[wip] Dashboard Wallpaper

[Ken]

there is an iTunesRemote.exe in the .zip you downloaded... Just follow the instructions above

[Pe8er]

This is beautiful, you did a great job My congratulations

[Ken]

I updated the preview page at http://www.oxygen-inc.com/kenx/Dashboard/preview.html

Nothing important, I just added some animation when showing/hiding widgets through the panel.

[Infinity]

OK, nvm...

Oh man the preview release is great! I love it! Itworks really smotthly, even on my crap-bag machine! :woot: Kudos man! (Y)

[kmccormi]

congratulations and thank you on a wonderful piece of work.

i have a question though ... any chance of releasing separate widgets for the desktop that aren't connected to an internet webpage? Like ... a separate stand-alone release for the stickies notes in particular

[kmccormi]

oh, and also ... i get the same problem rooskee does ... when i set dashboard.html as my desktop, i get nothing but the plain solid sage green color i have set as my default background color under display properties. even after refreshing, the green stays.

[Ken]

Originally posted by kmccormi@Jul 11 2004, 03:12 AM

congratulations and thank you on a wonderful piece of work. 

i have a question though ... any chance of releasing separate widgets for the desktop that aren't connected to an internet webpage?  Like ... a separate stand-alone release for the stickies notes in particular 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That would be something totally different. All this is coded in Flash, while a stand-alone app would have to be written in another language.

There are already a few Dashboard widgets available as stand-alone apps (iTunes remote, Calendar, Address Book)

[wind]

oh, Man, this is the greatest app I found so far.

You are the God of flash.

[wind]

I just found when change the color of the stick note, its animation is so cool.

I have to say I respect you,ken, really.

[wind]

Just a little requirment.

Can you tell me hpw to remove the PREVIEW RELEASE on the wallpaper?

Thank you.

[Earkez]

WoW, hahaha, This is the best that I have seen today :rock:

[Ken]

Originally posted by wind@Jul 11 2004, 05:23 AM

Just a little requirment.

Can you tell me hpw to remove the PREVIEW RELEASE on the wallpaper?

Thank you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

LOL! Please don't keep asking me about this. You can't remove it right now. It's there for a reason. The first release will hopefully be much better than this.

[mecca]

a bug, when you turn over the clock, you cant move it around

[carbonfiber]

great ken, this preview release is so frigin awsome

simply amazing ken

[grim53]

i dont know if i like having a dot on my desktop. granted its a small price to pay, but were u plaining on being able to have it hidden. maybe have a hot key to activate it.

[herd]

Using Flash for an application user interface is another idea whose time

has come.

Ken, if I remember correctly, MacroMedia has released something

in that direction, exactly for designing standalone flash applications.

If you could dig in that direction, you could get rid of the HTML stuff

and control iTunes directly without reducing a users internet

security.

Another Idea: Since the Flash player is an OCX, it can be hosted

in any ActiveX control container like a Visual Basic Form. If you could

get rid off the background image stuff, I could mock up a vb project that

does a screenshot of the running desktop, displays it with the darkened

rounded Rect effect like in Tiger and renders your swf on top of it.

This way you could access the dashboard from a tray icon or so, with

almost genuine transition effects...

The question is:

Do all flash animations need an opaque background or can they render

with 32-bit alpha transparency on a given bitmap canvas that is not

a file?

[Ken]

@grim53: clicking on the desktop, it toggles all dashboard widgets, including the "dot"... so you see nothing but your wallpaper.

@herd:

Macromedia Central is the product for standalone applications, but you can create standalone executables with a Flash projector (your swf + flash player in one exe).

The reason I picked Active Desktop is because it's always there and it can co-exist with the rest of your windows (unlike the real Dashboard, where you see either your normal desktop+windows, or the dashboard widgets).

The VB solution is a good one, but a slow one, I guess... You need to take a screenshot of the desktop, save as png (or high quality jpg), then load it in the flash movie. And Flash isn't very fast at full-screen effects, especially with bitmaps (darkening the loaded screenshot). Although this would mimic more accurately the Apple Dashboard, it wouldn't be as fast as the real one. Anyway, the Flash part of the project could be used without any changes at all inside a VB hosting app. But I'll care about that later on.

