Desktop Icons, Changing Color of Text and Background

Hi,

Does anyone know how to change the color of the Desktop icons text, which
includes the background color of the text?

Thank You in Advance, John

PS, Remove "ine" from my email address

wrote in
news
Does anyone know how to change the color of the Desktop icons text,
which includes the background color of the text?


Google for www.pobox.com/~jayguerette/transparent.
The original link is dead so you'll have to hunt for a copy.

wrote:

Does anyone know how to change the color of the Desktop icons
text, which includes the background color of the text?

See this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140752

Although for some strange reason, the font color is not adjustable when
I try to change the Display-Properties, Appearance settings for the
"Icon" item. I can change the font and font size.

The above microsoft kb article says this about "font color":

===============
NOTE: If you click Window in the Item box, and then modify the font
color for that item, the automatic font color that is available in many
programs is also modified.
===============

I think that's referring to the color of text that's displayed within a
window.

To change the background color behind the text that's printed under the
desktop icons, right-click somewhere on the desktop, select properties,
select the Appearance tab, and in the "Item" dropdown list, select
"Desktop". The "Color" selector should be active, and that's where you
change the text background color.

This is really the desktop color that you're changing.

You should be able to change the icon text color by selecting "Icon" in
the item drop-down list, but for me the Color control selector is greyed
out (but I can change the font and font-size).

You might want to look at this:

http://12ghosts-setcolor.download-41...gramsbase.com/

===========
Great tool to set the icon colors suitable to your wallpaper image.
Change the desktop icon's text color and the desktop icon text's
background color, even to transparent! Now with Windows XP shadow
support. A handy tool, with a functionality not possible before in
Windows
===========

But it appears to be $30.

Thank You in Advance, John

PS, Remove "ine" from my email address

When you give information about your e-mail address, I'm not sure if you
mean to say that you are expecting a reply via e-mail and that you will
NOT be watching the usenet thread you started for responses.

In general, I don't think that people will want to sent you a response
via e-mail, and they may not post a reply here if they think you're
expecting an e-mail reply.

I think it's best to just NOT give any information about your e-mail
address or hint in any way that you can (or that you want to) receive
responses via e-mail.

Lostgallifreyan wrote:

Google for www.pobox.com/~jayguerette/transparent.
The original link is dead so you'll have to hunt for a copy.

Archive.org has many archives of that page, but they're all essentially
of the same copy or image, which seems to date to late 1998.

About the only thing he has that can be downloaded is version 4.2 or
"Transparent42.zip" which "will turn your Windows 9x or NT desktop icon
text backgrounds transparent; allowing your wallpaper to show through".

You can download that he

http://web.archive.org/web/200210171...nsparent42.zip

What he says about icon text and background color is this:

=================
What's Next?

Version 5: (??-??-99) Will allow you to interactively set the icon text
color to any color you want! I will probably include the ability to turn
off the shortcut icon arrow overlay. I'm also working on some sort of
installer. Check back for this version!
=================

There does not seem to be a version 5. He mentions that his life got
hectic and complicated and he intended to come back and do this, but I
can't find any evidence this was actually done.

=================
Where the heck is it?

Late last year, my life took a turn for the hectic. The birth of our
second child, Aiden, and a change in jobs, left me with precious few
free moments in the last 6 months.

I am still committed to releasing at least this one last version. It
simply requires more attention than I am able to give it just yet.

This summer, we will be moving in an attempt to pare the 3 hours a day I
spend commuting down to something more reasonable. At the same time, I
will be attempting to get better control over the number of hours I work
during the week. These two efforts will yield a dramatic increase in the
free time I have.

I am hoping to get this thing released this summer. No promises, but I
will try. To everybody anxious to see a new version or take advantage of
new features, please accept my apologies. I am as anxious to put it out
as you are to get it.
=====================

I think when he says "late last year", he means late 1998.

wrote:

Does anyone know how to change the color of the Desktop icons
text, which includes the background color of the text?

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000841.htm

======================
Question: How can I change the text color of my icons in Windows?

Answer:

All versions of Microsoft Windows do not support the ability to change
the color of the icons text on the desktop without the aid of a
third-party program. Therefore in order to change the icon text color
you will need to download and install one of the below programs.

Note: Before downloading any of the below programs it is important to
know that Microsoft Windows refreshes the contents of the desktop often
and will reset the icon text color back to the Windows default unless
the program you used to change the text color is left open in memory.

There are dozens of different programs with the capability to do this.
Below is a short list of a few of the different programs we've tried.

* Iconoid - Great free and open source program with the ability to
easily change the icon text color as well as numerous other features
such as hiding the icons, setting and restoring icon positions, and much
more.

http://www.sillysot.com/


* Microangelo - Another great program that is free to try but requires a
registration if you like. This program has the ability to change the
icons text color and much more.

(no link given for Microangelo)
===========================

This is just a description of Microangelo:
http://www.rainbowpcm.com/microangelo_5.html

This seems to be the main web-page for it:
http://www.impactsoft.com/

But you need to register and it may very well not be free.

