A friend of mine requested that i make a simple yet cool Vista style button tutorial for gimp, so here here is what i came up with.

Step:

1:

Create a new image, 200x100 would be enough.

2:

Create new layer and name it vistabutton,grab the rectangle tool and draw a 100px50 rectangle.

3:

Will need to creat a New Gradient for the vista button, in the Gradient Dialog click on new gradient then right click on the left point and enter the color 252525 and then right click the right end point and enter 9a9a9a...

still in the gradient Right editor, right click on the middle point and
select "Split segment at midpoint", then drag both new segments to the middle as shown below, then save.

4:

Grab the Blend tool select the new Vistabutton gradient we made and apply it from bottom to top, make sure its perfectly straight, if you make a mistake then press CTRL+Z to Undo it.

5:

Now will Create a 1px outline around the button by Right click on the vista button layer and click on "alpha to selection" Create a new layer name it Outline then go to select>Grow>1px.

6:

Change your foreground color to 424242 and fill the outline layer and finally setting the layer behind the vista button layer

7:

Zoom in to make it easy and and with the selection tool create a rectangle inside of the button as shown below

8:

Now will subtract the inner side of the rectangle we just created by either clicking on the "subtract from the current selection" button in the tool options or pressing CTRL while draw the rectangle

9:

Create a New layer, Grab the Blend tool and apply a solid White color to Transparent (FG to Transparent) Gradient from top to bottom ( make sure its straight) and finally adjusting the opacity to 64.

10:

Note* if make sure you you have the selection mode on "Replace the current Selection" after doing step 8. ok grab the rectangle selection tool and create another inner rectangle but this time at the bottom of the button.

11:

Grab the Blend tool, and in the Tool Options Drag the Opacity to 25 and change the " Shape to "Radial" now apply from the center and drag the blend tool around 100px down.

this is how it should look

12:

Grab out favorite tool and create a 1px gradient at the bottom of the button

13:

Grab the "Blend tool" and adjust the "Opacity" to 80 and Shape to "Radial" and applly it from the middle to around 95px down

should look like this

14:

Finally will Create the Reflection of the vista button by creating a rectangle selection half the size of the button,

15:

Set the Foreground color set to cdcbcb use the (FG to Transparent) Gradient and apply it from from top to bottom. your done! a Vista style button!

a sweet idea would be to make 2 different colors for rollover effect by changing the color of the radial gradient in step 11 to a blue color like here is an example of a blue version.

by:http://gimp-tutorials.net/gimp-vista-button