Friday, September 28, 2007

VistaXT Version 2.0 R2 Progress

If you already didn't guess I make Vista themes, my major one called VistaXT is on release 1 of version 2.0 at the moment. You can find it and all the older versions (V1.0 releases) at my deviantart page: http://skate3214.deviantart.com)

Anyways I just thought I'd update you on my progress for the new version coming soon.
The first major change will be that I want to include an installer for the them that will:
-Take ownership of the necessary files
-Rename the files to "filename.dll.bak" so it's possible to restore it from a backup
-Copy over the modified files
-Restart explorer to show the changes

I'm pretty much finished with the installer, I just have to test it and test different ways to package it (SFX RAR, etc...)

The installer is coded using a scripting language called Autoit, which is a BASIC type language.
Other parts of it are a small executable for restarting Explorer.exe and a small one for taking ownership of all the files. These are just batch files compiled to an exe.

I plan on releasing the source code to the Autoit script and the executables with the project, so other people can build off it to make there own installers.

Now on to the graphical part. I've changed all the progress bars for the copy/paste dialogues and the meters on remaining hard drive space (basically anything that has a progress bar). I've toned down the highlights on the start bar as I got some complaints of them being to bright.
Two themes are now included (possibly three) one with the normal dark taskbar, another with a lighter more transparent taskbar and probably another with a dark taskbar but a toned down reflection.
Also new is a brand new login background and splash screen, with a new more cleaner design.
I've also for the first time have made a bootscreen (to be used with the msconfig no gui boot option)
Also included are new smoother, cleaner push buttons, instead of the old sharp harsh looking ones.
There's a few other thing's I have changed to but I can't remember everything at the moment, I also still have quite a few more things to change. But so far this release is coming along good.

If you wanna have a look at Autoit you can visit there website, it's a very handy scripting language:
http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/

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