DonationCoder.com Software > T-Clock
T-Clock 2010 (download)
Mugsy:
Changing "Desktop" color seems to disable text transparency (regardless of color selected).
See screenshot below from my "Personalization" settings dialog.
Themes that have "transparent" text lack a black bar in the "preview" icon. Themes with opaque text show a black bar on the "window" graphic. The icon/theme on the left would give me transparent text. The right one: opaque.
Stoic Joker:
Changing "Desktop" color seems to disable text transparency (regardless of color selected).-Mugsy (May 26, 2011, 08:17 PM)
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Unfortunately that doesn't really prove anything because the applied color settings just force a repaint of the entire desktop. Which is the shotgun version of Refresh T-Clock forcing a repaint of the systemtray. The question on the table is: How do we make it do that in the first place?
Themes that have "transparent" text lack a black bar in the "preview" icon. Themes with opaque text show a black bar on the "window" graphic. The icon/theme on the left would give me transparent text. The right one: opaque.-Mugsy (May 26, 2011, 08:17 PM)
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Certain fonts are harder to render at runtime than others. T-Clock renders its own font at runtime independently of what the system is doing. Which is why the Font Quality setting had to be added. But the issue there was in the fonts washing out and appearing transparent. The issue I'm concerned with at this point is the (white) backgrounding that is appearing in your screen-shots. It is something I've simply never seen before. I did have limited success reproducing an ephemeral version of it ... But that's in a Virtual PC which means it's stuck with a crap virtualized video card.
Now I get the impression that your's are persistent. And I'd like to help. But if I cannot find a way of rely-ably reproducing the issue with the software ... Then the issue, most likely, does not exist within the software.
Mugsy:
if I cannot find a way of rely-ably reproducing the issue with the software ... Then the issue, most likely, does not exist within the software.-Stoic Joker (May 26, 2011, 10:08 PM)
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Yes, I fear you're right. It does seem to be connected to the way Win7 handles Theme colors. I'll just have to experiment some more.
If there was a way to *add* a background box/color to the area behind the T-clock text (I believe a much older version of T-Clock could do this), that might "fix" the problem.
Stoic Joker:
if I cannot find a way of rely-ably reproducing the issue with the software ... Then the issue, most likely, does not exist within the software.-Stoic Joker (May 26, 2011, 10:08 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yes, I fear you're right. It does seem to be connected to the way Win7 handles Theme colors. I'll just have to experiment some more.-Mugsy (May 26, 2011, 11:50 PM)
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Please do let me know what you find. I'm not giving up on the issue, I'm just at a bit of a lose as to how to define it. Where is the Spring theme you're using from? Is it a 3rd party item? I never really got into the skinning craze back when so I'm not really "up" on what all of the MS themes are available.
If there was a way to *add* a background box/color to the area behind the T-clock text (I believe a much older version of T-Clock could do this), that might "fix" the problem.-Mugsy (May 26, 2011, 11:50 PM)
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Yes that was one of the legacy items I removed (back when). The transparency worked better as a default going between (Win2000 & XP) the two primarily available OS of the time. And with Vista and 7 both being themed there was no real compelling reason to bring the background color option back going forward either. This was compounded by the fact that when using either of the transparency methods (Aero or the one built into T-Clock) the background was also subjected to the transparency...Which made its effect rather moot. Well that and I thought the squared corners looked like poo.... *Shrug* :)
What I usually do in testing is drag either an explorer window or a command window down behind the taskbar for quick extra contrast when needed. This helped out a great deal when I was trying to resolve the fuzzy font issue (which is why the font quality setting was added) awhile back. I don't know (kinda doubt) if it'll help here as it seems like something is either blocking, mangling, or not sending a paint message to that window. But it might be worth a shot.
Mugsy:
Please do let me know what you find. I'm not giving up on the issue, I'm just at a bit of a lose as to how to define it. Where is the Spring theme you're using from? Is it a 3rd party item? I never really got into the skinning craze back when so I'm not really "up" on what all of the MS themes are available.
...
What I usually do in testing is drag either an explorer window or a command window down behind the taskbar for quick extra contrast when needed.-Stoic Joker (May 27, 2011, 06:57 AM)
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I'm afraid I added to the confusion a bit. I *am* using a skinning program "WindowBlinds7" from Stardock (love it), but when the problem persisted with it disabled/unloaded, I dismissed it as a factor.
With WB7 unloaded and is using the default "Aero" theme, I encountered the problem/solution you described earlier with "black/dark" text displaying as "transparent" and light/white text appearing opaque. The "White" box around the clock only shows when a skin is being used, drawing the clock on top of the skinned graphic.
There is no setting in WB7 to control "text" transparency, though you can change the transparency of the toolbar, windows and menus (I fiddled with them all). So I'm not sure how it is affecting text transparency, but am fairly certain now that it is. Not sure why a forced "repaint" also seems to fix the problem (temporarily, until the next reboot.)
I'll try a few more things and let you know what I find.
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