I'm starting to regret ever purchasing Object Desktop. Here I am with a brand new XP ... and found out I can customize it just by using a modified uxtheme.dll and other mods (specifically Mobydock and Y'z Apps) all for free.
Am I missing anything /great/ from Stardock?
well thats what I thought at first. But when I got it, to tell you the truth... it was fun playing around with the loads of toys it provides. Is it necessary? Not any more IMO. With all these great (and free) apps that are popping up, I dont think you need Stardock Products anymore...
i hear you guys...
I purchased object desktop quite a while ago, and i though i made a good choice, and well, i might still think so.
what disappoints me is the fact they havent done anything, zero, nada for the past 3-4 months. too much freaking time and nothing has changed. they came out with wfx final release and THATS IT. they can still make things like a transparent inactive title bar, swip the title bar buttons (without the need of WB), and tons of more stuff which cant think of now..
I love the objectbar and wfx2 apps and infact they are embbeded pretty much in my system as low-level applis - cause they are the basic things for the pc to look osxish. --->> but again, with the rate we get superior programs for free in our GREAT COMMUNITY i start losing hope for stardock, as much as they brought all the skinning thing up in the first place.
Im extremly disappointed from stardock lately, and start having regrets of purchasing OD...
Yet lets not forget, that without them, everything would have probably looked different.
The only reason I've still kept my OD subscription alive is for ObjectBar and WindowFX2.....but Y'z Shadow is slowly becoming my favorite, and WFX2 is getting side-tracked coz Y'z is way faster than WFX...DesktopX is rusting as MobyDock has now taken it's place...WindowBlinds is a waste..So the only reason I see to subscribe is for ObjectBar which doesn't yet have a free replacement (oh and I'm not that happy with it either.. 
)
Siddharth
Even though it seems hip to not like Windowblinds I still like it. Using windowblinds I can have a mac type skin with the buttons on the left and a rollup button on the right. I'd like to see someone do that with a visual style. Plus especially with 3.4 and above I don't notice any slowdown as a result of using windowblinds. I like how easy it is to make a skin for it because the images are in a folder rather than having to put them in a special file and mess with the ini format and things like that. Also there doesn't seem to be anything I can't do with a WB border where with a visual style you are stuck with just one layout.
I find that people who bash are the ones who don't use said products or didn't give them very much of a chance. I myself did give visual styles a chance but I didn't like how they only fully skin theme aware apps and the buttons *have* to be on the right and there is no built in shading function.
Not only that, but I like objectbar a lot because it lets me have a skinnable menubar and windowfx2 looks pretty cool too. Y'z shadow doesn't have all the transition effects that WindowFX2 has.
Plus with desktopX you can have different sized icons on your desktop than anywhere else. That one is pretty good too especially after they enhance it some more. It can be used for more things other than a glorified dock. Can you do free floating 128 sized icons only on the desktop with Moby\Y'zDock or exploer without making your file manager icons or start panel icons huge? nope.. Can you do free floating clocks\mp3 player\other plugin type objects with the free docks? nope..
Also, object desktop has some utitilties such as spring folders so I still say it's worth it even with Y'z apps, and mobydock. And no I don't work for stardock. I just have been using their apps (windowblinds in par
ticular) since the beginning, I used windowblinds since before it got aquired by stardock.
But even after all that I don't think I will change anyones minds who already closed their minds to stardock apps because it's fashionable now to put them down no matter how good they really are.
Especially those who are looking for an excuse.. any excuse to hate and get rid of stardock apps. Somehow I think that when someone asks a question like this they already have their mind made up they just want confirmation from others that they *someone* thinks the same thing so they can justify it to themselves. But I still wanted to say *something* about it.
Don't get me wrong though I like Y'z shadow and mobydock but there are still uses for stardock apps especially if you can think outside of a "it's only good if it is free" mentality.
