Editing visual style files for desktop themes

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
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Guest

So i have the new Zune theme, and a visa theme that i got off the internet.
is there any way that i can edit the visual style files of the two and merge
them so that certain parts of each theme are in a brand new theme?
 
If you have a patched Uxtheme.dll you may, if not then you may only apply
changes to the shellstyle.dll for that theme (which does not contain much).

If you do have uxtheme.dll patched then you must be careful in swapping
resources to keep cohesion with the windows metrics for those theme files, I
mean that what you swap out is suitable for what you replace it with .

For example, I recently downloaded the zune theme but did not like the
bright orange headers so I photoshopped them to look like WMP11s' red 'close'
button for a more consistant look.
So I would like to use the titlebar buttons from WMP11 but the metrics are
off, this is sloppy so I would have to tinker wiuth the window metric layout
scheme to place the buttons at the right-top instead of right-bottom of the
bar, create a button resource (jpg,png,bmp etc) to match the layout of the
original.....

Check out Google, that whacky site has lots to say about your question.
 
What programs would be of use in opening the .dll files, and how would i go
about doing that?

Thanks
 
To view and modify windows32(bit) files such as dlls, exe, ocx and more you
need a hex/binary editor or you can try these:

resource hacker:
http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/

Resedit
http://www.tgtsoft.com/prod_rb.php

Resedit can be useful in editing alpha channel bitmaps that would just
appear 'black' in reshacker.

Reshacker is more useful for text and binary editing (if you wanted to
change your 'start' button text to "your name"). With this app you can just
drag and drop files into it to view their contents.

What files you are looking for depends on what you want to change.
I reccommend doing a google or 'c:\'windows\ search for:

uxtheme.dll, .msstyles, .theme, shell modification, themes, ........

and look for how to's and what its all about.

'c:\' refers to your OS drive letter.
 
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