Chapter 11: Setting Up Your Desktop

Changing Windows, Buttons, and Fonts

The Windows XP desktop theme doesn't allow many color changes--you have three color scheme choices, and you can set the background color of the desktop. However, with the Windows Classic desktop theme, you can configure the color, size, and font of almost anything--title bars, active windows, inactive windows, message boxes, and more. These choices are made all at once (along with changes in screen savers, background images, and many other items) when you choose a desktop theme. But you may want to change the windows, buttons, or fonts while leaving the rest of your desktop alone. Or you may want to change just one or two things, like the color of title bars or the font size of tool tips.

The place to make changes to the windows, buttons, and fonts in Windows is the Appearance tab of the Display Properties dialog box (shown earlier in Figure 11-6). To get to this tab, right-click any open space on the desktop, choose Properties from the shortcut menu, and then click the Appearance tab when the Display Properties dialog box appears.

Choosing Classic Style Windows and Buttons [classwin]]

The windows and buttons of Windows XP have a distinctive rounded look that is different from those in earlier versions of Windows. You can change back to the classic Windows look by displaying the Appearance tab of the Display Properties dialog box shown in Figure 11-6 earlier in this chapter, choosing Windows Classic Style from the Windows And Buttons drop-down list, and clicking OK. To change back to the new style, choose Windows XP Style from the Windows And Buttons drop-down list.

Choosing Windows Classic Style on the Appearance tab appears to us to have exactly the same result as choosing the Windows Classic theme on the Themes tab.

Changing the Appearance of Individual Items

You can edit the appearance of title bars, message boxes, and many other individual items from the Advanced Appearance dialog box, shown in Figure 11-8.

Figure 11-8: The Advanced Appearance dialog box gives you finer control over the look of Windows.

To display the Advanced Appearance dialog box, follow these steps:

1. Right-click any empty space on the desktop and choose Properties from the shortcut menu. The Display Properties dialog box appears.
2. Click the Appearance tab of the Display Properties dialog box.
3. Click the Advanced button on the Appearance tab.

To change the appearance of an item, first find it on the Item drop-down list of the Advanced Appearance dialog box. (In Figure 11-8, Active Title Bar is chosen.) After you choose an item, the text boxes and buttons relevant to that item become active.

Not all of the text boxes and buttons of the Advanced Appearances dialog box are relevant to all items. For example, a scrollbar has no text, so the second line of buttons and text boxes becomes inactive when Scrollbar is the selected item.

The first line of text boxes and buttons (Size, Color1, and Color2) refer to the item itself. So, for example, for the Active Title Bar item, the Size text box on this line refers to the height of the title bar. Color1 is the color on the left side of the title bar, and Color2 is the color on the right side. The second line of text boxes and buttons (Font, Size, Color, Bold, and Italic) refers to the text (if any) displayed on the item.

As you enter the new information into the Advanced Appearance dialog box, the items in the dialog box's preview box change accordingly. When you are satisfied with your changes, click OK.

It's possible to make some dreadful choices in the Advanced Appearance dialog box. You can always go back to square one by choosing one of the built-in desktop themes.

Changing Fonts

You can fairly easily make an overall change in the size of the text that appears in menus, title bars, file labels, and other system contexts. With a little more effort, you can change not just the size, but the font as well. You also can make changes to the text used in specific contexts, rather than an overall change.

Changing the Size of Fonts

If the default fonts that Windows uses are not large enough for you, you can easily make them bigger. On the Appearance tab of the Display Properties dialog box (shown in Figure 11-6 earlier in the chapter), choose Large Fonts or Extra Large Fonts from the Font Size drop-down list.

Another way to increase the size of text on your screen (as well as everything else) is to increase the magnification setting, as described in the "Changing Magnification" section later in this chapter.

The Advanced Appearance dialog box, shown earlier in Figure 11-8, gives you much finer control over Windows' fonts. You can change the font as well as the size of text, and you can change some items while leaving others alone. For example, you could choose one font for the text in menus and another for the text in message boxes. To change the font, size, or color of the text that Windows uses for a particular type of item, display the Advanced Appearance dialog box as described in the section "Changing the Appearance of Individual Items" earlier in this chapter.

Smoothing the Edges of Fonts

Fonts have a tendency to look ragged when displayed on a monitor. Windows offers a choice of two methods for combating this tendency: Standard and ClearType. The Standard method is the default. ClearType is a relatively new technique that Microsoft invented for use in e-books. We recommend taking a look at ClearType if you think that the fonts you're seeing look ragged, especially on LCD screens.

To change from one method to the other, follow these steps:

1. Open the Display Properties dialog box by right-clicking any empty space on the desktop and selecting Properties from the shortcut menu.
2. Click the Effects button on the Appearance tab. The Effects dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 11-9.

Figure 11-9: Choosing special desktop effects

3. Make sure that the Use The Following Method To Smooth The Edges Of Screen Fonts check box is checked.
4. Choose Standard or ClearType from the drop-down list, and then click OK in both the Effects dialog box and the Display Properties dialog box.