4. Changing your skin

To start customizing the look and feel of the panels and Text Items, hover over the arrow on your desktop and click the palette that shows up.

This kills opens the color gallery.

To quickly change styles, use the style buttons located on the right. These are various pre-made styles to show all the stuff you can customize. You can even activate the clear skin, which makes the panel background completely transparent.

You can base your own style on these pre-made styles. To change the colors, look in to the left column. To change each color, click on the color rectangle to open up the RainRGB utility which lets you choose a new color. You can choose the color manually using the top part or simply input the new color in RGB, HSL, HSB or HEX.

Normal color is the panel background color. Click on the plus icon to choose from the default WP7 colors.
Hover color is the panel hover color, activated when you move your mouse over the panel.
Text color is the color for text and icons on panels.
TextItems Color is the color for text on Text Items.
Border Color is used for the outline Border Style.
Border style is the style for the border around the panels.

The squares on top of the middle column are overlay images. They are applied on top of panels giving them nice effects. Aero Glass is only supported on Windows Vista and Windows 7. It gives your panels the aero effect if you're using a transparent panel background. The Rounded option makes the panel borders, well, rounded. Center Text aligns the title text of panels to the center. Opacity is the opacity for panels. Click on the left button to set opacity for normal panel background and the right button to set opacity for hover panel background. To change colors for individual panels, choose the Individual Panel Color option. Clicking it will open the Color Changer application. Choose an active panel from the left and use the color buttons that appear on the right to change the color for the panel. Press Apply color to confirm your choice.

After you've changed all the settings to your liking, hit the APPLY button to apply the skin. This will refresh all the panels.