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Seahorsepip —
Wave
by-nc-nd
Published: 2011-03-07 16:17:38 +0000 UTC; Views: 401862; Favourites: 1784; Downloads: 100061
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Description
❝Wave for Windows 7❞➭ Update:
March 8, 2011:
☑ Fixed zip problem with winrar.
☑ Not detected as virus anymore.
March 22, 2011:
☑ Added Firefox fix, see below description.
May 7, 2011:
☑ Big update with a lot of bug fixes!
➭ Installation:
To install run Setup.exe.
(take a look inside of the Manual folder to install it manually)
➭ How to support me:
★ Donate me
.★ Fav this work.
★ Give a Llama.
➭ Firefox:
★ install the addon/theme below and select the 'Wave' styles:
➭ Other Wave stuff:
★ Wave-CAD by ~Toby847
★ shellbrd by ~dafmat71
➭ Software:
Give gdipp a try to make the font look awesome!
➭ Bugs:
If you see any bug please report it so I can fix it.
➭ Credits:
*bgjerlowdesigns
~DanRabbit
~thepanda-x
~SloAu
~Nitnerolf
~dafmat71
Related content
Comments: 1558
Alrighty, this is my first ever formal critique. I guess I'll just go through all my points in order:
Vision
There is no mention in the artist's comment about why he made Wave or what inspired them, but this is okay. Not every piece of design needs a back story. When I look at Wave, I think about simplicity and soft, natural styling. This theme was never meant to be flashy, it was meant to work. Although just about every aspect is wildly different to the original Windows theme, it all just comes together and works as a single design.
That being said, there are some aspects of the design that I am not so sure about. The most prominent one being the titlebar buttons. When you look at them, they appear indented into the window, much like the text fields but the difference here is, the titlebar buttons are buttons and the text fields are text fields. They are two different elements with different functions, so I have to question the consistency of some of the design decisions. I would have liked to have seen the titlebar buttons sit on the window, like the other buttons in the theme. The indented look of the titlebar buttons I feel takes away some of responsiveness of the theme. By this I mean, the buttons have no distinguishable hover or pressed states, which limits their effectiveness.
Originality
What can I say? There is nothing else out there quite like it. There are very few themes that are so wildly different to the default theme that remain this popular. Wave really does have it's own unique style.
Technique
Just about everything in the design screams quality. It all looks like it has been hand-sculpted for a particular purpose. The amazing range of little bits and pieces that were included in the installation packages makes this one of the more "complete" themes out there. Very little has been left alone. The author obviously supports this theme more than a great deal of other authors out there. He has included fixes for Firefox, an easy to use installation wizard and links to other software and Wave bits and pieces to make the experience more complete.
I did have some quite serious problems when using the manual installation (I understand that no support is given for it). I decided to use just the visual style, thinking that some design features would be missing, but it turns out I had more serious problems than that (some of which appear even with the full automatic installation):
- Start menu has no Aero blur behind it
- Address bar arrows (example > example) appear cut off
- Network task tray popup has white pixels on the rounded edges
- Task band slide dialog (can't remember the exact term) has blurring of the top border
- Newly installed start menu items (that would appear orange in the default theme) have a problem with the border on the left side.
- The top left corner of the start menu appears opaque when the task band is at the bottom
- Lone titlebar close button is not centered and has two glyphs
Most of these are small issues and the ones that only occur with the visual style are a bit trivial, but it would have been nice if the visual style was developed so that it worked well on its own, and the extra goodies were just there to enhance the experience, not fix it up so it functioned properly (not to say that all the extra goodies were required to fix up some of the problems).
Impact
I've already touched on how very different this theme is to the default one, so when you install it, it really does have quite an impact. Sure, as is the nature of visual styles, the way you work on your computer probably won't change much, but the way you feel about your computer, that's another story. The theme really does transform the whole desktop experience, so there is quite a lot of impact when you first install it.
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PROS:
- I love the control given from installation, style, and depth of customization. This is an overlooked but very important aspect of themes. Some users hesitate installing themes because they don't know what is being installed. Well this theme leaves all of that up to you. If you're a novice, need not worry, an "Automatic" installation is available e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s… " width="15" height="15" alt="
- I love the attention to detail; from the color selection, subtle but neatly placed customizations, and depth. The author left no stone unturned. This is the most complete theme i have come across since Windows Vista and that's a lot of themes!
- Another overlooked aspect is ergonomics. Many themes go for flash and bang to show off their skill and what they can do. This theme is not only eye-candy but also usable. From the compact Start Menu to the compact Taskbar, all in an effort to save you desktop space. In addition, Windows' "breadcrumbs" got an overhaul, and what was once a useless feature is now an everyday time-saver. Things have been redesigned to be at the right place, with ease, comfort, and ergonomics in mind. If you're using a Notebook, Netbook, have a small monitor, or looking for more desktop space.. this theme is your answer.
- The color scheme has been chosen wisely to induce calmness, comfort, and put users at ease.
- Performance: light and responsive. Unlike most themes, WAVE Theme does not rely heavily on visual effects which bog down the Operating System. Tech Geeks need not worry e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s… " width="15" height="15" alt="
- Ill-effects: there are none! Which is all too common with themes.
