Aqua-Soft ForumsEDIT: Beta testing is closed.
Final should be out Friday, Oct. 15th 2004, sometime in the afternoon (central US time)
In the meantime, if you can provide a mirror, please contact me as soon as possible.
[preview] FlyakiteSP2 v1.0
hmmmm i have been hanging by a thread just like everyone here with these false promises previews, but since i see the name "Flyakite" this has become
a relief to see that youre gonna feed the need to feed this nasty crappy windows gui thanx again.... 
definately some exciting news! i wish i could beta test, however, I cant during my exams now... i may be able to in a week or so though if you will still be beta testing then...
I have a question though. I don't mind that you haven't modified dialogs, but when you say that you haven't, do you mean dialogs like error messages and such? if so, do you mean the actual text of the message, or the icon, or all of it together? As well, does this include windows such as the "display" screens as well and such?
Wow... this has definately made my day though! hope to be a beta tester soon too, if you're still looking for some when I am done my exams 
. has anything else changed since flyakite v.6? for example, the drag icons, icons in general, themes that are included, etc?
Hope to hear more on this, and thanks again for being such a great member of the community! 
(by the way, i'm sorry if any questions i asked above piss you off. that's not my intention at all. so if they have, i'm sorry, and don't answer them back)
By dialogs I mean the resizing and extra bitmaps. So like with System Properties window, you'll still get the changed bitmap, HOWEVER the window itself won't be resized. So basically all the windows that were resized before and contained added (not changed) bitmaps don't exist in this build.
The reason I chose not to add the custom bitmaps and resize the windows is my own personal preference. For one, it takes an INSANE amount of time to resize the windows, and make sure no controls are hidden or covering other controls. Also, not all tabs for a window are in the same file. Like with System Properties, not all of those tab dialogs are in the same file, so hunting to find the right files and making sure the windows are resized to the same dimensions is a pain.
Not only that, but mainly, I just didn't care for the resized dialogs. Technically, they aren't Mac-like at all, they just look different. And I don't like when they are bigger, I prefer to have my smaller dialogs that take up less room.
----------------------------------------
In terms of other changes:
- I've rewritten a lot of installer code that allows me to maintain the installer easier as well as install/uninstall files easier.
- Changed more icons that weren't changed before
- Added the new files for SP2
- I've included a boot screen for people with hyper-threaded systems.
- I've included a registry tweak that sets the system shell dialog font to Lucida Grande, and will install the font if you don't have it. (Tweak is uninstallable as well)
- I've also basically redone about every icon, so at 16x16, 24x24, and 32x32 most icons should luck much better now.
- And I fixed the uninstaller which was my main issue. So far after about 10 test uninstalling I haven't had a single issue arise.
- Even though I've added more files I have found a switch that allows me to compress the installer more, so it now comes in at about 29mb!
- I'm sure there's more but I haven't written up a changelog yet or anything like that.
Wow! That's great!!! I can see you've already spent a hell of a lot of time doing this and I really appreciate the effort. I definately don't mind having the windows the same size as they were before either... Like you say, Macs don't even really have those windows so it's not like it's making it "any less" of a Mac lookalike...
Hopefully it runs well on Windows XP HOME Edition... I'm sure the beta tests will let us know...
@ Flyakite: I fell in love with your 5.1 version.
And I'm sure I will be again with your new 6/sp2 version.
I'm no programmer of any kind, but if that's not a problem,
I'll gladly volunteer.
Okay thanks to Sid for pointing this out: There was an update for Internet Explorer for SP2 released yesterday. I downloaded it and got the new files from it and updated them in the installer, so now everything in the installer is completely up-to-date.
The installer comes in now at 28.7mb and I've uploaded it to my server so for those of you who want to beta test it is ready. Read point 5 under BETA TESTING in the first post and I will give you the link.
Great . Yeah I just downloaded that update yesterday...
Is there anything we should know/download/uninstall before downloading and installing this in order to get the full effect? ie. Windowblinds/Logon Studio/WinFX/etc?
No not really. I mean, to use the skins of course you'll have to have the appropriate software whether it be PowerDVD 5 or WindowBlinds or whatever else.
But in terms of the system files, cursors, wallpaper, sounds, registry tweaks, boot screen, logon screen, etc. there is no extra or special software required.
Won't use because of past experience, but the BATCH RestoreSystem.txt sounds like a great idea!!!
