Metro Theme system brushes don't change - windows-8

I've been working on my first Metro application and I'm wanting to change my theme from the default dark theme to a light theme. It appears Metro has some built in themes if you look at the platform pane in VS11 and Blend. I assumed changing the Theme from Default(which is dark) to Light would change the system brushes from dark to light. It does appear to work in the designer but when running the program everything is still dark.
Am I doing something wrong to get the System brushes to change, or am I missing the point of what Platform theme is? Or is it just a bug?


Open up the html page you want to change and then locate <!-- WinJS references -->at the head of the document, and then change the stylesheet reference from ui-dark.cssto ui-light.css.
Do this for all html pages in the app including the default.html page.


The Platform pane isn't for making changes to your application itself. It's for setting up the simulation environment that you want to use as your design-time context. Changing the Display setting, for example, doesn't reset your screen resolution or resize your app - it still runs full screen. Similarly, Theme is an OS setting which you won't see changes in at runtime unless you change the OS theme in the control panel. This is similar in concept to how WPF uses different themes with different control templates for Aero, Royale(XP style), and Classic(Win2K style) depending on what the user is running.

Related

How to Change Application Icon through Code

I am working on a project and want to change its main application icon (EXE Icon) occasionally like X-mas or whatever through code. Tried some ways but its not working and rest only works to change Form's icon.

vb desktop icon different from application icon

I am trying to set the icon of my application. I set the icon once before by changing the property of the form and the property of the project. Now I am trying to change the icon to a different one. The icons of the form and the application have been successfully changed, but when I copy the application to the desktop, the desktop icon still remains the previous one. Can anyone please tell me how to change the desktop icon?
Thanks,
Kai

If you change the icon properly on the form it should get visible in the Taskbar immediately as soon as you start your application.
However even if you did change the project icon properly and therefore your executable has the correct (new) icon (check that in your \bin-folder) you can get the wrong (old) icon from the desktop because you system might retrieve it from the icon cache.
Please check the following link to understand that topic and to see how you can enforce windows to renew its icon cache.
Win 7--: http://www.winability.com/repair-windows-desktop-icon-cache/
Win 8++: http://www.winability.com/how-to-erase-icon-thumbnail-cache-windows-8/

vb.net windows form automatic resizing

I have a windows form in my vb.net application which has recently started resizing itself dependant on the computers screen resolution.
I would like the form to be a fixed width and height - how can i make it do this and not resize itself?

You may try to change the property AutoScaleMode.
The default is FONT (the correct to most different systems DPI), but you may try other options there.
UPDATE
I saw now you may set the PROPERTIES of a file in the DESKTOP to "Deactivate Dimmension in High-DPI Settings" (it´s translated from Portuguese, my system). Click in the desktop application´s properties (its icon) and go to COMPATIBILITY TAB.
It´s not a .NET solution but if Windows had put it there, is because it´s possible the only way to set it.

Theme resources for Windows Store

In Windows Phone 7/8 we had this handy Theme Resources like PhoneTextTitle1Style that would reflect the users selected Theme.
What is the equivalent in Windows Store apps?

A good way to find the styles that can apply to a control such as TextBlock is to select the control in the designer, go to the properties pane, click on the square next to the "Style" property, and choose the System Resource or Local Resource menus:
They are also documented and demonstrated in the Guidelines for label (or text block)'s XAML style gallery for Windows Store apps
These styles will reflect the app's current theme (dark or light) or high-contrast mode, but are not directly personalized by the user.
Windows doesn't expose the start screen background colour to apps. Windows Store apps are supposed to use their own branded colours and don't have anything analogous to Windows Phone's PhoneAccentBrush.

How to make a custom tile in Windows 8 from an old program?

I've got an old Visual Studio 6-made program, and when I install it on Windows 8, it has a default tile. Problem is, it's the smaller tile and the name of the program is too long to fit in comfortably, plus the icon is resized and looks bad.
Is there a way to create a custom Windows 8 tile that's got a different size and icon, without actually creating a specific Windows 8 program? I'd like to be able to do this with batch files as well if possible.

Metro apps in Windows 8 have the full experience of creating live tiles, secondary tiles, wide tiles, etc. Only Metro apps can customize their tiles, not desktop apps. The tile APIs exist only in WinRT for Metro apps.
For a desktop app like you have (the "old Visual Studio 6-made program" that is not Metro), you can try this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc144119(v=vs.85).aspx. Make sure to click on the other topics in the left sidebar too.
Edit:
This method can change the icon for older applications. Since the icon is what is used in the start menu, this is a way to give older apps a more attractive static icon in the new start menu.

Whilst live tiles are not supported for desktop applciations in Windows 8, you can improve the appearence of the icons by ensuring your Icon resource has sizes for 48px, 64px, 96px and 128px

To create the tile, right click on the executable (.exe, .com, .bat, etc), then left click on "Pin to Start".
To resize the tile, right click on the tile and select the size you want.
To move the tile, drag and drop to where you want it.
If you want to change the name, make a shortcut, change the shortcut name to what you want, then pin that to start.