One trick I was thinking about: keep the Flash as a wallpaper, and optionally minimize all windows when showing the widgets.

Edit: Oh, and a last one... I think there is a third-party tool that can give you a background-less Flash projector (exe). It must be somewhere in my downloads bin, but I don't remember which it is.

[kmccormi]

Originally posted by Ken@Jul 11 2004, 01:53 PM

@grim53: clicking on the desktop, it toggles all dashboard widgets, including the "dot"... so you see nothing but your wallpaper.

i think what grim meant was when the widgets ARE visible, so is the dot by default ... you can't seem to have the widgets visible but the dot hidden; hiding the dot means hiding the widgets, and showing the widgets means showing the dot. i think grim wants a way to hide the menu even while widgets are in view ... maybe a double click or a hot key could do this ...

[Ken]

OK, for those who have Tiger (or who've seen it in action), a few questions:

Which widgets have a back side? How does it look (screenshots)?

Address Book: does it show only one card at a time, or is there a list view, too? can u add/remove cards? does it link to Address Book or something?

Sticky Note: can u have more than one at a time? how?

Calendar: can you add/remove events right from the widget?

iTunes Remote: How do u change volume? Can u select playlist?

Thanks a lot in advance for any replies.

[TheBigB]

@ken i only know the answer to one of your questions but i know for sure the stikey notes can have more than one.

[babypapichulo]

Originally posted by Ken@Jul 11 2004, 02:19 PM

OK, for those who have Tiger (or who've seen it in action), a few questions:

Which widgets have a back side? How does it look (screenshots)?

Address Book: does it show only one card at a time, or is there a list view, too? can u add/remove cards? does it link to Address Book or something?

Sticky Note: can u have more than one at a time? how?

Calendar: can you add/remove events right from the widget?

iTunes Remote: How do u change volume? Can u select playlist?

Thanks a lot in advance for any replies.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

By looking at this pic.....HERE (THANK YOU DUCKIE !!!!!! )

I think that it's only possible to display one contact card at a time. And I think that the search takes you to the address book showning the results. (very hard to do in windows) and the red dot shows and hides the current contact.

iTunes remote- change volume by rotating the dial around the controls..(also extremely hard in windows) playist...no

calendar- clicking on the even opens iCal and allows you to mod events...

sticky- douple clicking on the sticky text in the control panel adds another. to delete one drag into the bin.

Agian I do not have Tiger. This is what I assume from looking at that pic and others I have seen. Hope that helps.

[Kej0]

OMG KEN!!!! Ths is amazing man! It's so smooth, I can honeslty say this is the first time, I've actually laughed with excitement and joy, I swear dude this is pure genius.

Dude I'm seriously in awe, no joke, pure genius. and everything is sooooo smooth

the only problem I have is the iTunes Remote doesn't update what it's playing, after it showed the first song I clicked, it never updated or anything, it just kept the same song info.

But this is amazing, and I look forward to the first full release

I have a few ideas you can use

You know how you have the button on the sticky to change it? How about a button oon the iTunes widget to change it's colors, like an Ipodish color, like a white widget with blue LCD screen thingy, if you want, I can do colors of all the major themes out

Also different colors for the clocks and calulator so it blends in more with different people's themes.

Other than that......I think it's gold m8!!!

[babypapichulo]

that is a good idea..but I think ken wants to make this 1:1 with the real dashboard. So if he did that it would look good...but if Ken wants to...I sure hells wont complain. It is a good idea that I would also benifite from. I do not use Panther or Tiger VS so this does look a tad odd...

[Kej0]

Originally posted by babypapichulo@Jul 12 2004, 05:00 AM

that is a good idea..but I think ken wants to make this 1:1 with the real dashboard. So if he did that it would look good...but if Ken wants to...I sure hells wont complain. It is a good idea that I would also benifite from. I do not use Panther or Tiger VS so this does look a tad odd...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah that's true, but just a suggestion.........Apple may even take the idea

Ken I also noticed that you put in itunesact

Are there plans for something to show off the album cover :woot:

[babypapichulo]

With thier rep they might..theu might make it so that it uses colors defined in Tigers systems skins...those *****es...you should get a patent for it...or else Apple will take your idea..then we wont be laughing.. (it's hard not to)