Windows XP Style Command Button
In this tutorial we will make XP styled buttons, and then we will label them! Here’s a quick preview of what you will be making.
Excited? Good. Begin by Making a new canvas and filling the background with #ebe9ed, which is a default background color for forms in windows XP.
The Basic Button
Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool, shown below.
Also, make sure you have the radius set to one on your settings bar. Create a rounded rectangle with dimensions not far from 106 pixels in width to 18 in height, as these are close to the XP defaults. It should look something like mine, although at this point color does not matter.
Right click on your shape’s layer in the layer palette and rasterize it.
Then bring up its style options window by double clicking and apply the following.
The hex value for the stroke is #143462.
Double click on the gradient box and apply the percentages and hex values shown below.
Lastly, add an inner glow.
Congratulations, your button is officially tricked out XP style!
Hovers and Defaults: Taking This Tutorial a Step Further
This tutorial wouldn’t be VDCore worthy if it didn’t take a step further, so here goes. First, we will be making your buttons hover mode, and to do this we will need to edit the Inner Glow and add an Inner Shadow. So, duplicate your button layer and rename it ‘hover’, and apply the following settings.
The modified Inner Glow, using the hex value #ff8b28, is shown below.
And now to the hover style’s inner shadow, which just uses a white #ffffff.
Your hover effect is finished!
Next, we will make a default button, such as the OK shown in the previous Layer Style window. Duplicate your ‘hover’ layer and rename it ‘default’. To turn a hover button into a default button we only have to edit the Inner Glow settings. So apply the ones shown below to your ‘default’ layer. (The blue is #1e55a8)
And you’re done!
Adding XP Text
Just a tip really, when adding text to your button make sure to switch the clear type option to none, and use a 12 pt black Tahoma font-face without any extra styling options. That is the default font used by windows. When all is said and done, my result looked as follows.
Conclusion
The best part about these buttons is their reusability. All you have to do is save the style to your style collection and then you can use them whenever you feel like it just by pressing a button! Thank you for reading this tutorial, and I hope you enjoyed learning from it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Excited? Good. Begin by Making a new canvas and filling the background with #ebe9ed, which is a default background color for forms in windows XP.
The Basic Button
Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool, shown below.
Also, make sure you have the radius set to one on your settings bar. Create a rounded rectangle with dimensions not far from 106 pixels in width to 18 in height, as these are close to the XP defaults. It should look something like mine, although at this point color does not matter.
Right click on your shape’s layer in the layer palette and rasterize it.
Then bring up its style options window by double clicking and apply the following.
The hex value for the stroke is #143462.
Double click on the gradient box and apply the percentages and hex values shown below.
Lastly, add an inner glow.
Congratulations, your button is officially tricked out XP style!
Hovers and Defaults: Taking This Tutorial a Step Further
This tutorial wouldn’t be VDCore worthy if it didn’t take a step further, so here goes. First, we will be making your buttons hover mode, and to do this we will need to edit the Inner Glow and add an Inner Shadow. So, duplicate your button layer and rename it ‘hover’, and apply the following settings.
The modified Inner Glow, using the hex value #ff8b28, is shown below.
And now to the hover style’s inner shadow, which just uses a white #ffffff.
Your hover effect is finished!
Next, we will make a default button, such as the OK shown in the previous Layer Style window. Duplicate your ‘hover’ layer and rename it ‘default’. To turn a hover button into a default button we only have to edit the Inner Glow settings. So apply the ones shown below to your ‘default’ layer. (The blue is #1e55a8)
And you’re done!
Adding XP Text
Just a tip really, when adding text to your button make sure to switch the clear type option to none, and use a 12 pt black Tahoma font-face without any extra styling options. That is the default font used by windows. When all is said and done, my result looked as follows.
Conclusion
The best part about these buttons is their reusability. All you have to do is save the style to your style collection and then you can use them whenever you feel like it just by pressing a button! Thank you for reading this tutorial, and I hope you enjoyed learning from it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
