Aqua-Soft ForumsI am a programmer for the PantherXP project. I would like to throw out an inviation to leave your ideas for new software. The PantherXP team would be interested in developing your ideas as opensource projects.
VB Ideas welcome!
Some ideas
While we have a lot of skins for various IM programs that achieve a similar makeover, there is no natively 100% accurate Adium for Windows.
I hear that the open source libGaim library used in Adium offers an automation component on windows - given a few open source PNG libraries and per pixel alpha enablers for VB6 resorting to a skinning engine, a pixel perfect skin should be no problem - especially the floating contact list being a must...
On the C++ side as means of providing a toolkit for VB developers:
Lets have an ActiveX designer with skinnable controls and alpha blending. A designer beyond the standard VB form because of some flicker free resizing helpers and container based form textures ~ the controls may well be windowless only and only available in this container...
herd, this seems like a very interesting project to accomplish. I will consult with my team members, and reply once we know if we are going to try to conquer this.
I second the motion for an Adium for Windows. I'm sure most of the users here (myself included) would worship you if you did this.
I support this fully, but this would be one of the harder apps to emulate, legally.
-nightcrawler1089
nightcrawler1089, there would be NO legal issues with this project at all. Adium is OpenSource. Under the GNU General Public License. I dont think there would be a proplem at all.
All I can say is 'Thundercats! Ho!'
ive always wanted that adium contact list, i envy it in every mac screenshot i see 
On a side note:
Another thing I think is possible but I never dream of accomplishing alone would be more suited to a TigerXP project:
Native loading of dashboard widgets. What's a dashboard widget? A HTML page rendered on a semitransparent background. The "browser" app object exposes an additional object with a few methods and defaults to render PNG images without a border. The script code in the HTML page can be JavaScript only. Given the mozilla embedding project, which is an effort to recreate the Internet Explorer ActiveX control with the Gecko HTML engine and SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine, a dedicated coder ferret could follow the same paths as Apple did when it created Dashboard in the first place (Gecko/SpiderMonkey) and thus bring the original Dashboard to our platform of choice/forcefeed.
edit: The implementation need not be that sophisticated, since Dashboard widgets only ever float against a darkened static background, e.g. a screenshot, AFAIK.
Well, as for the Adium for Windows. I have consulted with Adam Iser, lead Porgrammer of AdiumX. I opt to port this code for Adium to C, C++, or VC++. I am not too sure where I am going to go with this. I first must study the code.I can tell you this much. this is NOT going to be a VB project, lol.
And like I said before, I do not own a MAC. So creating MAC App look-a-likes, i first need to know exactly how they work and what they look like. Does anyone know the best way for me to emulate OSX on my pc?
Check out the PowerPC emulator known as PearPC. You will still need a legal copy of OS X to make it work.
Guides to configuring PearPC:
another idea...
how about a sherlock type app... there was one here in development 'merlin' that seemed to wither away. link to help you get an idea
Geesh, it seems that the whole PC world is trying to convert their PC's into Mac's! lol. Sherlock seems to be an interesting application as well. If one would start to create this app, i find it might be quite easy. One could design a simple application that supports plugins. A end-use could create plugins that would fit his/her needs. Of course the one programming should include serveral good plugins to show off the applications abilites. I may consult with my team on developing this, and holding off on the Adium clone.
Btw, has anyone on here taken a look at the adium source code? WOW! I didn't believe that it would be so large of a project. Now that I have studied the code, I believe I will need to recruite another programmer to help on this.
However, I think I want to go at this Sherlock clone. It sounds like a fun idea, and I have done some researh, and could not find any Win32 apps that come close to the functionality.
And for those of you that know about our project PantherXP. I personnaly plan to write a PocketPC version, if that strikes anyones interest.
Not to insult you or anything, but
1) You have insane aspirations.
I tip my hat to you...very few would try projects this big. Thanks!
2) Your avatar is really cool.
3) You can use the edit button to add to a previous post, instead of creating a whole new one.
Anyway, thank you for trying so hard to contribute to this community.
-NC
Well, I work at home, as a programmer, so I have plenty of free time. And I love to code new applications, and love a challenge. So, it my take me a while to complete the projects I accept, but they will get finished. If someone would like to pitch in, or contribute some screen shots of the Sherlock program in action, email them to pantherxp@gmail.com. It would be appreciaited.
i second the pocket PC idea, that would be amazing, id realy like to see that deveoloped.
Yeah, I have started the PocketPC version. Transparency is much more deficult though. This project will take MUCH MUCH longer, considering I am doing all these MYSELF!.lol..
No offense, mntnbkr, but I think you should focus more on finishing PantherXP (for full version) first. Far more people on this board have WindowsXP Desktop than a PocketPc.
-NC
nightcrawler1089, I am working on PantherXP as priority. There are so many features that I am working on, and one man can only do so much himself. I have completing the scripting module, the logon module, the encryption module, the Dock(The Hardest), skinning module, the perpixel alpha trans module, and so much more. There is ONE major problem stoping me from releasing a release version. And that is the Finder. I can successfuly load 32bit app menus into the Finder. I have trouble however loading 16bit app menus. I was thinking maybe not adding the FULL functionality of the finder. why capture the menus, when windows already have them drawn to the app. you think people would care, or should I just finish the finder. And BTW, instead of writing code to skin windows, I am just creating a OSX style *theme file. PantherXP will load the theme upon startup, and when unloaded, will load the users default theme. that will save me alot of time, and coding.
I have studied Adium for the past week now. I belive that it is possible to write this for windows. Like Adium, I will to use the libGaim library. This will simplify most of the project. I will need someone that is good with graphics to design a few skins for me. If someone could do that, then I would be more then happy to take this on.