There is also one more thing.. I find that people who get paid for their stuff might want to listen to the users feature requests or things like that more than people who work on free projects. Because you didn't pay for it a lot feel you can't complain if such feature that you want isn't in it. Or since it's a free project you should be thankfull they release it at all.
And if you want to be really technical, all of these other programs are rip-offs of Stardock because in EVERY case, Stardock had the program out first.
Well, well, this is getting hot.... I've also purchased Object Desktop, and i was very happy when i got it.... i could do a lot things to my computer look that i was just amazed...
I thing OD is very cool in deed... i don't use WB neither DX, coz i think visual style does a better job... maybe it can't change the butons to the left side... but it surely skin windows more deeply... sometimes i forget i use windows... until an error message pop ups... whoops!! jeje...
I don't regret i purchased OD... i use OB without it... my Pc wouldn't look so OSX-ish... and.. winFX2.. is a little slow in my pc... but is pretty good...
but OD is loosing its strenght since so many really awesome apps are coming out for free... from a comunity... that realy want to share (NOT SELL) it's greatest pieces of artwork with no more interest that to benefit ourself....
And i'm happy to be a part of one of the pioneer comunities.....
Aqua-Soft..... 
Good for you, smoke! 
In my case, the features I want in my machine can be produced by the apps I've learned to find and use from the community here at Aqua-soft.
Btw, currently I'm using the following:
Originally posted by ߣ@¢kvî©_><@Nov 10 2002, 02:13 AMWell, well, this is getting hot.... I've also purchased Object Desktop, and i was very happy when i got it.... i could do a lot things to my computer look that i was just amazed...
I thing OD is very cool in deed... i don't use WB neither DX, coz i think visual style does a better job... maybe it can't change the butons to the left side... but it surely skin windows more deeply... sometimes i forget i use windows... until an error message pop ups... whoops!! jeje...
I don't regret i purchased OD... i use OB without it... my Pc wouldn't look so OSX-ish... and.. winFX2.. is a little slow in my pc... but is pretty good...
but OD is loosing its strenght since so many really awesome apps are coming out for free... from a comunity... that realy want to share (NOT SELL) it's greatest pieces of artwork with no more interest that to benefit ourself....
And i'm happy to be a part of one of the pioneer comunities.....
Aqua-Soft.....
Just how much deeper does a visual style skin XP over WB 3.41? I fail to see just how much "deeper" it can get. It all depends on the skin.
I have my skins putting a tiled background behind most windows. something that I haven't seen any visual style do especially not in a non theme aware app. And I have it putting a bg behind the special XP tabs. I also have it s
kinning those "spinner" arrows that allow you to adjust numbers in a dialog window. The only thing that WB can't skin at the moment that visual styles can is the sliders such as the ones in the volume control. It also doesn't change the places bar in explorer. But technically neither does a visual style it depends on a dll which you have to distribute with your theme. But both of those are being added to windowblinds and the places skinning will be able to do it without depending on distrubuting a modded dll.
The only thing I can see going against WB is peoples ignorance or listening to people who latch onto the fad of bashing stardock. Or people who tried an early version like on '98 which wasn't made with it in mind and then they fail to see that products can improve especially on a OS like XP that was made with them in mind.
I think it is very ironic that when XP bundles things such as IE\WMP\Cd burning\etc. people cry foul and say they are trying to put the makers of third party alternatives out of business and have a DOJ lawsuit but when they bundle simple skinning they want to hack it to load up other skins and say the third party alternatives suck.
Maybe if you just want to change the bitmaps then visual styles is fine for you. But that doesn't make windowblinds etc. bad products. If you have issues I'm sure you can e-mail stardock and get support. Instead of going around and saying it sucks because you failed to do something. I'm sure they want to pleasetheir customers. they won't say "well it's a free project which I do in my limited time so you can't ask too much of it" or something.
