Using Backgrounds with Your Themes and Skins

You can quickly change the desktop background using the Display Properties dialog box or a specific command provided by your skinning software. You can change the background at a whim, but in most cases, you will probably want to change other elements of the Windows interface when you desire a new look.

So, it makes sense to incorporate the backgrounds you draw and create into your themes or skins. We discussed how to specify a background for a Windows theme when we discussed theme creation in Chapter 4, "Creating Windows XP Themes from Scratch."

Each of the skinning packages discussed in Chapter 6 lets you easily change the desktop background and incorporate a background into a skin.

Tip

TopThemes Manager also lets you to save the current desktop as a theme. Select File, Save Desktop, and then specify a name. A new theme is created based on the current settings of the desktop.

For example, Stardock Object Desktop rolls all the various theme and skin elements into a suite that can then be controlled by the Stardock TopThemes Manager. TopThemes Manager allows the background file to be saved as one of the items in the suite (see Figure 11.11).

Using Backgrounds with Your Themes and Skins

Figure 11.11. TopThemes Manager allows you to save the background as part of the suite file.