Taskband - getting rid of glow and grouping indicator

[Poddzapp]

Hello,

I was hoping for some help with getting rid of two things that's been bothering me regarding the taskband in the taskbar. First one is this: whenever I'm using a taskband button that's transparent, I get this glow whenever the button is pressed or hovered over, the glow is somewhat related to the primary color of the icon.

The middle icon is hovered over, the one on the far right is not:
https://i.imgur.com/a5uvskJ.jpg

How can I get rid of this "feature" completely? I want my taskband app buttons to look like the one on the far right regardless of whether they're being hovered over or not.

Second issue is whenever there are more than one instance of an application open, I get this vertical bar in my taskband, again, the same color as the icon. I'm referring to yellow bar in this picture:
https://i.imgur.com/vTTkyIl.jpg

I've tried modifying Taskbar & System Tray > TaskBand > Basic > TaskBand > GroupTab but it didn't seem to do anything. Can I theme around this somehow or disable the function completely?

Grateful for any assistance after hours of trial and error!

[J4M3SX019]

hi have you tried changing the taskbar buttons or adjusting the taskbar itself

[Donkuz]

Hi Poddzapp, Yeah like James said, the colors come from your Task item buttons. Just extract them and Hollow them all out. If you need help with them hook me up with a copy of your theme and I will do it for you Bro.
:Peace:Cheerz!!

[Poddzapp]

Hi guys,

I've resized and moved the taskbar itself and it did nothing to solve the issue.

I've messed around with the taskbar buttons quite a lot in both photoshop and windows style builder - adding and removing hottracking and highlight colors, changing the transparency and opacity - all to no avail. If I remove the transparency completely, the glow on the buttons of running applications disappears, but then I'm not able to see progress bar (when moving files) anymore.

@Donkuz

When you say "hollow them out" I assume you mean "delete the contents of the PNG completely" and I've tried that. What happened then was that the glow increased in intensity as my current buttons acts as a bit of dimmer.

If you want to take a look yourself it would be much appreciated. Might be easier than me trying to explain ;) I've included a screengrab of what it is I'm going for. The first button is my start menu button, 2 is an active/open application and so is 4, 3 (cmd) is closed/not running. I would very much like for the buttons to look just like that regardless of whether or not I'm hovering over or pressing the buttons.

Please keep in mind that this is a Start Menu & Taskbar theme only intended to be used with StartIsBack. If you try applying it as a Windows theme you will be stuck in darkness forever...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C4KviukMYcnxnXAupbZhjsoDxyl65GUZ/view

[J4M3SX019]

hi do you know what the theme is if so i can fix up the taskbar for you and port the theme if your having any trouble

[Poddzapp]

You're more than welcome to take a look at it if you want to, but I don't feel you should invest to much time into it. It's still a work in progress and will probably look like a mess to someone who knows what they're doing.

I'm currently using two theme files - one for Windows and the other for Startisback where the latter is just skinning the start menu and taskbar. They're both different themes found online that I've then modified to my liking. Not sure if I had a specific reason for using two theme files or if it just seemed like the easier path...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10LOmnwXb92Z0-QAF0oSQBiQWvKWjJo87/view?usp=sharing

[Donkuz]

HI Poddzapp, OK I had a look at your startisback theme style with WSB and found it was missing some images in the taskband for the left, right and center uncombined task item buttons also the was none for the small task item button. also a couple of panels in the start menu. I dont really have any experience with making startisback styles and just figured out you must place it in the startisback styles to use it with other themes, am i right? anyway add the rest of the missing buttons and see if that makes a difference. If your unsure open a theme with WSB that has all the buttons and Start and use it as a reference.

[Poddzapp]

I very much appreciate you taking a look at it! Regarding the missing panels in the start menu - I'm fairly certain I removed them myself as I use a very scaled back start menu, it's basically just a black left panel with a list of all my applications. I'm going to take a look at the missing taskband buttons and see if I can figure something out regarding that!

You're absolutely correct about Startisback themes. They go in the program folder\Styles while the Windows one goes into Windows\Resources (which of course you know). The Startisback theme seems to take precedent which means it overrides the Windows theme, which, in my case, means that the start menu and taskbar are skinned even though there no such resources in my Windows theme file. I've found it to work very smoothly like that, even though it's a bit tougher to maintain, but still, no major drawbacks.

[Donkuz]

No Worry's Mate, Im always interested in new/old things to learn about. It's a great idea if you want to use your own Start menu on all your themes. I didn't understand at first, but now I get it. Yeah If you add the rest of the buttons it should work, also it might help if you add some more buttons to the task item buttons so you have 10 Solid Buttons instead of just 7 solid buttons for the glow problem. ps: I wouldn't mind another look at it when you get it sorted, just out of Curiosity .
:Peace:Good luck Mate!!
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[Donkuz]

I very much appreciate you taking a look at it! Regarding the missing panels in the start menu - I'm fairly certain I removed them myself as I use a very scaled back start menu, it's basically just a black left panel with a list of all my applications. I'm going to take a look at the missing taskband buttons and see if I can figure something out regarding that!

You're absolutely correct about Startisback themes. They go in the program folder\Styles while the Windows one goes into Windows\Resources (which of course you know). The Startisback theme seems to take precedent which means it overrides the Windows theme, which, in my case, means that the start menu and taskbar are skinned even though there no such resources in my Windows theme file. I've found it to work very smoothly like that, even though it's a bit tougher to maintain, but still, no major drawbacks.HI Podzzapp, OK here you are I added the missing buttons for you and tried it out and it seems to be working alright, but looking at the start menu it looks a bit Jacked up you might want to add those other panels that you left out.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/cr3rymyywovrpml/OB3-4.zip/file

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[Poddzapp]

HI Podzzapp, OK here you are I added the missing buttons for you and tried it out and it seems to be working alright, but looking at the start menu it looks a bit Jacked up you might want to add those other panels that you left out.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/cr3rymyywovrpml/OB3-4.zip/file

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Appreciate it! The buttons are looking the way I want them to now, but I still can't seem to get rid of the glowing application icons. I couldn't help but noticing that your "Pictures" tab in the screenshot has the same type of yellow glow to it compared to the other tabs.

I did try removing my taskband buttons completely and the glow was still there. It's also visible using other themes which leads me to believe that this is not a theme issue but rather a Windows one. The Accent color seem to affect the taskband applications when using the standard Windows theme. I've set mine to the darkest possible but there's still some glow to the buttons.

What bothers me the most is that it's not consistent but seem to depend on the icon of the app itself. A red app icon produces a red glow for example. The Accent color among others can be changed via the registry so I'm gonna take a closer look at that and see if there's anything in there that can explain this phenomena.

[Donkuz]

No Worry's Poddzapp, Yeah If you can disable the Default colors in the Reg Editor it might go away. Its defiantly a windows thing, The only other thing I could Suggest is Make the Task item buttons Solid and see what happens and or try changing the highlight colors for them.
:peace:Good luck.