information/graphic part/parameter not intended to.

So why is it that the shadows, the skin itself and the area/coordinates managed by windows from wich the OS will draw the  shadowed region aren't aligned, justified ?

Is it because the skin was designed by itself thus wasn't drawn from outside in (from the area/coordinates of the shadowed region managed by windows) ? If so, fine, let's talk about blur. (sorry)   but if it's not, something is obviously wrong with the placement of the skin inside the region managed by windows.

About blur, there is one thing I'd like you to be more precise.

When you say "A window has contents thats not owned by WindowBlinds and so we have to coexist with it" I assume you do refer to the area used on the desktop to display an application window defined by origins and 'vectors'. This area may be shadowed and inside it uses zones used by the application to draw OS controls such as boxes, buttons, scrollbars, titlebars, etc... WB on top of the application manage to substitute the graphic parts, the application does it's thing and windows manage the whole in it's own space. Am I right ?

If I am, what is the setback disabling me, as a programmer, from :

1- Intercepting the application requirements

2- Use the skin as a template to process memory manipulations, create the exact region under the skin (control parameters should be great, undersizing, oversizing, ...), take a snapshot from the wallpaper, blur it

3- Drawing the skin

?

Of course, sorry, I just tought we were having the same goal, field of interest... Obviously we don't.