uxtheme.dll

[Kevin]

I started work porting a windows app using winelib, and hit an issue relating 
to the fact that there is currently no implementation of uxtheme.dll (and 
more importantly, no headers, of which would be enough to compile the app as 
it dynamically loads all the uxtheme dlls as needed, and falls back 
gracefully)

Because of this, I've been thinking about beginning an implementation of 
uxtheme.dll. I am curious if someone has already taken up this task, or if 
anyone any opinions on this topic.

Thanks
Kevin

[Dimitrie O. Paun]

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Kevin wrote:
> Because of this, I've been thinking about beginning an implementation of 
> uxtheme.dll. I am curious if someone has already taken up this task, or if 
> anyone any opinions on this topic.

I'm not aware of anyone working on this. This would be a nice contribution
to Wine.

[Sylvain Petreolle]

This isnt a windows system dll. Isnt that another attempt like
cards.dll ?

--- "Dimitrie O. Paun"  a écrit :
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Kevin wrote:
> > Because of this, I've been thinking about beginning an
>
> implementation of
> > uxtheme.dll. I am curious if someone has already taken up this
>
> task, or if
> > anyone any opinions on this topic.
>
> I'm not aware of anyone working on this. This would be a nice
> contribution
> to Wine.

=====
Sylvain Petreolle (spetreolle_at_users_dot_sourceforge_dot_net)
 ICQ #170597259
Say NO to software patents
Dites NON aux brevets logiciels

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[Mike Hearn]

On Tue, 2003-09-30 at 04:43, Sylvain Petreolle wrote:
> This isnt a windows system dll. Isnt that another attempt like
> cards.dll ?

Sure it is. Apps attempt to LoadLibrary it if they detect it to enhance
their drawing capabilities. It's conceivable that one day apps will not
have this backwards compat code and simply require Windows XP or above,
so it needs to get done.

It's also the Right Way to make Wine not look like ass on our pretty
desktops, because the win32 apps will be theme aware.

[Roderick Colenbrander]

I hope you know what you will begin with. (For the ones that don't know
uxtheme.dll is the dll that takes care of all theming on WinXP and it is the dll
that dlls like comctl32 and all others use for theming)

Some time ago I checked out uxtheme.dll a bit and it seems that it needs
changes all over Wine. As I understand it WinXP ships with two sets of
comctl32.dll and friends. One is the "old" version and one is a new uxtheme aware
version. The uxtheme aware version contains lots of changes and uses uxtheme for
theming. To use uxtheme you need to add uxtheme support to the dlls that need
it which looks like a huge job. Perhaps this is something post Wine-1.0?

Roderick Colenbrander
> I started work porting a windows app using winelib, and hit an issue
> relating 
> to the fact that there is currently no implementation of uxtheme.dll (and 
> more importantly, no headers, of which would be enough to compile the app
> as 
> it dynamically loads all the uxtheme dlls as needed, and falls back 
> gracefully)
>
> Because of this, I've been thinking about beginning an implementation of 
> uxtheme.dll. I am curious if someone has already taken up this task, or if
>
> anyone any opinions on this topic.
>
> Thanks
> Kevin

[Shachar Shemesh]

Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> I hope you know what you will begin with. (For the ones that don't know
> uxtheme.dll is the dll that takes care of all theming on WinXP and it is the dll
> that dlls like comctl32 and all others use for theming)
>
> Some time ago I checked out uxtheme.dll a bit and it seems that it needs
> changes all over Wine. As I understand it WinXP ships with two sets of
> comctl32.dll and friends. One is the "old" version and one is a new uxtheme aware
> version. The uxtheme aware version contains lots of changes and uses uxtheme for
> theming. To use uxtheme you need to add uxtheme support to the dlls that need
> it which looks like a huge job.

It does.
> Perhaps this is something post Wine-1.0?

Why? This seems liks something that can be done incrementally. Kevin is 
interested in doing it. Is there any reason to wait? Kevin should be 
aware of what he's getting himself into, of course, but otherwise it's 
his call. That's what free software development is all about.
> Roderick Colenbrander

Shachar

[Mike Jackson]

I would be glad to be of any assistance I can be in this matter. I think
wine is a great project, and I have been looking for the right project to
immerse my self in. I think I've just found it :-)

Mike Jackson

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On
Behalf Of Shachar Shemesh
Sent: Tuesday, 30 September 2003 6:26 PM
To: Roderick Colenbrander
Cc: Kevin; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: uxtheme.dll

Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> I hope you know what you will begin with. (For the ones that don't know 
> uxtheme.dll is the dll that takes care of all theming on WinXP and it 
> is the dll that dlls like comctl32 and all others use for theming)
>
> Some time ago I checked out uxtheme.dll a bit and it seems that it 
> needs changes all over Wine. As I understand it WinXP ships with two 
> sets of comctl32.dll and friends. One is the "old" version and one is a 
> new uxtheme aware version. The uxtheme aware version contains lots of 
> changes and uses uxtheme for theming. To use uxtheme you need to add 
> uxtheme support to the dlls that need it which looks like a huge job.

