How to add borderlines between screen elements of displayed apps

akfocus · 30 Jan 2020

Having finally gotten my desired light-gray taskbar by using Win10 1909's native settings, the problem now is that borderlines between elements are totally lacking, unless provided by a particular program.

Is there a way, through the registry or otherwise, to add borderlines -- for example between the Taskbar and what is above it (see Firefox image as an example), between program panes and their headers (see Directory Opus image), below Menu Bars (see Firefox image again), and between Taskbar items?

How to add borderlines between screen elements of displayed apps-firefox-example.jpg

How to add borderlines between screen elements of displayed apps-borderline-needed-dopus.jpg

Everything is so indistinct and flat in W10 for reasonable, functional, classic-like appearance. I have tried OneShell and SimpleClassicTheme with (so far) mixed results and apparent conflicts with W10, so I hope there is a way to do this through the Registry or some other "native" approach.

dalchina · 31 Jan 2020

Hi from the early days of Win 10 this was one way that should work:
Install Aerolite Theme in Windows 10

By default, title bars are white unless you turn on show color on Start, taskbar, and action center.

Window borders are only 1 pixel wide, so they don't show the selected color very well. This tutorial will give you wider window borders.

Aerolite.theme Release Notes:

For Windows apps, the window borders will be a bit wider to see the color better.
For Windows apps, the color of the title bar will not be changed.
The color of text in the title bar of inactive windows turn from black to gray.
The color of text in the title bar of the active window will be black.
The color of inactive window borders will be slightly lighter than the chosen color.
The color of the currently active window border will be the same color as the chosen color.

Notice this free reputable tweaker makes reference to it:

How to add borderlines between screen elements of displayed apps-1.png

And I have this, using Aeroglass- affects borders only: (other changes apply too)

How to add borderlines between screen elements of displayed apps-untitled.png

However, if you want everything grey, that may be harder.

akfocus · 31 Jan 2020

Thanks! And of course since Windows always seems to make me have to do things the hard way, I will report back if I can figure out how to make this work with gray.