Apply skins to Vista sidebar and use new gadgets
The Vista sidebar was one of the most popular new features included in Microsoft’s operating system, and it still remains as a very attractive way to display information bits in the shape of customizable gadgets. Now, with Windows Sidebar Styler, you can customize it even more and take advantage of all its possibilities.
This neat tool includes several skins (called “styles”) to change the sidebar’s appearance, as long as the ability to freely resize it. It will also allow you to run more gadgets because it supports WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation).
Windows Sidebar Styler is easy to install, but I had some problems while testing it. The styles didn’t seem to work, the program displayed a “installation successful” message but nothing changed. After reading the develeoper’s blog, I found out that you may have to change permissions in the folder AppData\Windows Sidebar Styler directory and make it writable, or just restart your sidebar completely.
Customize your Vista sidebar with styles and more powerful gadgets.
Windows Sidebar Styler takes advantage of the new technologies introduced in Windows Vista™ in order to provide extensions to the existing functionality of Windows® Sidebar.
Custom styles allow for resizing and customizing the appearance of Windows Sidebar so that it fits other UI elements, such as the Aero Glass colorization or an actual third party theme. Designers could save their visual styles so that other Windows users could apply them. Designers would not necessarily create these files on Windows Vista – Windows Sidebar Styler is backward-compatible with legacy operating systems as well.
Gadgets are mini applications managed by Windows Sidebar. They can now take full advantage of Windows Presentation Foundation – the powerful managed code-oriented framework for presenting rich visual compositions such as vector graphics, 3D drawing, animations and more. In addition to that, it could be used in conjunction with Windows Communication Foundation in order for the Gadgets to connect to services and provide frequently updated information.