It does.
> Perhaps this is something post Wine-1.0?

Why? This seems liks something that can be done incrementally. Kevin is
interested in doing it. Is there any reason to wait? Kevin should be aware
of what he's getting himself into, of course, but otherwise it's his call.
That's what free software development is all about.
> Roderick Colenbrander

Shachar

--
Shachar Shemesh
Open Source integration consultant
Home page & resume - http://www.shemesh.biz/

[Roderick Colenbrander]

Ofcourse I want uxtheme.dll implemented since it is a very cool new dll but I 
think a problem will be that it needs changes in various parts of Wine. 
Mainly in the user and common control area. Microsoft releases two sets of 
comctl32 dlls. One of them is meant for backwards compatibility. Because of 
this I think Wine will need two dlls and it might be needed to maintain two 
dlls. :(

Because of all this I said that it might be something for after Wine 1.0. This 
dll could later be reused for theming Wine and that atleast was something we 
planned to do behind 1.0, right?

Roderick

On Tuesday 30 September 2003 10:25, Shachar Shemesh wrote:
> Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> > I hope you know what you will begin with. (For the ones that don't know
> > uxtheme.dll is the dll that takes care of all theming on WinXP and it is
> > the dll that dlls like comctl32 and all others use for theming)
> >
> > Some time ago I checked out uxtheme.dll a bit and it seems that it needs
> > changes all over Wine. As I understand it WinXP ships with two sets of
> > comctl32.dll and friends. One is the "old" version and one is a new
> > uxtheme aware version. The uxtheme aware version contains lots of changes
> > and uses uxtheme for theming. To use uxtheme you need to add uxtheme
> > support to the dlls that need it which looks like a huge job.
>
> It does.
> > Perhaps this is something post Wine-1.0?
>
> Why? This seems liks something that can be done incrementally. Kevin is
> interested in doing it. Is there any reason to wait? Kevin should be
> aware of what he's getting himself into, of course, but otherwise it's
> his call. That's what free software development is all about.
> > Roderick Colenbrander
>       Shachar

[Dimitrie O. Paun]

On September 30, 2003 10:57 am, Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> Microsoft releases two sets of
> comctl32 dlls. One of them is meant for backwards compatibility.

Do you have any idea why would that be needed?

[Roderick Colenbrander]

The "old" dll that MS ships with WindowsXP is comctl32.dll version 5.x which 
is the same as on other Windows versions.

Version 6 is the new version. One of the biggest changes is that this updated 
dll handles both the user and common controls. Further all controls now 
include some area in which can be drawn for theming.

For more info check out: 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwxp/html/...

Roderick Colenbrander

On Tuesday 30 September 2003 17:06, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
> On September 30, 2003 10:57 am, Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> > Microsoft releases two sets of
> > comctl32 dlls. One of them is meant for backwards compatibility.
>
> Do you have any idea why would that be needed?

[Jimmy O'Regan]

Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> The "old" dll that MS ships with WindowsXP is comctl32.dll version 5.x which 
> is the same as on other Windows versions.
>
> Version 6 is the new version. One of the biggest changes is that this updated 
> dll handles both the user and common controls. Further all controls now 
> include some area in which can be drawn for theming.
>
> For more info check out: 
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwxp/html/...
>
> Roderick Colenbrander

Another difference is that the new version comes as an assembly; 
multiple versions of the dll can live side by side.

[Kevin Koltzau]

The different versions of comctl32 are part of Microsoft's "assembly" system 
which is primarilly an attempt to battle "DLL hell" as well as part of 
their .NET strategy, which (correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think afflicts 
this part of WINE very much.

Altho one thing to consider in this area is Manifests, which at a minimal case 
could be used to simply enable/disable theme support for a particular 
application, or could be ignored completely for themes (similar to how 
applications like Stardock's WindowBlinds skins every app, regardless of a 
Manifest requesting the new comctl32).

