Vista - GUI colours missing

Prompted by several posts about readability, I played around with
accessibility options and XP's display properties to see if there
was any combination that would, for example, boost the size of the
text in the Folder pane and Message list, and make the selected
folder more visible.
I seem to have achieved both objects, but I'm not sure how, and as a
side effect I've lost a good deal of (largely extraneous) background
colour in various bits of the UI. The attached screenshots show my
anaemic toolbar and the invisible text-entry boxes in both Find a
message and a compose window's header fields. Altering the colour
scheme using the paintbrush icon now has zero effect - the toolbar
remains stubbornly white, which is in fact fine, but it has no
bottom border and flows seamlessly into the rest of the window.
This interesting colour scheme survives reboots. High contrast is
off, my display theme is Windows XP and my Windows and buttons
display setting is Windows XP style. So, somehow, applying High
contrast has triggered fundamental changes in the system which don't
get reset by either deselecting High contrast or rebooting.
Incidentally, this also affects the appearance of HTML pages in IE7,
where my settings are pretty bog-standard.
Does anyone know what has happened?
--
Noel

So are you saying that at this point your WLM and IE7 are affected, but
other programs are back to normal?

I'm not sure about IE7, but in IE6 there are settings on Tools, Internet
Options, General for COLORS and ACCESSIBILITY Similar options in IE7
may have gotten enabled. In my IE6 the Colors are set to use Windows
Colors and Accessibility options are all unchecked.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm



"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uwrHBmOwIHA.5124@xxxxxx

IE7 has the same General options for Colors and Accessibility

--
...winston
ms-mvp mail


"Michael Santovec" <michael_santovec@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:e84DovPwIHA.1504@xxxxxx

Thanks to you both. As I said, IE7 settings are more-or-less
standard, with none of the accessibility features selected.

I've since discovered how this has come about. I had, as well as
using the keyboard shortcut to toggle High Contrast on and off,
applied High Contrast at the XP accessibility options (in Control
panel), so my curious display appearance is in fact High Contrast
Windows Classic. The Control panel setting takes effect after a
reboot, even though the setting had been toggled off before
rebooting.

These experiments have revealed two things of interest:
(1) It is pretty haphazard which fonts get used in WLMail when
toggling High Contrast on and off. It seems to want to use MS Sans
Serif, whereas MSFT told us several months ago that the fall-back
from Segoe UI on XP is Arial. It takes a reboot to restore the font.
(2) There are several areas of the UI that render poorly in High
Contrast. In particular, input boxes that are defined only by
shading disappear, as my screenshots showed. This is different in
Contacts windows, where each box has a thin black border
(screenshot). Other bits are missing some or all borders.

Still, I end up with a delightfully uncluttered and legible screen.
--
Noel

"...winston" <winstonmvp@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OUpqaAWwIHA.4736@xxxxxx

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:#ahsMZYwIHA.2360@xxxxxx


IE8b1 is making fonts in WLMail even more unbearable.
E.g. I have had to start using Plain text for reading
in order to have some control over them. I think I'm getting
Arial then. Otherwise, I would get a too small Times New
Roman (a serif font).

BTW I've never figured out how to tell (easily) which font
is used by any particular rendering. Any tips? ; )


---

"Robert Aldwinckle" <robald@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ule9cBawIHA.5448@xxxxxx
No easy way, I fear, because the fonts you're likely to come across are very
similar. The small 'a' is a good guide, but you'll normally have to check a
couple of letters to be reasonably sure. At least in IE7+ you can screw up
the zoom to assist in identification. One missing from this list is the
Vista font Colibri, because I don't have it installed, so I wonder how
MSHTML manages to render it.
Segoe: a e g I J S
Tahoma: a e g I J S
Arial: a e g I J S
MS Sans Serif: a e g I J S
Verdana: a e g I J S

--
Noel

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:O5gcZpawIHA.4952@xxxxxx
I've never noticed that so clearly before. Good tips!


Presumably it picks the closest substitute available somehow?
I think there should be a user level diagnostic trace which
could be easily activated and inspected to make clear what
tests are done and what the results are when fonts are
picked or substituted. I have tried just using ProcMon to
infer the same information but just got lost.


Almost forgot to press Alt-Shift-H to see your examples. ; )

Thanks for these. It makes me wonder why I use Arial.
E.g., perhaps I should try Verdana sometime too
to avoid Arial's capital I and small l ambiguity.
(I tried to type a lowercase I by itself and the darn WLMail
spellcheck overwrote it! The lowercase l it leaves alone
but with a red squigly line.)


Robert
---

"Robert Aldwinckle" <robald@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:elAt2ydwIHA.552@xxxxxx<blush> The reason I couldn't find it is that it's called Calibri </blush>.
The only one of the bunch to have a curly 'g'. I've tacked it on at the
bottom, so you can print the list out and pin it up on the wall alongside
all the other tips and tricks that you're prone to forget. Then again,
perhaps you don't have the font installed with either the right or the wrong
name and it will render as something else again...
--
Noel

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:u1xAwtkwIHA.5580@xxxxxx
<source>
<FONT face=3DTahoma>Tahoma: a e g I J S Q<BR>
</FONT>&gt;&gt; Arial: a e g I J = S Q<BR>&gt;&gt;
</source>


Alt-Shift-H. Quoted line showed up with a serif font.
I wonder what one it was? <EG>


---

"Ildhund" <jnllb@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:u1xAwtkwIHA.5580@xxxxxxColibrí is a hummingbird in Spanish. The following is from Wikipedia.

«Calibri is a humanist sans-serif typeface family, best known as the new
default typeface for the Microsoft Office 2007 suite of applications. It
replaces the previous defaults Times New Roman (for Microsoft Word) and
Arial (for PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook).

Calibri is one of six new western (Latin, Greek and Cyrillic) ClearType
Collection typefaces shipped with Microsoft Windows Vista, and is the first
sans-serif type to be designated the default face for the word-processing
application Microsoft Word. Earlier releases of Microsoft Word have used
Times New Roman as the default typeface.

Calibri was designed by Lucas de Groot for Microsoft to take advantage of
Microsoft's ClearType rendering technology. In 2005, the typeface won an
award in the Type System category at the Type Directors Club's Type Design
Competition. It includes characters from Latin, Latin extended, Greek, and
Cyrillic scripts.

In a survey conducted by researchers at Wichita State University, Calibri
was the most popular font for e-mail, instant messaging and PowerPoint
presentations. It also ranked highly for use in website text. The survey
asked participants to rate images of sample text in various fonts.»

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibri

People who prefer Calibri over Times New Roman and Arial are obvious victims
of Microsoft's aesthetic brainwashing and hegemony. :^)

Cheers,

Earle