Windows XP includes plenty of visual effects, including fading menus, drop shadows, softer-looking boxes, brighter colors, cartoon-like animations, and other desktop wizardry.
Many of the visual enhancements are the result of Microsoft taking advantage of alpha blending, a graphics process that melds foreground and background colors for such effects as translucency and colorful intensification. The OS's new look has been one of the major selling points for Windows XP; the company contends it's a fresher, more engaging, interface. As part of our continuing series focusing on the nuts and bolts of Windows XP, we take a closer look at XP's interface, warts and all.
Aside from bolder colors, icons feature letter shading, giving application names located on your desktop a 3D look. Buttons are shaded throughout the OS when you mouse over them. Box borders are also highlighted, and drop-down menus are designated with blue arrows. Task pane functions get underlined when you mouse over them, indicating other functions are available. Horizontal and vertical slider bars located inside boxes are also highlighted, making them easier to see.
Many of these effects can be turned off via the Display Properties and System icons, located in the Control Panel (
see it up close). Clicking on the Display icon, for instance, will bring up a pane that houses the Appearance tab. From here you can select effects for drop-down menus such as fading and shadows.
LCD user might appreciate the ClearType option, which helps smooth out the edges of fonts -- a useful feature as the text quality on LCDs isn't consistently crisp or sharp and can vary from model to model. We tried the ClearType option with a 19-inch Trinitron CRT, but the difference in text quality between ClearType and Standard mode wasn't discernible.
By default, almost all effects are turned on, but you can delete up to 17 different effects. Clicking on the Control Panel's System icon will reveal the bulk of effects to determine how the overall interface looks. Several global buttons -- such as "Adjust for best performance," which turns off most of XP's visual enhancements -- are quick fixes at best. Two settings gave us identical results: "Let Windows choose what's best for my computer" and "Adjust for best appearance." Regardless of the button selected, all effects were turned on.
Some of the effects seem innocuous or unimportant. For instance, a selection for "Animate Windows when minimizing and maximizing" produced little change from what one would normally see in Windows 98, whether the option is checked or not. Having a shadow for the mouse pointer is equally inconsequential whether the effect is turned on or off. When turned on, the shadow effect was barely detectable.
Still, Windows XP allows for adding watermarks to folders. And like many features in XP, it's easy -- if you know where to look. To add a watermark (or image) to a folder, right-click on a folder and select Properties. From here, select the Customize tab and select the Choose Picture option. You can select any image on your hard drive. In a few clicks the image can be loaded onto the folder, giving it a visual marker. You also can replace folder icons with graphics from a selection Microsoft supplies in the Properties section.
As individual effects, none of XP's interface enhancements prove earth-shattering. Taken together, however, they add up to a better-looking operating system. If you change one or two of the effects, you're not likely to notice much difference. But if you turn off all the tweaks, XP's Luna interface loses most of its sheen.