Keep it up!
chris, i'm practically in tears. best puter news i've heard in a while. i wish i could beta for you, but i only have the one pc for daily use and can't afford (unlikely!) downtime. but, rest assured, there's a whole mess of us out here cheering you on and quivering with an...tic...i...pation!
p.s. i haven't paid attention in the past: you got a donate link at your site? too lazy to look...
So far I've only had two people ask to beta test so far, which is surprising. I know some people have had bad experiences in the past but I honestly think I've ironed out all the bugs with this release. Uninstallation works flawlessly for me (in 6.0 it didn't, something was wrong and I'm still not sure what). And even then the Recovery Console script is failsafe no matter what.
I've also just added all the User Account pictures from Panther. So if you install them, when you go to change your user account picture they will all show up there.
Once I revert VMware to the snapshot and do an install with the current build, I'll post some screenshots up for everyone.
Oh, by the way, I just remembered two things that I had trouble with in flyakite v6. I don't know if they've been changed or if you'd like to change them... Nevertheless, I'll post them... They're minor problems only.
1. in the Picture and Fax Viewer, the icons for "Rotate Clockwise" and "Rotate Anticlockwise" were reversed, meaning that the arrows pointed in different directions than they were supposed to. This kind of led to some confusion when it came to rotating pictures
2. I think I had mentioned this one before, but when using the Tiger skin for WindowBlinds, the Logoff/Turn Off Computer screens were incorrect. They were a distorted version of the one's in Kol's theme (stretched horizontally and shortened vertically)
Anyway, good luck with the beta tests!
(EDIT: just read about the user icons addition... that's great! haha, sorry for my several posts in this thread... it's just I dont think anyone here is as excited as I am right now *sniff sniff* hehe )
Okay well I've implemented something into the installer that is going to save EVERYONE so much time:
The installer can successfully detect whether or not your computer has a bootscreen intended for hyper threaded processors. This way, the boot screen is only listed once, and if you choose to install it, it will install the appropriate ntosknl.exe file.
So now, you don't need to know if your computer has hyper threading or not or even be worried about it. Oh and the hyper threaded boot screen has successfully been tested on a machine with hyper-threading.
---------------------
I've also fixed a lot of little things that got missed along the way and added the ClearType Tuner power toy control panel file.
well this is great news flyakite, but I don't know if most of us are all SP2; I mean I'm sure you added neat tweaks and features not available in 6. Will there ever be a SP1 out? ( I don't know why I just asked that, the answer is probably no) Great work as always flyakite Can't wait to see some screenies
well this is great news flyakite, but I don't know if most of us are all SP2; I mean I'm sure you added neat tweaks and features not available in 6. Will there ever be a SP1 out? ( I don't know why I just asked that, the answer is probably no) Great work as always flyakite
haha, well if this wont get you to upgrade to SP2, i don't know what will . actually, SP2 is much better than SP1... The security features are defiantely much better, and you can count on great popup control and many other features... I'd recommend upgrading just for that.
what the hell is wrong with you? you are so good/angel-like there must be something wrong with you.
you kept on suprising me by showing off all those programs, and i have never been more grateful when i use those programs. also they are free! you really deserve something. maybe a free imac g5. if you go to hong kong i will BUY you a gift like that.
can i still use it even if i have only sp1?
also will there still be improvements on 6.0 sp1?
Lets just say... this is something quite special... Chris has done an awesome job, and it's very user friendly...
Okay everyone here's a little update on things.
Everything is close to being finished, there are just little things I have to go back and add, like 54x54 icon sizes for the start menu because I had forgot about that and a few other things.
The Hyper Threading detection code successfully works so there's no need to worry about messing up your system due to installing the wrong boot screen.
And for a little treat here are two screenshots. Nothing fancy, although the second one showcases something new in the upcoming release
Desktop/Control Panel/Tiger Theme
P.S. I will release one last update to FlyakiteSP1 eventually, just to iron out the bugs that were in v6.0 and whatnot. Other than that development will not continue on FlyakiteSP1.
This is looking Fantastic Very nice job
I had Seph add a poll to the thread. Basically I want to know what everyone thinks about the seperate shell32.dll section? Should I leave it as a seperate section or just incorporate the file into the DLL section to clean up the options? Does anyone even install shell32.dll just by itself.
If you have any comments on it please let me know in addition to taking part in the poll please.