Originally posted by smoke@Nov 9 2002, 11:52 PMEven though it seems hip to not like Windowblinds I still like it. Using windowblinds I can have a mac type skin with the buttons on the left and a rollup button on the right. I'd like to see someone do that with a visual style. Plus especially with 3.4 and above I don't notice any slowdown as a result of using windowblinds. I like how easy it is to make a skin for it because the images are in a folder rather than having to put them in a special file and mess with the ini format and things like that. Also there doesn't seem to be anything I can't do with a WB border where with a visual style you are stuck with just one layout.
I find that people who bash are the ones who don't use said products or didn't give them very much of a chance. I myself did give visual styles a chance but I didn't like how they only fully skin theme aware apps and the buttons *have* to be on the right and there is no built in shading function.
Not only that, but I like objectbar a lot because it lets me have a skinnable menubar and windowfx2 looks pretty cool too. Y'z shadow doesn't have all the transition effects that WindowFX2 has.
Plus with desktopX you can have different sized icons on your desktop than anywhere else. That one is pretty good too especially after they enhance it some more. It can be used for more things other than a glorified dock. Can you do free floating 128 sized icons only on the desktop with Moby\Y'zDock or exploer without making your file manager icons or start panel icons huge? nope.. Can you do free floating clocks\mp3 player\other plugin type objects with the free docks?
nope..
Also, object desktop has some utitilties such as spring folders so I still say it's worth it even with Y'z apps, and mobydock. And no I don't work for stardock. I just have been using their apps (windowblinds in particular) since the beginning, I used windowblinds since before it got aquired by stardock.
But even after all that I don't think I will change anyones minds who already closed their minds to stardock apps because it's fashionable now to put them down no matter how good they really are.
Especially those who are looking for an excuse.. any excuse to hate and get rid of stardock apps. Somehow I think that when someone asks a question like this they already have their mind made up they just want confirmation from others that they *someone* thinks the same thing so they can justify it to themselves. But I still wanted to say *something* about it.
Don't get me wrong though I like Y'z shadow and mobydock but there are still uses for stardock apps especially if you can think outside of a "it's only good if it is free" mentality.
There is also one more thing.. I find that people who get paid for their stuff might want to listen to the users feature requests or things like that more than people who work on free projects. Because you didn't pay for it a lot feel you can't complain if such feature that you want isn't in it. Or since it's a free project you should be thankfull they release it at all.
SMOKE> ---> answers:
regarding the msstyle - i gave a lot of chance to wb and i still dont like it. you know why? ONLY CAUSE I FIND SO MANY APPLIS AND POPUPS AND TOOLBARS unskinned and thats really disapointing me to see a classic win32 window pops up. Msstyle skin the momma of windows. - not all buttons are, but also in mac, not every button is aqua.
though i still keep the credit for wb, that sprung all the win32 skin
ning story.
DesktopX: If you really need to make those floating icons in 128 rez, use desktopX with the Yz and moby docks. DesktopX wasnt even meant to be a dock at all in the first place - but people turend it into one (objectDOCK was suppose to be the real thing, but shh....)... - besides, the real OSX dock doesnt have the ability to make the floating desktop icons either..
nEways, saying quote:"But even after all that I don't think I will change anyones minds who already closed their minds to stardock apps because it's fashionable now to put them down no matter how good they really are.
Especially those who are looking for an excuse.. any excuse to hate and get rid of stardock apps. Somehow I think that when someone asks a question like this they already have their mind made up they just want confirmation from others that they *someone* thinks the same thing so they can justify it to themselves. But I still wanted to say *something* about it."end quote --> is really not fair.. i can say the exact same thing on the people who stay in favour of stardock and say the are old fashion. no need to take things personally.. - i have the same feeling with the people who posted this thread - and thats the way i feel, infact actually many people feel the same.
last thing - I LOVE OBJECTBAR and WFX2 - i use those two ever since and cant have my system run without them. Infact, wfx2 runs FASTER than yz unlike zilions of posts ive seen in many forums in the web saying its opposite.. so dont worry so much smoke, I do know how to appreciate stardock.
take it easy,
Goku
Hi,
When I ask first time, Aqua-man, becomes down. I wann't to piss you, but have anybody the pair of two transition files (.ttt and .tra) that simulate the Genie effect and it can works with nVidia video cards?
