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Desktop Themes v1.89 Copyright 2000 Jonathan Potter / Left Side Software ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This program is distributed under the Shareware concept. The Shareware system lets you trial a piece of software before deciding whether or not to pay for it. It results in lower priced software for all users, as the costs of distribution are far less than traditional commercial channels. It also results in higher quality software, as users are able to evaluate software before buying. Therefore, Shareware authors depend upon your honesty and support in order to survive. If you like and use Desktop Themes, please consider registering. The fee is only $US15, and entitles you to free technical support, and free or discounted upgrades when new versions become available. It encourages us to continue to develop this program, as well as create new high-quality software. Please see http://www.lss.com.au or email jpotter@lss.com.au for more information. You can register online by credit card at http://www.lss.com.au/register.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to Desktop Themes! -------------------------- The "Desktop Theme" concept was introduced by Microsoft with their Plus! pack for Windows 95. A Theme is a collection of wallpaper, pointers, sounds, colours, fonts and screensavers, all bundled together into a convenient package. It enables you to completely alter the appearance of your desktop in one step, without having to tediously alter all the settings manually. The term "theme" is used because the items of a theme are usually all related in some way (eg, a particular band, a type of car, etc). There are literally thousands of Themes available on the net, and most of them can be downloaded for free. Some good places to start looking for Themes are Tucows FreeThemes (www.freethemes.com) and Winfiles.com (www.winfiles.com). There are many other Theme sites; a list of some of them can be found in the Desktop Themes program itself. The problem with the Microsoft Theme solution was that the user was required to buy the expensive Plus! pack in order to be able to use Themes. The Microsoft solution was also very unfriendly to use, and did not enable you to easily modify a Theme or create your own. We at Left Side Software created the "Desktop Themes" application to address the need for a reasonably priced, user-friendly and, above all, powerful Theme solution. Installing the Desktop Themes software -------------------------------------- The Desktop Themes program is distributed as a ZIP file; if you are reading these instructions it is likely that you have already unzipped the file. If not, you will need a Zip program like WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) to extract the Desktop Themes files. The Desktop Themes program is very easy to install, as it consists of just a single executable (.exe) file. The easiest way to install it is to use the supplied Setup program. Simply double-click on Setup.exe and follow the instructions provided. If you are confident using Windows Explorer, you can easily copy the "Desktop Themes.exe" program to your Program Files directory, and create a shortcut in your Startup menu. If you used the Setup program, it will automatically open this readme file for you. Please read it carefully before using the software, as the answers to most questions can be found in here. When you are ready to run the Desktop Themes program, simply select it from the Start menu, or double-click on its icon. If this is the first time you have run a Themes program, it will ask you to select a location to store Theme files. This is explained in more detail later; for the moment, just accept the default location by clicking OK. You will then be ready to start using Themes! Quick Guide to Using Themes --------------------------- The Desktop Themes program will be discussed in detail later on; if you are a new user, or just want to get running quickly, you should read this section first. Most Theme files are distributed in ZIP format, and so you will need a Zip program like WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) to access them. If you are not using WinZip, make sure the Zip program you do use supports long filenames (this is crucial). Using Themes with the Left Side Software Desktop Themes program is a four step process. 1. Download The first step is to Download the Theme you want to use. As we said before, there are thousands of themes available, and hundreds of theme sites on the net. If you are a beginner, we suggest you start with http://www.freethemes.com as this service has one of the largest themes collections available. We can't give you detailed instructions on how to actually download the Theme here, as it will depend on which web browser you are using, but generally all you need to do is to click on the link to the Theme Zip file, and the download should start automatically. If you are asked where to save the Theme file you are downloading, we suggest you store it in a temporary folder. To create a temporary folder easily (if you don't already have one), simply right-click on the Windows desktop and select New -> Folder. 2. Extract If the Theme you just downloaded is in Zip format (most of them are), you will need to extract the contents of the Zip file before you can access it. We suggest you use WinZip (www.winzip.com) for this purpose; if you use another Zip program, make sure it supports long filenames. Please follow the instructions for your particular Zip program to extract the Theme file; again, we suggest you extract it to a temporary folder. Neither the zipped file or the extracted contents of the Theme are required to be saved permanently by you. 3. Install The third step is to Install the Theme that you have just downloaded. In the context of Desktop Themes, to "Install" a theme means to copy the various components of the Theme to your Theme Storage directory. Installing a theme does NOT actually cause your desktop settings to be changed; all it does is make a permanent copy of the theme files so that you can then go on to use the theme. The Theme Storage directory defaults to "C:\Program Files\Plus!