I should have also asked, I noticed on the screenshot on msfn that it is only applied to the application borders. Is it possible for this to apply to the taskbar (the bottom of the screen where the program icons are shown and pinned etc) as well? The transparency on the taskbar current isn't alpha-blended/blurred. More importantly, with 'Windows Blue' they are getting rid of transparency on the taskbar completely (apparently), so it will just be solid colour.
Actually, the glow is part of the theme itself, as shown when you use the Release Preview theme, or Nighthawk's Transparent Pattern 1. Example:
Taskbar blur is subject for the future version. But it won't be so complicated because taskbar painting is very easily identifiable. No, this is not true. If you compare your image (I guess RP theme) and Nighthawk's theme, you can see big difference. Windows theme generates it exactly for the text (i.e. each letter has its own effect) while Nighthack's version only draws "border" around the text. Text with the glow effect can be easily drawn with DrawThemeTextEx function (and its DTT_GLOWSIZE flag) but there is a problem that I don't have access to the window text in hooked functions (if I don't want to guess the drawn window from the screen position). I receive only final texture with rendered text so I have to apply glow effect to already existing image.
You could try to OCR the rendered text... The font is Segoe UI Semilight, I guess you could recognize each letter then apply the glow
Good luck. Can't wait till it's released! Huh. You must know a lot about the theming and technical side of the Windows 8 DWM.
You either need to install Visual Studio 2012, or you need to find those DLLs on the Internet. However, they are not redistributable, so I cannot provide them for you :/ (maybe in PM if you want)
It runs without error or log on my main machine but nothing happens. If you would like any more information then please ask.
I have experience with DWM but not with theming. If there is some settings to set glow effect in the theme, then you were probably right and it will simplify the things a lot. I just know that the glow is not the image as the window shadow is
When I try it out, the DWM crashes and Windows switches me to the Windows 7 Basic theme. I tried hitting retry, and DWM reactivated and returned me to the lock screen.
I added a new version (last post in the topic) with debug output, please try that one and post C:\DWM\debug.log in case of error.
IT WORKS!!! It works to a point. When I try to load Snipping Tool to take a screenshot, it crashes. But still, it works.