Introduction
Cream (Metal Milk) is a play on ‘Milk’ by Max Rudberg. It introduces a new element to the mix, a metallic play on the widely accepted white theme. I feel that it is pulled off very well, keeping the subtle quality of Milk, whilst being an original creation. Metal Milk was originally created by Justin P for the Mac, and has been excellently ported by Hills to the Ms Style format.

First Impressions
From first seeing this port of Metal Milk, I knew I would have to give it a try. Although I’m not normally a great fan of metal themes (Aluminium Alloy doesn’t really appeal), this one is done in an incredibly subtle way. The vital aspects of the Milk theme remain, and a new element is successfully introduced. Unfortunately, it is only available as an Ms Style at the present time, but I’m sure it will get ported to WindowBlinds at some point.

The theme comes with two main sub styles, one with a reflection gradient in the titlebar, and one without. I feel that both work equally well, although the sub style with reflection seems to have a more dynamic effect. The standard Normal, Large and Extra Large font options are used differently here, and rather than changing the size of the font, the style is changed. The colours are a credit to the theme, with the pearly white buttons contrasting the darker shades of the windows themselves excellently. I could find no complaints at all with the first impressions of the style. Everything is very easy to read, and the small buttons which are often a problem in Photoshop look great.

Usability
The theme’s start menu is one of the best I’ve seen, on a par with Siro. The background colour and the fonts contrast well, but my favourite part of the start menu is the rollover background on the sub-menus. It takes the Minimise/Close button style and uses it here, making it simple to keep track of navigating a laboriously long navigation tree. The Turn Off/Log Off buttons look OK, however the rollover animation does not seem to fit in completely with the rest of the theme - It’s a very slight niggle, but it might have looked better with the same rollover as the window buttons.

The shell style included with the theme is very similar in most respects to the one included with Milk. It functions as you would expect, and fits in comfortably. The Metal Milk scrollbars are a credit to the theme, and there are no apparent problems with them. The side-on gradient works well, and the animation is fluent. Continuing the widget path, the form buttons included with the theme (seen when filling in a form on the internet) look great. These are often an aspect which is overlooked when designing a theme, but here they are perfectly formed, and well crafted.

Extras
There are not many extras included with this theme, although there are several wallpapers etc which will fit in well from the Mac version. As mentioned before, a shell style is included. Also to be found is the HandelGotD font, which can be selected as one of the font variations when applying the theme. This works fairly well, but it is harder to read in some places (the start menu in particular).

It should also be noted that although they are not included with the version of the theme I was reviewing, the DeviantArt download page also includes a link to the compact start menu version, and an accompanying Firefox skin.

Conclusion
This theme is a very well crafted, well rounded port of Metal Milk. All the little details (form buttons, Photoshop mini-buttons etc) look fantastic, and no detail has been overlooked. For those of you out there who are dedicated Milk fans, this will prove to be well worth giving a try. I would hope that a port to WindowBlinds will follow fairly soon, and that with the creation of skins, wallpapers and icon sets to fit in with the theme, it could become a very popular choice.

MsStyle
Thread : Download @ DeviantArt

Credits:
Max Rudberg (author of the original Milk theme for Mac OSX
Justin P (author of the Cream Metal Milk Mod)
Hills (author of the cream metal milk port to windows)