\Themes" for historical reasons; unless you have a good reason, you probably shouldn't change this. To Install the Theme, you need to run the Desktop Themes program. When the Desktop Themes interface appears, click on the "Install" tab at the top of the window. Then, click on the Browse button to bring up the Open File dialog. Navigate to the temporary folder that you extracted the Theme into, and select the Theme file to install. When you have found the Theme, click the OK button to close the dialog, and then click the Install button to install the Theme. Once you have installed the Theme, you are free to delete the Zip file and the files that you extracted from it. These are no longer required by Desktop Themes. 4. Apply Once you have installed a Theme, you can then Apply it at your leisure. We use the term "Apply" to mean actually changing your desktop configuration to use the new Theme. A Theme MUST have been installed before it can be applied. Again, you need to be running the Desktop Themes program. Click on the "Theme" tab at the top of the window if you are not already on this page. Next to the words "Current Theme" is a drop-down list, which contains a list of all the Themes you have installed on your system. Click on the drop-down list, and then select the Theme that you want to use. When you click on a Theme, the drop-down list should disappear, and the Theme preview below should change to reflect the new Theme (the wallpaper and the desktop icons are displayed in the preview). At this point, you can use the "Display", "Sounds" and "Pointers" tabs at the top of the window to preview the individual theme components. On the right of the "Theme" page is a group of checkboxes labelled "Active Components". These checkboxes allow you to control which elements of the Theme will be used when you click the Apply button. For example, you can choose to use the Wallpaper and Icons of a Theme but to leave your existing Sounds and Pointers intact. If you want to use all the components of the theme you have chosen, simply select all of the checkboxes. When you are ready to use the new Theme, click the Apply button in the bottom-right corner of the Desktop Themes window. After a few seconds you should find that your desktop looks radically different. Enjoy! If you obtained the Theme that you want to use from a CD rather that from the Internet, you can usually skip step 1 and possibly step 2 above. One frequent question our users ask us is "How do I get my system back the way it was?". Luckily, Desktop Themes automatically makes a backup of your system settings when it is first run. No matter how many different Themes you install and apply, you will always be able to return to your original configuration. To restore your settings, click on the "Current Theme" drop-down list again, and look for a theme labelled "My Original Settings". If you select this Theme you should see the preview window change to display your original wallpaper. Simply click the Apply button, and your original configuration will be restored. The Desktop Themes Interface ---------------------------- Desktop Themes has a small, but highly functional user-interface. The tabs along the top of the window provide access to different areas of the program (known as "pages"). Theme The Theme page shows you a preview of the currently selected theme, giving you a good idea of how your system would look if you applied the current settings. You can click on the image of the 'recycle bin' icon to toggle it between empty and full. This page is where you select a Theme from the ones that you have installed. The "Current Theme" drop-down list contains a list of all Themes that you have installed. Select a Theme from this list to preview, apply or edit it. As well as the Themes that you have installed on your system, the drop-down list contains four other entries, which you can select and treat just like any other Theme: (current settings) This refers to the current configuration of your desktop, that is, the settings currently being used by your computer. You can select this "Theme" at any time to return to your current configuration. (initial settings) This refers to the settings that were being used by your computer when you ran the Desktop Themes program. You can use this to return to the initial settings, which allows you to undo any changes you have made with the Apply button. (windows defaults) This is a built-in Theme containing the default Windows 95 configuration. If your settings get hopelessly confused and there seems to be no way out, you can always use this Theme to go back to the very beginning. My Original Settings This is a real Theme file that is created automatically by Desktop Themes the first time that the program is run. Using this Theme, you will always be able to return to your original settings, no matter how many changes you have made in the meantime. If you make changes to your configuration that you want to make absolutely permanent, you can save over this Theme using the "Save As" button. To the right of the drop-down list is a button marked "Save As". This function allows you to save the current settings to a new Theme (or over the top of an old one). When you click the "Save As" button, a file dialog will open, prompting for the name of the new Theme to create. This function is only designed to save Themes for your own use. If you want to create a Theme that you can give to other people, you need to use the "Distribution" function of the Edit page. Using the "Active Components" checkboxes, you can select which Theme components you want to use, and which you want to leave untouched when you Apply the theme. At the bottom of the "Active Components" checkboxes is a button labelled "Set As Random Options". The Desktop Themes program has the ability to change your