Here's a link to Microangelo 5.5:
http://downloads.5star-network.com/Desktop/mua55.exe

It seems to date to mid to late 2004.

98 Guy wrote in :

About the only thing he has that can be downloaded is version 4.2 or
"Transparent42.zip" which "will turn your Windows 9x or NT desktop icon
text backgrounds transparent; allowing your wallpaper to show through".

You can download that he

http://web.archive.org/web/200210171....com/~jguerett
e/transparent/Transparent42.zip


That's the one. Good. It wasn't updated for years, but no need. It's one of
those that just works. Even on WXP apparently. I only use W98 but that
program is a core part here, it never fails, though you'd need to stop it and
restart it after a shell crash, as you would with SysTray or anything else
that depends on the shell.

To run it I used a shortcut in the StartUp directory:
C:\WINDOWS\IconText.exe /R1000 /N /CFF8000
(I renamed it IconText so I could know more obviously what it was for).
It refreshes once a second (not that I ever see anything change the colour
and cause this to force it back. It stays resident (only me on this system so
this switch is also redundant here). The last one is the colour, as 8 bit
BBGGRR hex values. Once I set it I never had to think about it again, but I
saved its text file beside it so I can see how it works when I forget.

This really is one of those tools where hunting for an update isn't needed.
Probably why he never wrote one...

98 Guy wrote in :

To change the background color behind the text that's printed under the
desktop icons, right-click somewhere on the desktop, select properties,
select the Appearance tab, and in the "Item" dropdown list, select
"Desktop". The "Color" selector should be active, and that's where you
change the text background color.

This is really the desktop color that you're changing.


In many cases a system colour can be forced, but even then I doubt a
transparency can be forced that way, only a match with the desktop (which is
what Windows defaults to anyway, in its native scheme). This can be shown by
placing two icons so the text field of one overlaps the other. The desktop
colour appears to extend as a box part-covering the other icon, but true
transparency is a lot better. Less clearly read, but way more fun on desktop
backgound patterns and images.

I think the Transparent tool (or equivalent) had to be invented, there's no
native Windows control over the specifics of what that thing does.

Lostgallifreyan wrote:

About the only thing he has that can be downloaded is version 4.2
of "Transparent42.zip" which "will turn your Windows 9x or NT
desktop icon text backgrounds transparent; allowing your wallpaper
to show through".

That's the one. Good. It wasn't updated for years, but no need.

Actually - yes, there is need.

The OP was looking for a way to change to font color of the desktop
icons, not necessarily make the text background transparent.

The update to "transparent42" was promising to add that feature.

It's strange that Micro$oft clearly has a font-color control on the
user-interface for icon text, but has it greyed out for some reason.

98 Guy wrote in :

Lostgallifreyan wrote:

About the only thing he has that can be downloaded is version 4.2
of "Transparent42.zip" which "will turn your Windows 9x or NT
desktop icon text backgrounds transparent; allowing your wallpaper
to show through".

That's the one. Good. It wasn't updated for years, but no need.

Actually - yes, there is need.

The OP was looking for a way to change to font color of the desktop
icons, not necessarily make the text background transparent.


It does both. I even posted how..

The update to "transparent42" was promising to add that feature.

It's strange that Micro$oft clearly has a font-color control on the
user-interface for icon text, but has it greyed out for some reason.


Not really. There's a whole list of stuff there, the appropriate controls
for each entry become enabled as required when it is selected. If they'd had
native controls built to handle icon text colours and backgrounds, enabling
those GUI controls would have been done. As it is they'd be as useful as
dummy knobs on a dashboard so they greyed them to avoid setting false hopes
as much as anything else.

Actually a lot extra can be done by directly editing the registry to control
colours and fonts, but not for the desktop icon text.

Lostgallifreyan wrote:

The OP was looking for a way to change to font color of the
desktop icons, not necessarily make the text background
transparent.

It does both. I even posted how..

The author does not (or did not) indicate that his "transparent42"
enabled the user to set the text color.

In fact, he even acknowledged that it did NOT have that ability, because
he hints of that functionality in a future release:

----------------
What's Next?

Version 5: (??-??-99) Will allow you to interactively set the icon text
color to any color you want!
----------------

I can find no evidence that version "5" was actually developed or
released.

Why do you think that version 4.2 has the ability to let the user set
the text color?

It's strange that Micro$oft clearly has a font-color control
on the user-interface for icon text, but has it greyed out for
some reason.

Not really. There's a whole list of stuff there, the appropriate
controls for each entry become enabled as required when it is
selected. If they'd had native controls built to handle icon text
colours and backgrounds, enabling those GUI controls would have been
done. As it is they'd be as useful as dummy knobs on a dashboard so
they greyed them to avoid setting false hopes as much as anything
else.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say in that paragraph.

I pointed out that there is a font-color control on the user-interface
for the icon-text object, but that the control is in-operative (ie -
it's greyed out). Why would Microsoft not want the user to set the
desktop icon's text-color? I'm not sure if you're trying to answer that
question in your paragraph above.