On Tuesday 30 September 2003 10:57 am, Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> Ofcourse I want uxtheme.dll implemented since it is a very cool new dll but
> I think a problem will be that it needs changes in various parts of Wine.
> Mainly in the user and common control area. Microsoft releases two sets of
> comctl32 dlls. One of them is meant for backwards compatibility. Because of
> this I think Wine will need two dlls and it might be needed to maintain two
> dlls. :(
>
> Because of all this I said that it might be something for after Wine 1.0.
> This dll could later be reused for theming Wine and that atleast was
> something we planned to do behind 1.0, right?
>
> Roderick

[Kevin Koltzau]

I'm aware of the scope of the project. The general design of uxtheme lends 
itself well to being done incrementally, eg. controls could be modified as 
support for the particular control is implemented, etc.
Also part of the API are a few functions (IsThemeActive & IsAppThemed) which 
will allow themes to be disabled in the beginning for theme aware 
applications until sufficient support has been built or if themes are 
disabled via config/registry.

First order of business tho is the headers

On Tuesday 30 September 2003 02:21 am, Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> I hope you know what you will begin with. (For the ones that don't know
> uxtheme.dll is the dll that takes care of all theming on WinXP and it is
> the dll that dlls like comctl32 and all others use for theming)
>
> Some time ago I checked out uxtheme.dll a bit and it seems that it needs
> changes all over Wine. As I understand it WinXP ships with two sets of
> comctl32.dll and friends. One is the "old" version and one is a new uxtheme
> aware version. The uxtheme aware version contains lots of changes and uses
> uxtheme for theming. To use uxtheme you need to add uxtheme support to the
> dlls that need it which looks like a huge job. Perhaps this is something
> post Wine-1.0?
>
> Roderick Colenbrander

[James Gregory]

On Wed, 2003-10-01 at 12:21, Kevin Koltzau wrote:
> I'm aware of the scope of the project. The general design of uxtheme lends 
> itself well to being done incrementally, eg. controls could be modified as 
> support for the particular control is implemented, etc.
> Also part of the API are a few functions (IsThemeActive & IsAppThemed) which 
> will allow themes to be disabled in the beginning for theme aware 
> applications until sufficient support has been built or if themes are 
> disabled via config/registry.

Some time ago I started hacking in support for GTK themes. When I first
suggested this project to the list there was suggestions that doing it
with uxtheme.dll was the way to go. I agreed, but didn't have winxp to
play with, so I kept tinkering on this project with the intent of
learning a bit more about how wine works (which meant learning a lot
about how GDI and X works, though I didn't realise that I'd need to know
that stuff when I started on the project). I actually managed to get
some results which were starting to look promising (though there's no
way I'd submit that code as a patch). Screenshots here (the checkbox
being the only important part):

http://james.id.au/wine/wine-ss1.png
        http://james.id.au/wine/wine-ss2.png
        http://james.id.au/wine/wine-ss3.png

Anyway, the reason I'm posting is not to suggest that this code be used
(nor the approach I took), but to mention that if theming code is to be
written that I think it's really important to have a way to pass off
rendering of controls etc to a .so that can be dlopened and called with
dlsym. IIRC the existing system uses a function lookup table, so there
shouldn't be much that needs to change for this to occur -- only the
initialisation of this function table and probably some hooks so that
these .sos can detect whether or not they'll work with the current
configuration (as an example the way I was doing gtk theming won't work
with anything that isn't x11drv. I don't like breaking encapsulation
like this, but it sounds like it's practical in this case). I don't know
if I can be of any help, but I'm interested in trying -- please keep me
posted.

James.
> On Tuesday 30 September 2003 02:21 am, Roderick Colenbrander wrote:
> > I hope you know what you will begin with. (For the ones that don't know
> > uxtheme.dll is the dll that takes care of all theming on WinXP and it is
> > the dll that dlls like comctl32 and all others use for theming)
> >
> > Some time ago I checked out uxtheme.dll a bit and it seems that it needs
> > changes all over Wine. As I understand it WinXP ships with two sets of
> > comctl32.dll and friends. One is the "old" version and one is a new uxtheme
> > aware version. The uxtheme aware version contains lots of changes and uses
> > uxtheme for theming. To use uxtheme you need to add uxtheme support to the
> > dlls that need it which looks like a huge job. Perhaps this is something
> > post Wine-1.0?
> >
> > Roderick Colenbrander

[Steven Edwards]

This is very kickass dude. I think this is the right method of
supporting themes for WINE. KDE can already do GTK themes with a little
bit of tweaking so it will support both Linux Desktops and GTK themes
are now supported under Windows with GTK-Win32 so maybe we can even use
this in ReactOS when its ready.