desktop Theme randomly every time you start the computer (there is a checkbox on the Miscellaneous page which you use to turn this feature on). Use the "Set As Random Options" button on this page to select which Theme components you want to be randomly changed; make your selection by turning on or off the "Active Components" checkboxes, and then click the "Set As Random Options" button. At the top-right is a button marked "Save Preview Image". If you are creating a theme to give to other people, you might want to use this feature. It lets you save the theme preview image as a bitmap file, which you can then send to other people or display on your web page. This function only supports saving as bitmaps, but you can easily use other software to convert the bitmap file to a gif or jpg format file. At the very bottom of the Desktop Themes window are three buttons. These buttons are available from any of the pages, not just the Theme page. The OK and Apply button have very similar functions; they both will take the currently selected Theme, and apply its settings to your system (subject to your selection in the "Active Components" list). Unlike the Apply button, the OK button will also close the Desktop Themes program after it has made the setting changes. Use the Cancel button at the bottom of the window if you want to exit the Desktop Themes program without changing any of your system settings. The Cancel button does NOT undo the effects of pressing the Apply button; it simply prevents further changes from being made. If you want to undo changes you have previously made, use the (initial settings) or "My Original Settings" options in the "Current Theme" drop-down list. Display The Display page allows you to preview the "display" elements of the currently selected Theme. These elements include the wallpaper, desktop icons, screensaver and startup/shutdown screens. Select the element you want to look at from the list on the left-hand side, and it will be displayed in the area on the right. Sounds This page lets you preview the sounds of the currently selected Theme. Although Desktop Themes can adjust almost 20 different sound settings, not all Themes will be configured to change all possible sounds. Only sounds that are actually affected by the currently selected Theme will be displayed in this list. To preview a sound, select the appropriate entry from the list, and click the play button (right-facing arrow button). Click the stop button next to it to interrupt the sound. Pointers The Pointers page lets you preview the Theme's mouse pointer images. The operation is much the same as the previous two pages; simply select the pointer you want to see from the list, and it will be displayed in the area on the right. Miscellaneous This page contains several options that you can use to control the operation of the Desktop Themes program, or to make changes to your system that are not directly linked to a Theme. Use large icons This option lets you toggle your desktop icons between normal size (32x32) and large size (48x48). Window animation on minimize/restore This option lets you turn off the annoying (to some) window animation features of Windows (where you can actually see a window open or close, etc). Select a Random Theme on startup This enables the Random Theme Changing function of Desktop Themes. If this switch is turned on, Desktop Themes will automatically select a new Theme at random, from your list of installed Themes, every time you start your computer. You can control which parts of the Theme are used with the "Active Components" and "Set As Random Options" function on the Theme page. Warn about missing files when installing Quite often, Themes you download from the net will have one or more files missing. This is usually the result of nothing more than the Theme author forgetting to include all components of the Theme when they created the Zip file for distribution. Screen savers seem to get left out the most, but you may also find references to sounds and pointers that just aren't present. By default, when Desktop Themes notices a missing file during the Theme Install process, it just silently ignores it and carries on. A missing file isn't particularly serious, and more often than not you won't even notice that it isn't there. If you would like to know exactly what is going on when you install a Theme, however, just turn on the "Warn about missing files when installing" switch. You will then be shown a list of all missing files (if any) after the install process is complete. Show icons using all possible colors This switch enables the display of 256 color icons on your desktop. By default Windows only displays icons in 16 colors, which means you are probably missing out on a large part of the Themes you install. If your video card supports it (and most do, these days), you should turn this option on. Stretch desktop wallpaper to fit the screen There are three options a Theme has when it comes to displaying the wallpaper; Center (the default - centers the image in the middle of the screen), Tile (useful for very small images), and Stretch (stretches a small image larger to fill the screen, and a large image smaller to fit entirely on the screen). It is up to the Theme author which option they use when they create their Theme. Most themes are designed for 800x600 or 1024x768 screens. If you have the same size display as the Theme author, then their choice about how to display the wallpaper is probably fine for you. However, if you have a very large display (or even a very small display), you may find that usually the supplied wallpaper is the wrong size. In this case, you will most probably want the wallpaper to be stretched to fit your screen. If you turn this switch on, the wallpaper image will always be stretched for your display, and the setting in the Theme will be ignored. The other option in the top section of the Miscellaneous page lets you select the language you want to use. Desktop Themes currently supports English and German (Deutsch). Click on this drop-down list to select another language; the display will be instantly updated to reflect your choice. The center section of the Miscellaneous page contains the "Path to Themes" field. This text field contains the current path (location, in other words) that installed Themes are kept in. This defaults to "C:\Program Files\Plus!