Pixelated look and how to remove icon from tray?

Hello everyone.

 

This is my very first post on this forum.

I am a new bbzero user, maybe for 1 month. I started to use recently Window 10 LTSB 2016 N on my HTPC, and I was a bit annoyed how explorer.exe behaved, so looked around for shell replacement, tried several, and ended with bbzero.

I am pretty satisfied with how it works. Since I am fan of windows classic theme(s), I created something similar, using bblean, blackboxbar, bbinterface,bbrecyclebin and bbkeys.

But there are couple of things that I can't make work:

1) since I have audio service disabled (using just asio), in tray I can't remove no audio service icon (see attached image). I can disable it with Ctrl+left click menu, it is gone until next reboot. I have noticed that in blackboxbar menu it changes, always starts with ALT but changes on each reboot.
Any suggestion how to solve this? Not big deal but kinda annoying.

2) While I am satisfied how bbzero looks in my case, it is kinda pixelated (especially fonts and some icons) comparing with normal Windows (see attached image).

    Why is this case?

3) Is there a way to make bbinterface buttons transparent? I have bbrecyclebin transparent with icons that are visible, but making bbinterface button transparent, makes icon/image transparent as well

 

Thanks in advance.

I can't really help you with "1)" (as I stil use Windows 7) and "3)" (as I don't think that is currently possible in bbInterface).

But, I may be able to help with the pixelazation.  First, images should not pixelate unless you are scaling them up or it's just a Win 10 thing (?). As far a fonts, you can try adding the following to the bottom of the style file you are using:

! Posix platforms should delete the following sections
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

! -------- menus --------
! default color is "menu.frame.textColor"
menu.separator.color:                  #ffffff
! the menu separator width (dist. from frame)
menu.separator.margin:                 13

! -------- shadows --------
toolbar.shadowColor:                   #092646
toolbar.shadowX:                       1
toolbar.shadowY:                       1

toolbar.label.shadowColor:             #092646
toolbar.label.shadowX:                 1
toolbar.label.shadowY:                 1

toolbar.windowlabel.shadowColor:       #092646
toolbar.windowlabel.shadowX:           1
toolbar.windowlabel.shadowY:           1

toolbar.clock.shadowColor:             #092646
toolbar.clock.shadowX:                 1
toolbar.clock.shadowY:                 1

menu.title.shadowColor:                #092646
menu.title.shadowX:                    1
menu.title.shadowY:                    1

menu.frame.shadowColor:                #092646
menu.frame.shadowX:                    1
menu.frame.shadowY:                    1

menu.active.shadowColor:               #092646
menu.active.shadowX:                   1
menu.active.shadowY:                   1

menu.separator.shadowColor:            #092646
menu.separator.shadowX:                1
menu.separator.shadowY:                1

menu.grip.shadowColor:                 #092646
menu.grip.shadowX:                     1
menu.grip.shadowY:                     1

window.label.focus.shadowColor:        #092646
window.label.focus.shadowX:            1
window.label.focus.shadowY:            1

window.label.unfocus.shadowColor:      #092646
window.label.unfocus.shadowX:          1
window.label.unfocus.shadowY:          1

You can disable the "menus" by putting exclamation points at the beginning of those lines or simply deleting that section. The shadow color (#092646) is something I picked for you and is the background color of your buttons darkened a bit. This may not work for all the elements in your style file so you may want to change those element colors that don't work - but you will probably need a color picker app to do so. I suggest "Color Cop" but everyone has their favorite...

Hope this helps

BTW: ASIO huh? Yeah, audio recording is why I started using a light weight shell long ago (bbLean 0.something ?) Happy trails...

 

I can't really help you with "1)" (as I stil use Windows 7) and "3)" (as I don't think that is currently possible in bbInterface).

But, I may be able to help with the pixelazation.  First, images should not pixelate unless you are scaling them up or it's just a Win 10 thing (?). As far a fonts, you can try adding the following to the bottom of the style file you are using:
 

! Posix platforms should delete the following sections
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

! -------- menus --------
! default color is "menu.frame.textColor"
menu.separator.color:                  #ffffff
! the menu separator width (dist. from frame)
menu.separator.margin:                 13

! -------- shadows --------
toolbar.shadowColor:                   #092646
toolbar.shadowX:                       1
toolbar.shadowY:                       1

toolbar.label.shadowColor:             #092646
toolbar.label.shadowX:                 1
toolbar.label.shadowY:                 1

toolbar.windowlabel.shadowColor:       #092646
toolbar.windowlabel.shadowX:           1
toolbar.windowlabel.shadowY:           1

toolbar.clock.shadowColor:             #092646
toolbar.clock.shadowX:                 1
toolbar.clock.shadowY:                 1

menu.title.shadowColor:                #092646
menu.title.shadowX:                    1
menu.title.shadowY:                    1

menu.frame.shadowColor:                #092646
menu.frame.shadowX:                    1
menu.frame.shadowY:                    1

menu.active.shadowColor:               #092646
menu.active.shadowX:                   1
menu.active.shadowY:                   1

menu.separator.shadowColor:            #092646
menu.separator.shadowX:                1
menu.separator.shadowY:                1

menu.grip.shadowColor:                 #092646
menu.grip.shadowX:                     1
menu.grip.shadowY:                     1

window.label.focus.shadowColor:        #092646
window.label.focus.shadowX:            1
window.label.focus.shadowY:            1

window.label.unfocus.shadowColor:      #092646
window.label.unfocus.shadowX:          1
window.label.unfocus.shadowY:          1

You can disable the "menus" by putting exclamation points at the beginning of those lines or simply deleting that section. The shadow color (#092646) is something I picked for you and is the background color of your buttons darkened a bit. This may not work for all the elements in your style file so you may want to change those element colors that don't work - but you will probably need a color picker app to do so. I suggest "Color Cop" but everyone has their favorite...

Hope this helps

BTW: ASIO huh? Yeah, audio recording is why I started using a light weight shell long ago (bbLean 0.something ?) Happy trails...

 

Thanks Crowmag.

 

I did try with your recommendation (shadows), and it did not change much except for Menu that looked awful with shadows. Too much shadows actually.
But since you mentioned it could be Windows, I looked in settings and turned on ClearType text which made fonts look nicer.

Still some icons were too "edgy". For example, at first I tried with bbiconbox, to create desktop icons. Those are were really awful, like 8x8 pixels.

Then I moved to bb_interface which is much better, but still some icons didn't look as they should, for example white windows icon in start menu (that one is 256x256 ico file).

Looks like bbzero is not handling ico files that good. So I created png 1600x1600 out of that ico file, Photoshop has antialiased edges a bit and now it looks really good.

New screenshot attached.

 

As for ASIO, well, no, I am not doing any recording, just playback on my HiFi setup. I think it is optimal for playback as well, as  there's no need for windows audio services running. That's why I am having that "No audio service running" icon.

 

Thanks again for the help.