Often it’s newer Linux users missing the familiarity of Windows that skin their OS to mimic that of another but here the tables are turned; fed up of booting into Windows and everything looking so different from the comfort of Ubuntu?
Meet Light themes for Windows.
The awesome hands behind the skin are those of~Freddi67. Speaking to OMG! Ubuntu! about the reasoning behind the theme he said: –
“I think with Maverick’s new polished style, it’s good to have also a windows version of it. Be it for promotion, for Ubuntu-Transformation-Packs or Wine and VirtualBox.
Wine already supports visual styles on some controls (although this slightly influences performance). Maybe for the moment, the aesthetic aspects or secondary when we use Wine, but for attracting the new users in future we will need to offer an impeccable desktop appearance.”
Download
Help wanted
As good as the port looks so far the author still has a few issues outstanding, noting on his deviantart page:
“This is a work in progress and there are still some bugs. If you have more knowledge of Windows Visual Styles, it would be great if you could help me”
- I couldn’t get the progress bar to work
- In general windows uses smaller sizes of fonts and controls
- Some font colors still do not match
- Problems with the dark menu background (some apps override it and display both text and background white)
- An icon theme would be awesome, as well as Radiance and Ambiance Dark color scheme
- Although Wine supports partly Visual Styles on some controls, the transparencies do not work properly in this theme (magenta backgrounds)
Anyone with knowledge on working with Windows themes would certainly be welcome to join Freddi.
He has provided the source files here but notes that ‘for editing, one needs StyleBuilder, for using the style one needs a UXtheme Patch‘.