\Themes", to be compatible with the Microsoft Themes system. When you ran Desktop Themes for the first time, it may have asked to you specify a Theme location, and so the path displayed may be different. In any event, this field on the Miscellaneous page lets you change the Theme storage location. You may want to do this, for example, because the current drive is getting to full. Click the Browse button to open the 'Browse for Folder' dialog, and select the new location. You can store Themes anywhere on your system, however be aware that any old Themes you had installed will no longer be easily accessible. Changes made to all of the preceding options (except for the language selection) will not take effect until you press the Apply or OK button at the bottom of the Desktop Themes window. Because doing this also applies the current Theme settings to your system, you should make sure which Theme you have selected before doing this. If all you want to have changed is the Miscellaneous options, just select the (current settings) Theme from the drop-down list on the Theme page before clicking Apply or OK. At the bottom of the Miscellaneous page is a button labelled Update. Click this button if you have changed the location on your system where the Desktop Themes program is located. This is because Desktop Themes makes entries in the system registry that refer to the location of the Desktop Themes program. Several functions, including the automatic Uninstall function, may fail if the Desktop Themes program can not be located. Therefore, if you do move it to a new location, make sure you click the Update button on the Miscellaneous page before you do anything else with the Desktop Themes program. Install The Install page is the interface to the Desktop Themes Theme installation routines. Remember from the Quick Guide at the start of these instructions that the term "Install" in this context refers to the act of copying the Theme files into permanent storage on your system. It does not cause any changes to be made to your system configuration. Use the Browse button to find the Theme that you want to install. If you followed the Quick Guide, you will have previously downloaded and unzipped the Theme file to a temporary directory. When you click Browse, an Open File dialog appears. Use this to navigate to the temporary directory, and select the Theme file, and click Open. You can also drag and drop the Theme file from a Windows Explorer window onto the Desktop Themes window. When you have selected the Theme you want to install, click the Install button. You will be asked for confirmation, and then the install process will begin with no further input from you. If you have the "Warn about missing files when installing" option turned on in the Miscellaneous page, you will be warned at the end about any missing files that could not be installed. Otherwise, you should see a message saying that the theme installation was successful. If you then click on the Theme tab at the top of the Desktop Themes window to go back to the Theme page, you should find your newly-installed Theme available in the drop-down list. Unlike the older versions of Desktop Themes, the new version automatically installs Themes into sub-directories within the Theme Storage directory. This is designed to keep your Themes folder nice and tidy. One other change that has been made is to make the install routine much more intelligent when it comes to finding the files to copy. There should no longer be any problem installing some "malformed" or "badly designed" themes, which you occasionally come across on the net. The bottom section of the Install page lets you uninstall (remove) Themes that you have previously installed. Only Themes that you have installed with Desktop Themes can be uninstalled with this function; other Themes that you have manually installed will need to be manually removed. To uninstall a Theme, simply select it from the list and click the Uninstall button. After confirmation, the Theme and all of its files will be deleted permanently from your system. There is no undo for this action, so be careful! When Desktop Themes installs a Theme, it also adds an entry for uninstall to the Windows "Add & Remove Programs" uninstall list. You can therefore also use the "Add & Remove Programs" control panel to remove any Themes you have installed. Screens The Desktop Theme standard as defined by Microsoft does not provide support for startup and shutdown screens (the images that you see while Windows is loading, and when your computer is shutting down). However, many Theme authors do provide these pictures with their Themes, and until now you have had to install them manually. The Left Side Software Desktop Themes program supports the use of startup/shutdown screens with Themes. When you install a theme using the Install function, Desktop Themes will look to see whether the Theme author has included startup/shutdown pictures. If these can be found, they will also be installed automatically, and a permanent reference to them will be included in the Theme. Unfortunately, this process is not foolproof. If the Theme author has not used the standard filenaming convention when they included the startup/shutdown screens in the Theme distribution, Desktop Themes will be unable to recognise the pictures. Therefore, you can use the function on the Screens page to install the startup/shutdown screens yourself. To manually install startup and shutdown pictures, use the Browse buttons on this page to locate the files. The Theme author should have provided some instructions with their Theme that indicates the name of the picture files (they