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Title Bar Color on Tiled Windows

Question asked by Wayne Bird on Mar 4, 2008
Latest reply on Apr 8, 2008 by John Matrishon

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Does anyone know how to make the title bars on tiled windows act the same as all other Windows programs or like they did in SW2007, i.e., active window is the color that's determined by the Windows XP OS and the inactive windows are grayed? Currently, SW2008 active window is slightly dark gray and the inactive windows are slightly light gray. These colors are too close to each other. I would like them to be completely different.

Thanks for any help!

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Jim Wilkinson Mar 4, 2008 11:42 PM
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Hi Wayne,

At this time, there is no way for the user to adjust these colors. We could consider adjusting the colors to be more distinct from one another if many users find them to be to close to one another.

Thanks,
Jim
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- Wayne Bird @ Jim Wilkinson on Mar 5, 2008 2:43 PM
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  Thanks Jim for the input. It's too bad that Solidworks changed the standard windows functionality.
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- Eddie Cyganik @ Jim Wilkinson on Mar 6, 2008 5:35 PM
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  Jim,
  
  If the MS Windows Desktop settings always controled the Solidworks windows, why would SolidWorks suddenly turn this off?
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  - Jim Wilkinson @ Eddie Cyganik on Mar 8, 2008 11:32 AM
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    Hi Eddie,
    
    There is a general trend in Windows applications to style applications independently from the styling that comes "for free" from Windows. For instance, look at Microsoft Office 2007. The styling of the Office suite no longer uses the windows borders that have traditionally been used previously (for either the main application window or for child document windows).
    
    In SolidWorks 2008, we have also followed this trend, styling the overall application window independently from the operating system settings. This also allowed us to make use of the title bar space which in older style applications is just a title bar with no controls on it (other than minimize/maximize/close). When we went to this new styling, the child document windows looked very out of place inside the SolidWorks window when they were following the OS styling instead of the SolidWorks styling, so we also styled the borders of those windows. Again, this is consistent with what Microsoft is doing in their latest applications.
    
    That being said, it wasn't our intention to make it such that it is harder to tell the active window appart from the inactive ones so that is something we can look into improving.
    
    Thanks,
    Jim
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    - Wayne Tiffany @ Jim Wilkinson on Mar 8, 2008 12:58 PM
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      This is the type of discussion I like to see - here's something I see that I don't understand the whys of, and here's the reason we did it. It shows that the major change was done on purpose and there is a question from users, not an accusation of who is the bigger idiot for what I see. Are there bugs & mistakes, sure. But a lot of things we see have a reason that was thought through to the best of the ability of the people involved.
      
      I know I've said this before, but make sure this type of conversation carries through the next beta period.
      
      WT
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    - Jim Wilkinson @ Jim Wilkinson on Mar 8, 2008 1:38 PM
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      Gerald Davis wrote:
      
      No, I can't tell you how to reproduce the problem, but I'd rather install SP3.57 than wait for SP4.0 with some harmonious new functionality suite that glosses over 75,000 lines of legacy experimental code.
      
      Hi Gerald,
      
      I am not exactly sure what you are getting at here. Maybe you mis-understand how the development/release of service packs works. We generally do not put "new functionality" into service packs. Internally, there is no such thing as SP3.1, 3.2, 3.3, ... 3.n. We plan to release SP3.0, SP4.0, SP5.0, etc. We target which defects (both found internally in QA and reported from users) to be fixed in a particular service pack. Then it goes to EV and if a critical issue is found in it, then we will do a point release (like SP3.1). Otherwise, the point releases are not planned. If we need to do a point release, it needs to go through the full suite of testing as any other service pack would go through which takes a considerable amount of time so we can't be releasing point releases all the time. I don't think users would generally want to be dealing with all sorts of point releases either.
      
      So, our next service pack that we are working on is SP4.0 and any defects we target to be fixed will be fixed there.
      
      As for the particular issue of this thread, do you consider it an issue that affects you? This is the first complaint I have heard about it through the entire release and so far only one person (the person who started the thread) has indicated that they don't like the change because the colors are too close to one another. So far, no one else has chimed in that they also think the colors are too similar so it is hard to tell how important the issue is. I assume you do agree since you mention "junk and/or goofy UI decisions" in your post but it is hard to tell if you agree it is important to fix.
      
      Thanks,
      Jim
      
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      - Brian Cayer @ Jim Wilkinson on Mar 8, 2008 2:11 PM
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        Jim, Although I'm not using 08 for production yet I vote for a more defined difference in the windows title bar.
        
        Regards,
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      - John Matrishon @ Jim Wilkinson on Apr 8, 2008 5:09 PM
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        Jim Wilkinson wrote:
        
        As for the particular issue of this thread, do you consider it an issue that affects you? This is the first complaint I have heard about it through the entire release and so far only one person (the person who started the thread) has indicated that they don't like the change because the colors are too close to one another. So far, no one else has chimed in that they also think the colors are too similar so it is hard to tell how important the issue is. I assume you do agree since you mention "junk and/or goofy UI decisions" in your post but it is hard to tell if you agree it is important to fix.
        
        Thanks,
        
        Jim
        
        Jim, I have a user here that has some problems with colors. Some people can have severe problems with color, and can get headaches from certain display settings. While some colors can be modified thru windows apperance, the main color of the title/borders cannot. Now that we just updated to 2008, that user could potentially have issues doing their job. I think SW should reconsider this control.
        
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Kelvin Lamport Mar 8, 2008 2:34 PM
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While I agree that the colour could be more defined, the fact that the 'Heads-up' or 'On-screen' (whatever they are called) icons only appear in the active window, IMO, makes it very clear which window is active.
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