Thanks
Steven

--- James Gregory  wrote:
> Some time ago I started hacking in support for GTK themes. When I
> first
> suggested this project to the list there was suggestions that doing
> it
> with uxtheme.dll was the way to go. I agreed, but didn't have winxp
> to
> play with, so I kept tinkering on this project with the intent of
> learning a bit more about how wine works (which meant learning a lot
> about how GDI and X works, though I didn't realise that I'd need to
> know
> that stuff when I started on the project). I actually managed to get
> some results which were starting to look promising (though there's no
> way I'd submit that code as a patch). Screenshots here (the checkbox
> being the only important part):
>     http://james.id.au/wine/wine-ss1.png
>     http://james.id.au/wine/wine-ss2.png
>     http://james.id.au/wine/wine-ss3.png
>
> Anyway, the reason I'm posting is not to suggest that this code be
> used
> (nor the approach I took), but to mention that if theming code is to
> be
> written that I think it's really important to have a way to pass off
> rendering of controls etc to a .so that can be dlopened and called
> with
> dlsym. IIRC the existing system uses a function lookup table, so
> there
> shouldn't be much that needs to change for this to occur -- only the
> initialisation of this function table and probably some hooks so that
> these .sos can detect whether or not they'll work with the current
> configuration (as an example the way I was doing gtk theming won't
> work
> with anything that isn't x11drv. I don't like breaking encapsulation
> like this, but it sounds like it's practical in this case). I don't
> know
> if I can be of any help, but I'm interested in trying -- please keep
> me
> posted.
>
> James.

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[Gregory M. Turner]

On Wednesday 01 October 2003 09:59 am, Steven Edwards wrote:
> This is very kickass dude.

I concur.  I've been fantasizing about looking into this stuff myself, 
although so far I've always decided I had more pressing matters to look into.  
But some of this stuff is just so cool... and frankly, wine has a case of the 
uglies that could use fixing.  A little razzle and dazzle can go a long way 
towards raising the profile of a project.

Anyone who's ever subscribed to the goodies-pipeline from StarDock knows -- 
this stuff has the potential to be very, very pretty.  In fact, in my 
opinion, it made my Windows even prettier than my Linux (although the 
performance can be pretty awful).  And KDE/gnome themes obviously could do 
something that was never really possible for wine before.

So... good luck, I am sure this will be quite difficult, but it's a great 
idea, in my opinion.

[Kevin Koltzau]

I'm currently working on implementing support for .msstyles themes (of which 
are used by XP) primarily because the format follows the API pretty closely 
and will be easier to test my implementation against an XP box.

One nice thing about .msstyles themes is they are basically just a 
resource-only DLL, which could of course include exported functions.

Going along that path, one possible way to integrate theme support from your 
native window manager is to extend the .msstyles theme format to enable using 
exported functions for drawing some controls, which could then make direct 
GTK/etc calls.

Another possible method would be to create a conversion tool to create 
an .msstyles theme from a GTK theme, or to simply create a totally new method 
of defining themes for WINE.

On Wednesday 01 October 2003 02:48 am, James Gregory wrote:
> Some time ago I started hacking in support for GTK themes. When I first
> suggested this project to the list there was suggestions that doing it
> with uxtheme.dll was the way to go. I agreed, but didn't have winxp to
> play with, so I kept tinkering on this project with the intent of
> learning a bit more about how wine works (which meant learning a lot
> about how GDI and X works, though I didn't realise that I'd need to know
> that stuff when I started on the project). I actually managed to get
> some results which were starting to look promising (though there's no
> way I'd submit that code as a patch). Screenshots here (the checkbox
> being the only important part):
>     http://james.id.au/wine/wine-ss1.png
>     http://james.id.au/wine/wine-ss2.png
>     http://james.id.au/wine/wine-ss3.png
>
> Anyway, the reason I'm posting is not to suggest that this code be used
> (nor the approach I took), but to mention that if theming code is to be
> written that I think it's really important to have a way to pass off
> rendering of controls etc to a .so that can be dlopened and called with
> dlsym. IIRC the existing system uses a function lookup table, so there
> shouldn't be much that needs to change for this to occur -- only the
> initialisation of this function table and probably some hooks so that
> these .sos can detect whether or not they'll work with the current
> configuration (as an example the way I was doing gtk theming won't work
> with anything that isn't x11drv. I don't like breaking encapsulation
> like this, but it sounds like it's practical in this case). I don't know
> if I can be of any help, but I'm interested in trying -- please keep me
> posted.
>
> James.