are usually called logo.sys, logow.sys and logos.sys, but if they are, Desktop Themes would have automatically installed them for you when you installed the Theme). You do not need to provide all three pictures; you can use as many as you want. Startup/shutdown screens can NOT just be any old picture file. They must be a specific size and format to work. There are programs available on the Internet that let you convert your own pictures for use as startup/shutdown screens, but this topic is beyond the scope of these instructions. Once you have selected the pictures you want to install, click the Install button. You will probably want to select the "Backup old Startup/Shutdown screens" option as well, to automatically create backups of your old images. If you don't, and you don't back them up yourself, you will have to reinstall Windows to get them back! Only one set of screens can be backed up at any one time, so if you are changing from a second set to a third, you should restore your original screens first. To restore your old startup and shutdown screens after replacing them (only if you had the backup option selected), click the Restore button at the bottom of the page. This button will only be available if there are backed-up screens present. Windows NT does not support the concept of startup/shutdown screens, and so this whole page is not available when running on an NT system. Edit Theme This page lets you edit the currently selected Theme, by changing the components used. You can also use the Edit page to create a brand new Theme yourself. It does not offer any image or sound editing functions, so you will need to create the actual Theme components using other software. The Edit page also has a function known as "Distribution". This is different to the "Save As" function on the main Theme page. It allows you to save a Theme with generic references to components, that will work on anyone's system. It also copies all of the selected Theme components automatically to a directory that you specify. The advantage of this is that if you want to create a Theme to give to other people, all you need to do is save it using the "Distribution" function, and then ZIP (using WinZip or another long-filename compliant zip program) the entire Theme directory. You do not need to hunt around all over your system looking for the correct files to include. Using this system should totally eliminate the problem of missing Theme files described earlier. The process of editing or creating a Theme is very straightforward. The Edit page consists of a tree control on the left and a preview panel on the right. The tree control gives you a list of all the possible Theme components, and by selecting one you can see the current setting for that component in the preview panel. Depending on the selected Theme component, the procedure for changing its value varies. Colors and Fonts both display a button labelled "Choose" in the preview area, and clicking this button opens the appropriate dialog to change the setting. Colors have an additional option, "Modify this color in the Theme". You can use this to choose which system colors your Theme will modify; if you just want to change one or two colors you can turn the rest off and not have to worry about setting them. If you select the Colors item from the list, you will see two buttons - "Load Color Scheme" and "Save Color Scheme". This function lets you export the color settings of a theme to a separate file, and then import them into a different theme. For Icons, the File field at the bottom of the window displays the filename of the currently selected icon file. Icons can be found in many different types of files. Pointers and icons (.cur, .ico and .ani) are all "pure" icon files, and usually contain only one image per file. Programs and libraries (.exe and .dll) can contain more than one icon per file, and if the icon you want to use is not the first one in the file you need to use the Index setting to pick the image you want. To choose a different icon file, click the Browse button. If you do not want to assign a particular icon in your Theme, click the Clear button to remove the currently selected icon. Pointers are selected in much the same way as icons, except that there is no Index setting. Again, click the Browse button to select a different pointer file, or the Clear button to clear the current selection. Pointers and icons are for the most part completely interchangeable; you can use a pointer file for an icon and vice versa. Sounds are also selected in a similar way. The preview area contains a play and a stop button that you can use to listen to the currently selected sound. Use the Browse button to select a new sound file for the current item, or the Clear button to remove the current setting. Screens is where you can select the startup and shutdown screens for your Theme. Startup/shutdown screens can NOT just be any old picture file. They must be a specific size and format to work. There are programs available on the Internet that let you convert your own pictures for use as startup/shutdown screens, but this topic is beyond the scope of these instructions. You should also be aware that Left Side Software Desktop Themes is currently the only Theme solution to support the integration of startup/shutdown screens into a Theme. If you distribute your Theme to other people who are not using our Desktop Themes software, they will probably have to install your startup/shutdown pictures manually. The Screen Saver and Wallpaper are self-explanatory. For Screen Savers there is a Preview button displayed in the preview panel that lets you test the selected screen saver. Wallpaper pictures can be in either BMP or JPG format - we highly recommend that you use JPG to cut down the size of your Theme. Using a JPG instead of a BMP in a Theme can save several hundred kilobytes, which will make your Theme quicker to download and therefore more attractive to your potential users. Wallpaper Settings lets you select how the