Transparent desktop icon label background

kitpzyxmsir · 27 Mar 2016

When looking for a solution, all I have found is talk about drop shadows. I thought that was my issue until I looked up the definition for drop shadows, and that is not what I am referring to, I believe.

I'm sure you all are familiar with this, but I will attach some images to confirm we are talking about the same thing.

When the icon labels overlap, the transparency causes the label text to be obscured for both icons.

A busy desktop background that goes from light to dark further complicates matters because regardless of the text color choice (black or white), in certain areas of the desktop, the text color contrast will suffer.

I am looking for a way of returning to the Windows 98 style of solid icon label background blocks.

Thanks

megafrog · 13 Jun 2016

I would like to bump this thread higher, since the answer would help me as well.

kitpzyxmsir · 17 Jun 2016

When I posted, I thought this was a legitimate concern that would be of of interest to more users. It continues to be a annoyance to me, how it considerably obscures the ability to read desktop icon labels.

Thanks to megafrog for responding.

I would like to think the least a moderator of any forum could do is to let no thread go unanswered, even if just to inform the poster there is no known solution

megafrog · 20 Jun 2016

In their defense this is a big forum that gives free advice from volunteers - while a response to every thread would be nice other things can happen in people's lives. Perhaps there is another forum that has a similar answer? I tried looking for this topic through google but I'm not sure about the difference between a "background" and a "label" for the naming. Is there a list of desktop icon related terms, maybe it would enable a better search?

kitpzyxmsir · 08 Jul 2016

megafrog said:

In their defense this is a big forum that gives free advice from volunteers

I do agree, and I appreciates the help. I did not mean to appear disrespectful or ungrateful. This is free advice, and whoever moderates is under no obligation. But it is common in most forums to see threads simply passed over. It would just be nice if somebody said there is no known solution, rather than feeling no one else but you is interested.

megafrog said:

I tried looking for this topic through google but I'm not sure about the difference between a "background" and a "label" for the naming. Is there a list of desktop icon related terms, maybe it would enable a better search?

I finally ran across a little program that does what I was was looking for, and other tasks as well.

Iconoid 386
Iconoid - Hide and show desktop icons, make transparent backgrounds