Suggestions

[Fatman_do]

Have to re-read this tomorrow. Its late and I didn't follow the third paragraph very well.
(Edit: I think you mean you want to see a style carried throughout from menu's & popups.)

And, yes, transparent would be a color selection for all items.

[Fatman_do]

so you would select:
button style
normal button color
selected button color
popup button color
selected popup button color

and for selectors:
selector style
selector normal color
selector selected color
selector inactive color
popup selector normal color
popup selector selected color
popup selector inactive color

It is more things to select, but it would enforce the same look and feel throughout the application.

Hmmmm... What if you want nothing for a normal style, but something for a selected style?

"On paper" this doesn't sound like a bad idea, but I can see where this adds alot of work and potential problems. Is this a better idea than providing the mask as a semi-transparent button and if someone wanted to make a new color, they would just use a graphics program that handled layers?

[Ted the Penguin]

well, it is kinda the same idea, you would have a semi-transparent button that would be used for the style, then the colors would be interchangeable.

yeah, see I come from the world of: it is a standalone skin, so as long as it works, I do what I want. all of this users doing things makes it tough

btw paint.net works fine for making new colors for the buttons.