Aqua-Soft ForumsStatus of 1.3
AveDesk 1.3 was actually meant to be released this summer, but - typically for software projects - it's delayed.
Reasons for this delay are pretty obvious: me having less time then expected and lots and lots of new things.
1.3 was meant to be mainly a bugfixing and UI-changing version, but while bugs have been fixed, there are some major changes (again :confused: ).
What can you expect
Here's an overview of the most noticable things that will be featured in AveDesk 1.3:
Eyecandy
More eye-candy! 1.3 features several built-in animations as well as better support for creating animations.
flipping animation in action
closing (aka sucking) animation
Faster, better!
AveDesk 1.3 will have a totally new "rendering engine". Previously, a desklet would have been redrawn totally if something changed, even if only 1 pixel was changed.
Now, only that 1 pixel will be changed, resulting in a less cpu-time consuming application.
Easier to use
This version of avedesk will focus also on a better user-experience. The control panel now includes live-updated thumbnails of all running desklets.
Also new is a much requested theme-browser which shows preview of what the theme looks like when applied.
AveDesk's filetypes will show a thumbnail of their contents: aveinst files, avetheme and avedesklet files.
1.3's new control panel (click to enlarge)
New themebrowser (click to enlarge
Shell thumbnails
Desklet development
Developing desklets will be much much easier. Desklets should still be written in C++, C or Delphi but there is a much more powerfull set of API's:
- Layer-interaction has been added, so you will receive mouse events per layer.
- Desklets can flip over easily.
- 1.3 will come with a controls library.
The controls library will be the biggest change. Most widget applications rely on the developers to create UI-controls to interact with the user. AveDesk now does things differently by offering a complete library of AveControls such as textboxes, scrollbars, dropdownlist, checkboxes, buttons, .... All AveControls are skinnable and look pretty.
Last but not least: pcm is working on a scriptable desklet that is really great. It allows to use all of avedesk 1.3 features, but by declaring an XML file together with Javascript/VBScript.
This desklet will open up desklet development to a larger group of people that aren't able of writing DLLs and find SysStats' MVC-pattern too complex to work with.
Example of AveControls: the button and the droplists are both created with a couple (~5) lines of code
Another example of AveControls: the textfield and the scrollbar are both controls. Notice how the textfields font looks pretty and isn't jagged
A example of a desklet built with pcm's scripter
New Desklets
AveDesk 1.3 will come with lots of new desklets to play with. Planned to be included are: translator, new notes desklet, dictionary, teletext, Google search, and others. The good thing is that they will be, of course, skinnable.
A new desklet
WHEN!!!!
"this is all nice and so, but WHEN will it be released".
That's a difficult question. AveDesk 1.3 will be released when it's done. Kinda a cliché answer, but there's still stuff todo:
- debugging new rendering method
- finishing AveControls library
- creating new show-off desklets together with skins for them
- updating COM implementation (herd)
- more
I am pretty low on time - got lots of university work today, so progress is slow. I'll keep you all updated here.
Andreas
Keep up the great work AndreasV! It's definately an awesome windows program which still occupies my windows desktop