wallpaper should be displayed. Stretch will cause it to be stretched to fit perfectly on the users screen. Center will display the picture in the middle of the screen if the picture is smaller than the display. Tile is good for very small images that you want tiled to fill the display. If the user is using Left Side Software Desktop Themes, then they can override this setting using the "Stretch desktop wallpaper to fit the screen" option on the Miscellaneous page. If you just want to make changes to the current Theme for your own use, then this is as far as you need to go on the Edit page. To apply the changes to your system, click the Apply button, and if you want to save the changes permanently to the current Theme, go back to the Theme page and use the "Save As" function. However, if you want to distribute your Theme to other people, the last step should be to click on the Distribution item in the list. Then, click on the Browse button to enter the name of your new Theme and to select the location for it. You should select an empty directory for this step. When you have chosen a location and entered a filename, click the Save button. Desktop Themes will then create the Theme file for your Theme, and will automatically copy all of your select Theme components to your chosen directory. When the copy process is complete, your Theme is finished. To distribute it to others, all you need to do is to Zip the Theme file and directory, and upload it to one of the many Internet theme sites. You must use a Zip program that supports long filenames (like WinZip). Sites The Sites page contains a convenient list of Desktop Theme web sites. To visit one, make sure you are connected to the Internet, then select the appropriate site from the list and click the Connect button. A web browser window should open and automatically go to the chosen site. This Theme Site list is not exhaustive by any standard; it consists of Theme sites that we have found while surfing the web, as well as sites sent to us by the site owners. If you have a Theme Site or know of one that you think should be listed in this section of the Desktop Themes program, please let us know. There is no charge for a Theme Site to be listed here, although we do ask that you mention the Desktop Themes software on your web page. About The About tab displays information about the program and about Left Side Software. The "Left Side Software" button will take you to our company home page (provided you are connected to the Internet). If you have not yet registered your copy of Desktop Themes, there will also be a button that takes you to our online ordering page. Please consider registering; the price is low and your support encourages the further development of this and other software. Command line switches (advanced users only) ------------------------------------------- Desktop Themes supports several command line switches. In practice you will never need to use these, but they are listed here for reference. /s <filename.theme> - Apply the given theme /conv <source.jpg> <dest.bmp> - Convert a JPG to a BMP /stretch <source> <dest.bmp> - Stretch a BMP or JPG to full screen For example, "Desktop Themes.exe" /s "C:\program files\plus!\themes\my_theme.theme" - This would apply the settings in the supplied theme "Desktop Themes.exe" /conv picture1.jpg picture2.jpg - This would convert the supplied JPG picture to a BMP "Desktop Themes.exe" /stretch picture1.jpg picture-stretched.bmp - This would stretch the supplied picture to be full screen Copyrights ---------- Desktop Themes is Copyright 1999 by Jonathan Potter / Left Side Software. Originally based on Desktop Themes in Microsoft Plus! Copyright Microsoft Corp. Desktop Themes uses The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG software (v6a) Many Themes on the Internet contain copyrighted images and sounds; Left Side Software accepts no responsibility for the use of this software in the unauthorised distribution of copyrighted materials. You may freely distribute the Desktop Themes software for non-commercial purposes only, providing the contents of the original zip archive, including these instructions, are provided intact and unmodified. All commercial use including distribution on CD is expressely prohibited without authorisation from Left Side Software. We have reasonably priced licencing available for commercial use, and can even create custom versions for your organisation. These instructions are Copyright 1999 by Jonathan Potter / Left Side Software. All Rights Reserved. Release History --------------- 1.89 Apr 4 2000 - Wouldn't you know it, another problem with changing icons under Windows 2000. Why can't Microsoft just leave things alone? :) 1.88 Mar 20 2000 - Fixes some problems changing icons under Windows 2000 1.87 Nov 28 1999 - Desktop Themes no longer writes the "ThemeColorBPP" and "ThemeImageBPP" lines to theme files that it saves or creates. This should fix the problem experienced by Microsoft Plus! users loading themes created with Desktop Themes (Plus! would incorrectly load the wallpaper as 8 bits instead of full color) - Can now load and save color profiles created with "3D Color Changer 98" by JaSMiN Co. This provides a handy way to store color profiles and import the colors into one theme from another. You can get "3D Color Changer 98" from http://jotenet.cjb.net/ - but note that you don't actually need this program to use this feature of Desktop Themes. To access this feature, select 'Colors' in the list on the 'Edit Theme' page. 1.86 Feb 2 1999 - Added preview of color settings to the Theme page, and to the color section on the Edit Theme page. - You can now click on the Recycle Bin icon on the Theme page preview to toggle between empty and full. - Added the 'Save Preview Image' function to the Theme page, lets you save the theme preview as a bitmap file for web page thumbnails, etc. - Fixed a couple of bugs in the theme installation and distribution routines. - Theme Site list updated, now has 124 web sites listed!