Tag Archives: aero effect

Customize Aero Glass Effect Opacity & Blur In Windows 8 With AGTweaker

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Immediately after the release of Windows 8, transparency-obsessed users and developers have been demanding and developing different methods for bringing window and taskbar transparency back to Windows 8. The choice between transparent and solid window borders depends on your preference between a visually pleasing UI or better performance. A lack of transparency does not mean that the Windows 8 interface isn't as aesthetically pleasing; it is just that for some people, a shift from the rather stylish look of Windows 7 to a simpler, minimalistic one seems like a step back. Over time, a lot of tools have been developed for the purpose, Aero Glass for Win8 being the best of the lot. It is the closest you can get to the original Aero Glass effect with blurred transparency. However, the application does not have a GUI or any settings to control the transparency or blur effect. Today, we bring to you a tool called AGTweaker that works as a supporting utility for Aero Glass for Win8, allowing you to control the level of opacity and blur to apply to window borders. Moreover, it lets you set the Aero Glass effect to be applied at Windows startup to avoid the trouble of loading it every time you reboot your system. Read More

Get Proper Aero Glass Effect With Blurred Transparency In Windows 8

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The lack of window border transparency (Aero Glass Effect) in Windows 8 has been a big subject of debate since the release of the OS. People have been coming up with many tools and hacks to get back the transparent borders, and we have followed the whole progress quite closely. Aero8Tuner was the first application to boast getting the feature back, but had a lot of bugs. Then came WinaeroGlass, this time with a lot less bugs but still without the blur effect of Windows Aero. Windows 8 is not completely void of transparency, as we can see in case of the taskbar, leading to tools like Opaque Taskbar that disables the taskbar transparency to make it match the rest of the UI. Aero Glass for Win8 is another transparency-related portable app that that has managed to bring back Aero Glass to window borders in Windows 8, complete with transparency and blur effects. Even though the application is still in beta, it works quite well. Read More

Disable Taskbar Transparency In Windows 8 With Opaque Taskbar

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Compared to its predecessors, the Windows 8 UI has received a major overhaul. The famous Aero Glass effect has been discontinued and replaced with a more simpler interface. Instead of rounded corners, the windows are now squared and the title bars and other borders are not  transparent anymore. Some people have welcomed these changes while others are still in love with Aero. If you are of the former type, you might find one thing a bit annoying. While everything else has been changed to be opaque, the taskbar in Desktop mode still retains its transparency. Now using a tool called Opaque Taskbar, you can easily change the transparency of the taskbar and make it opaque to match the rest of the UI. Read More

How To Bring Back Aero Effects In Windows 8

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When I updated from Windows XP to Windows 7 (don't ask why I skipped Vista), one particular aspect caught my eye: Aero. It's essentially a bundle of eye-candy and somewhat productivity enhancing elements like Aero glass, Aero snap, Aero shake, Aero peek, and Flip 3D. Over the period of 3 years, I've gotten used to them. Then came Windows 8, and it took away Aero effects. Some of those effects still exist, and the rest can be enabled. So let's see where to find them. Read More

SnapCrab: The Best Features From Screenshot Tools Shotty & Greenshot Combined Into One

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Recently, we brought you a roundup of 5 best free screenshot capturing software that we had previously featured on AddictiveTips. Apart from screenshot taking utilities, we also compiled a list of 6 free photo sharing and screenshot taking tools. Today we found an awesome screenshot taking application called SnapCrab, which is worth adding to both aforementioned roundups. It hosts a huge array of features, screenshot taking modes, along with an option to capture Windows 7 Aero Glass effect. It is a screen capturing tool that combines best features from previously covered Greenshot and Shotty. When capturing a window, just like previously featured Shotty, it retains the Aero-Glass effect of Windows Vista and Windows 7 app windows. You can also configure the application to share the captured images on Facebook and Twitter or save them directly to Evernote. Keep reading to find out more about SnapCrab. Read More

Set Custom RGB Color Combination For Windows 7 Aero Theme

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Windows 7 provides various controls to change Aero Glass effects and transparency from Window Color and Appearance, which is accessible from Personalization but what if you want to manually specify the RGB color combination for both Aero Glass effect and Aero Transparency? You may know that Windows only allows you to change Color Intensity level, customize Hue, Saturation, Brightness of Aero Glass effect and enable/disable Window Aero transparency. DWMColorMod brings some extra Aero Glass controls to Windows 7. It’s an extension for Desktop Windows Manager (DWM) which lets you customize both Aero Glass and Transparency according to your liking. It presents RGB (Red, Green, Blue) color sliders to set custom Aero Glass shades, saturation and brightness controls to change Aero color intensity, and reflection intensity to apply required amount of color reflection to your Aero theme. Read More

Get Windows 8 Like Aero Color Rotation In Windows 7 With AeroRainbow

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One of the many anticipated features of  Windows 8 is the ability to dynamically change Aero Glass color according to the color scheme of the current wallpaper. We last reviewed a third party application called Aura which brings this functionality to Windows 7. Aura was later updated with an additional feature i.e. to change Windows Aero Glass color according to currently opened Internet Explorer 9 tab. AeroRainbow is another 3rd party application which can automatically change the Aero color shade according to current wallpaper, active window, or by predefined shades. Read More

Aero Color Show – Cycle Through Different Windows 7 Aero Glass Shades

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Remember previously featured Aura which brings Windows 8 Aero Glass like functions to Windows 7, allowing users to automatically change Windows 7 Aero Glass color effect according to desktop wallpaper? Aero Color Show does the same but instead of automatically changing the Windows 7 Aero Glass effects, it allows users to pick their favorite wallpapers from the list to apply matching Aero Glass effect. This doesn’t confine you to currently applied desktop wallpaper Aero shades. The interesting part is that it cycles through specified list of images for applying their color shades as Windows 7 Aero Glass effect, after a defined time interval. Read More

Give A Custom Color And Tone To Windows 7 Aero With Aero Tuner

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One of the most exhilarant feature of Windows 7 at the time of its introduction was the stylish Aero Glass Effect. Despite the fact that it adds eye candy for users, it does not provide a lot of tweaking options. AeroTuner is a portable application that gives a custom color and tone to Windows Aero. It provides options for changing the look of Windows Aero, such as selecting custom colors for the primary Aero color and a glow color. It does so by allowing to change the DWM parameters separately without DWM restarting. With Aero Tuner, users can change tweak color balance, blur balance, after glow color balance and Aero stripes. Read More

How To Toggle Windows Vista Aero Effects On/Off With A Simple Right Click

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Windows Aero is a  hardware-based premium visual experience or graphical user interface that is implemented in Windows Vista, which includes effects such as transparent glass design, subtle window animations, animated cursors, new window colors and eye candy. Aero is actually acronym for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective and Open. Windows Vista’s Aero effects are quite pleasing but when you're trying to squeeze the last bit of power and life out of a battery, or just running some memory-hungry stuff, you don't always need them.

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