- Quality: take this theme for a spin and one of the first things you'll notice is the quality. From the color scheme to the font to the subtle tweaks, this theme exudes quality and an experienced Themer. In fact, if this theme was being sold, no one would question it.
- Innovative: this theme implements customizations i have never seen before and that' saying a lot! I am a Windows enthusiast and have been for a very long time and have seen my share of themes.
- Don't believe me? take this theme for a spin and let me know where i was wrong. Afraid of permanent changes? then use the "Manual" installation so you know where everything went.
CONS:
- If "Search" is disabled, the right and left side of the Start Menu is off-centered by a little bit. But this is easily fixed by enabling "Search". If you don't use "Search", then just set it to "Manual" in "Services.msc". This is a only minor hiccup considering the quality and depth of this theme.
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What can I say about Wave, it's minimal sleek and clean and on top of it blue (who doesn't love blue) and it's really something that other customizers should look up to, as an inspiration when designing VS. It has originality with all of those icons and wallpapers and also clean installer. It looks really nice on both on big lcd/led monitor and also small laptop and notebook lcd/led monitor. I hope it gets updated every now and then so it's always popular and works even better on Win 7. Wave is really something that everybody will like when trying it out. *SloAu
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What can i say about Wave by =seahorsepip . It's a great theme and flows together very well. I love the look of it, from the thin frames, the excellent start menu to the icons included and the system files (explorerframe etc.). Also, the preview image used in this deviation is very appealing. It looks very clean and shows some of the best parts of this theme.
It is truly a really nice theme, and i think you should all try it out. It's very easy to install as well as it uses Custopack which does all the dirty work for you with the system files and so on.
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For some reason, my AntiVirus said 3 times, that the file contained a Trojan? Maybe it was just a bug but that shocked me a little.
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I'm pretty sure my AntiVirus is messing up because I downloaded it again and it was clean, lol, weird.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Strange :S
Which anti virus are you using?
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Kaspersky.
Checked it afterwards again and everything was fine, odd stuff.
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Alright, my solution to the following bug was to just go back to vanilla winblows... but I really want to use this. I'm not sure exactly what's causing it to happen but the first time I set it back up on a clean installation of Seven, it worked fine. Now it's back to the default nav buttons. Tried resetting the theme back to default, restoring uxtheme and repatching and then reinstalling the theme but that doesn't seem to help. Did the default .dll get replaced or something? I checked out one of those Navigation button changers and it is displaying the proper ones, they just appear as the default ones on an actual explorer window. Cheers!
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I have any annoying problem. Whenever I right click the taskbar and enter properties, the close button at the top right hand corner of the window has two "x" instead of one. Also, the - + and x buttons are really spaced apart now, not like in the preview. It was not like this before.
imageshack.com/i/n1aorsp
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Any chance we can get the bitmaps from the navigation buttons?
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You can get these from the dll files with reshacker(around 4 a 5 bitmaps), don't have these files right now on my pc at the moment.
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great theme, personally I'd have prefered a more stark hover state on the - + x buttons
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i Found a Bug. Ive i used the TOP theme, ive got this: s1.directupload.net/images/140…
May you can fix this?
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I know not planning to make any updates so no fix but you can fix it with a program called hide show desktop button.
Though that also disables the button.
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I really appreciate your work! but there is a bug in the start menu.
There is no visible search bar in start menu when i type something it show me the result but it does not show what i'm typing.
Hope you can fix it!
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That's not a bug I removd it because I thought it was usseless just type and see teh results...
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He already answered that question many times, I think its a design choice to keep the start menu looking "clean".
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aww it's really sad because it's the thing that i used the most really annoying when i can't see what i'm typing
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Really digging your work, Seahorse. I did notice one bug but I'm not sure how to go about fixing it because I can't search for it very well, I just get stuff for Linux Firefox or other random Windows 7 font color results. Basically what's going on is the flavor text/alt-text when you hover over a link is black on black, which makes it totally unreadable.
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Ah, nevermind. I hadn't messed around with it since last night. I reset the theme through the personalize settings, for some reason some of my custom settings were still set so the font was still black. Lovely VS!
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Is there a Firefox theme for this? I can't find it.
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yes it's part of stratiform, choose for Wave in presets
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Bro, there's a bug that makes the corners look horrible, could you fix it? I really love this theme, but that's the only detail I hate.
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use the wave patch included that makes the borders smaller, don't just only use the msstyles only
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Where's the patch? I'd like to know, I really love the theme.
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can't find it that quickly so you can do it manually: www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/…
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Really nice theme! Seems that it isn't very good with SP2 (got some errors on startup and stuff)... is there any way to undo the registry edits done by the installer?
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sp2? I thought there is only a sp1 yet for windows 7 :S
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Is there any way I can get it to change the icon for IE and Waterfox or would I have to do it manually? since I no longer use Firefox.
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This is incredible, and I can't believe I used windows 7 for so long without it. Thanks so much for making this together!
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Apparently I can't download custopack tools which is required for the setup. :/
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Install this first: [link]
After that run the setup that should work.
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Is there any way to re enable the search bar on the start menu? Thanks
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no, you can still type and search
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google chrome?
no, it's not themeable like firefox
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I get a message saying theme not compatible with you computer. I am running windows 7 64bit
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make sure to run it as admin
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