Thanks in advance
You'll be disappointed if you purchased the Object Desktop and has a license of updating apps for a year, but in that year there are no updates.
That's what you call "REGRETS"
I think...
-jed
i don't really think so. i mean, i don't think stardock had mac osx emulation in mind when they made these apps. also, there's about a thousand other people that use it for other purposes...
(BTW, i got an OD subscription for free. i emailed brad wardell about something private, and he offered it to me )
Originally posted by Betaguy9000@Nov 10 2002, 08:29 PMi don't really think so. i mean, i don't think stardock had mac osx emulation in mind when they made these apps. also, there's about a thousand other people that use it for other purposes...
(BTW, i got an OD subscription for free. i emailed brad wardell about something private, and he offered it to me
starcock wont admit it, but they DID have it in mind, though not necessaraly planned -> object bar and wfx2 are "accidently" mimicing the furit's GUI. with all the themes that came with those particular applis i mentioned, they seemed to have the osx's themes coming as a default and in wfx2, to keep it as a low profile, they nicked the shadows "DARWIN"...
Im not 100% sure they planned to cover their ass with tons of non-osx themes, but there is no doubt they gave it a big thought (*object dock* hrm! HRM!)..
hey:) i bought their products only cause the taken for granted potential to mimic the osx..
later
ObjectBar is the brainchild of Jeff Bargmann, Creator of MacVision, an app from the early days of Mac OS gui emulation. Stardock bought him out, hired him, and out came ObjectBar.
Then, Jeff produced the now heavily traded, but very illegal ObjectDock.
Trust me when I say that StarDock knows very well that they are skating on thin ice. That's why they pulled ObjectDock and also why they dont make an exact duplicate of Mac OS finder for ObjectBar.
/edit
Forgot something.
DesktopX was once known as VDE. VDE was the first app to emulate the dock for windows. Stardock bought out VDE and it became DesktopX.
For the VDE dock, check out http://pcdesktops.emuunlim.com. Bob hosts the first known Windows Dock that I created.
I emailed stardock and i got this:
"WindowBlinds 3.5 should be coming out within the
next two weeks, and WindowFX 2.01 is being worked on".
hope that can help a lil....
i hope the new wb can skin everything including everything.
Originally posted by judge@Nov 14 2002, 08:19 PMAnd don't forget: WindowBlinds runs on every version of Windows from 98 on. msstyles are XP only.
Who uses W98 still, anyways?
But, this topic is getting quite out of hands. People are making the emulation of windows into war. People. Come on. Go outside. Read a book. I enjoy skinning and emulation as much as the next, but when people start arguing about which is better, and what is a waste of money, its not worth anyones time.
Besides, rip offs? no, I get mine for free (x-mas)
Just putting in my 2 cents...
Edit--
Damn new smilies! 
Originally posted by Goku@Nov 15 2002, 03:26 AMI emailed stardock and i got this:
"WindowBlinds 3.5 should be coming out within the
next two weeks, and WindowFX 2.01 is being worked on".
hope that can help a lil....
i hope the new wb can skin everything including everything.
Agree with Goku. The WB 3.41 are most quickly and less resource eater than others. The Jaguar theme is more good than StyleXP's (titlebar buttons on the left, menu skinning, smooth fonts, all control titles appear completly e. g. Cancel instead of Canc, etc.), but WB suffer by the imposibility to skin all controls (e. g. slider controls, etc). I hope in a complete next version.
It would have been better if Stardock let us know when (exact date) the new version of WB is coming out.
And when the new features come out, who would be the one to make a good OSXJag theme?
Yeah, Definately windows XP would never had look better
If WB 4.0 can skin EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING, then I would be the first one to make a Jaguar skin for it... .....seriously!!!
Siddharth
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