Vista without the "I am a Mac" pastel look ?

Hi,

So far I like most aspect of Vista, including the aero glass stuff.

However, I found it drains my eyes for pro long usage, comparing with my XP setup.

After tweaking for multiple rounds(like increasing dpi thus font size), I find the pastel color used for the font and background is the cause.

By switching to "Vista Standard"(which looks almost the same as XP font wise), I finally can use it for hours again. However, all those dialogs now looks extremely "rough"(buttons, tabs in IE), much worse than XP. Giving me the impression that MS hasn't tested it thoroughly.

Does anyone know if there is a theme which resemble XP(in the fonts and contrast department) yet use the Vista dialog layouts etc.

Or in other way, is there a way to change the Vista Aero theme to have a better contrast font color and also disable cleartype ? I tried disable cleartype but it seems to be ignored in many standard apps.

cleartype is everything but clear to me and is the main source of the stress to my eye.

sorry for the long post.

 

i don't fully understand what it is you want to do....
So i'm not sure if this is what you want, but you can change the window coloring.
Right-click your desktop and click personalize. Then click window color and appearance. You can pick on of the default colors or use the color chooser to mix your own. You can also adjust the level of transparency. I think it looks great with black windowing and about 50% transparency.

 

It is not the window colors but the font color.

When browsing the same web page, the Vista theme use a much pastel(some said eye pleasing, I said fuzzy) color for many of the Hx fonts. This may be good for occasional viewing or may be for designers but my own eyes obviously feel much better with the "no clear type, high contrast NT/XP" scheme for prolong usage.

 

its called cleartype.

perfect for lcd screens (pdas, laptops etc).

personalize-> window color-> open classic-> effects-> disable cleartype

 

Thanks but as I said, it is a very subjective thing, many said it is perfect for LCD but my eye feel so tired after a few hours of it. Switching back to the old "ugly" one and my eyes feel much better.

The problem of the Aero/Basic theme is that even I disable cleartype, it forces it in many apps(start menu, control panel and you name it), simply ignore my settings.

Using the Windows Standard color scheme/theme, I can finally tell it to really enable/disable it and the font color choosen(especially in IE) no longer has those pastel feel. But the icon in this scheme is uglier than XP, more like the NT era.

 

You have to enable cleartype. It is meant for LCD screen. You just have to tune it up so it can match with your eyes.

1. Switch on Aero. Turn on cleartype.
2. Go to microsoft typography website
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearType/tuner/tune.aspx
3. Fine tune your screen.

First time i enabled my cleartype everything look mushy, shadowing and definitely make my eyes tired. After i tuning up the cleartype everything looks vibrant and crisp- and the eye strain looks is gone. Aero looks great.

 

ClearType rules!
Ever since I found out about it for XP, I've loved it ever since.
Makes everything just stand out so much more smoother and bolder.

 

Thanks, after tuning it looks better but still not as friendly to my eye as the ugly non-cleartype look.

My main issue with cleartype(and Vista scheme) is its pastel look. For pages with standard "black on white"(such as the tuning page), cleartype looks ok to me. But for fonts other than that, such as the following :

http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx

The title font use a more lighter/pastel color(thus lower contrast which is closely related to resolution/sharpness). That is the source(to my eye anyway) of the strain. Cleartype in Vista also behave like that, the title fonts in windows, the font in the URL bar of IE or the fonts used in taskbar all looks musky. All of them share a common thing, they are not "black on white".

I believe I am the few rare species who just don't find cleartype appealing at all. Well, I would say on first look, they are very pleasing and I thought they are better. But after long hours looking at them, I like the ugly but crisp no-cleartype fonts. Especially at their designed dpi which gives me an added benefit of more screen real estate(where I need to change the higher dpi when using cleartype, to make the font bigger).

 

Geez, i am sorry the tuning wont help you that much. My experience show me otherwise. Did you try different option in the page? What is your laptop's screen resolution anyway?

Cleartype in my screen looks as sharp as the regular mode, only it looks better - fully and not jagged.

 

It is a 15.4" samsung @ 1280x800.

I have tried all 6 style given on that page. My conclusion is that for a pure "black on white"(or reverse) page with enough spacing, it is ok but still depends on what fonts is choosen(not something I can control).

When the page has all sorts of fonts and color, the text begins to look blurry.

But then my eye never like cleartype or similar technology, be it on Mac or XP or linux. Among the three, this pixel shifting thing only works better on linux, mainly because of its font is much worse than Windows so without "cleartype" alike, they are just too ugly. On Windows, I find the match stick style 'jagged' fonts very crisp, though can be ugly especially italic or bold ones.

Mac is the best but I would still prefer the Windows non-cleartype look for long hours of starring at them.

Thanks again for the tips anyway. May be when I get an even larger LCD with higher resolution, it may one day please my eye.

 

I see the problem already. Personally i will not choose WXGA for 15,4" screen. It is too smearing and from close distance you can differentiate the pixel. I will go at least 1680X1050 for that horizontal size.

Based on that screen resolution and screen size i dont think cleartype will do much improvement because of the hardware limitation.

This is what i feel a bit weird. You should not have blurry text if you already tune it up. Probably something to do with the character of your samsung.

I think you should choose higher resolution. For 15,4" dont go lower than wsxga+ (1680X1050) or wuxga (1920X1200). WXGA is worth only in XP IMO because XP have worse dpi scalling than Vista. Above all, i think it is the matter of personal preferences though.

 

That's a bit high for a 15in isn't it? I'm still not sure about 1024x1280 on my 17in. I have an old LCD (15in) and 1024X768 looks perfect on there

 

Yes it is actually quite high, but it is a matter of presonal preferences. Some brand also handle low res in high size screen better than the other.

 

The clip on this page :

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=129196

is the kind of "fuzziness" I am referring to. I cannot look at things like that for long hours. My tuned one is actually looks better than it(at least to my eye), but still not as nice to my eye as the match stick fonts.