The Future of Avedesk

Since Ave has quit development which Future would you want?

Choices(you can choose a multiple)

Ave desk 1.3 is good enough

let Ave at least finish 2.0

make it fully vista compatible

fix all of the bugs 1.3

transfer the development to pcm

-(and maybe make Avescripter fully integrated instead of just a desklet)

release its source code

none/other

in my opinion I want it to let Ave finish 2.0 then further versions will be developed by pcm, also obviously make it fully vista compatible and fix all previous bugs. I wouldn't really want it open source since that will help the other competitors and/or make other people have all the glory

note if you chose none/other please state what else you want

#460934

open source + make fully vista compatible + finish avedesk 2.0

would be very good.

#461012

I'm assuming that number five was ran by PCM first?

I'm kind of not sure of the open source more of a fan of controlled source/project with experienced contributors. Because you know someone will download it, package it and try to pass it off as their creation.

#461030

Open source should be the choice

#461915

I would say finish it make it fully compatible with vista . Yeah like SirSmiley said open source will open up to posers.

#461916

Number 5 wasn't ran by me first. I think it was just a "what if" poll.

Ave and I have talked about avedesk future and wonder if there is a future or not. Seems the "widget" movement has died. Or just seems to be ..... dulled out.. not sure.. Maybe its vista sidebar or everyone going to google or yahoo.. or something else.

And has for AveDesk 2+ future . I got the impression from what I saw that it was far from alpha level. Think is was Andreas tinkering with new approaches to make things better. Not the beta but the other thing that he posted showing the clock has an example an how little resource it used.

#462392

Hi there -

Well, I'd find it great if Ave would find time to go on with development. But I also understand if he - after so many years - wants to go on with something else.

However this might be the reason, why desklet development got a bit stuck: With AveDesk future unsure, making new desklets is tricky/unmotivated.

Also I think AveDesk is more than desklets - unlike Yahoo.

A lot of "new" people still fall for AveDesk without even being interested in desklets - they want the pidl shortcuts and Avetunes (although this is a bit sad, too).

Last but not least - there is just a limited amount of desklets most people really want - and they already do exist for AveDesk. If you look at Yahoo - there are amazing many widgets, but most of them are just copies in different look.

So - to my mind - most people just want their clock, weather, RSS, calculator, etc., but I think would prefer more skins.

My (personal) plans in future desklet development will be (finding enough time assumed - with being in the same situation as pcm at end of August ) changing existing desklets to give them "skins". So you can choose the looks in a dropdown menu and easily make your own by swapping some pics and coordinates.

Not sure how far the "desklet creator" is and if you have time to develop it further - but if it would have "skin support" it would be great.

#462472

Maybe we could make it open source and submit it to a very active company with several active developers like Mozilla (then they'll beat opera's widgets.... mwhahahaha)

#462492

I'm afraid open source just mess it up (my opinion) -

Open source works only if there's someone at the top who decides and steers.

Someone who knows the program inside out...

Otherwise it just splits up into 241 versions of AveDesk or so where x changes that a bit and y this a bit...

And it's for sure not easy finding someone who

a) has the qualities to go on and

is willing to work himself through all the code until he understood the last bit and not just adds a bit there and a bit here until it crashes...

And someone who is that dedicated is hard to find (I think) - especially as it wouldn't be his own work from the start...

By the way - a "company" normally takes money - in this case I'd prefer Ave to get rich...

#462500

Think another poll would be better to know what direction people want would be.

What desklets do you use and would "NEED" if we avedesk 2.0 was a "Rewrite" Ala the demo Ave did.

a) Calendar

RSS

c) Mail Notify

d) Weather

e) Volume Indicator

f) Docking bar/launcher

g) ITunes / WinAmp / FooBar

h) Short-Cuts

What do you think

Also, how many are still actually using the software? I see less than 100 people voted here. And I would say there is about 100 - 200 people at the most using it. If I use the voting done at AveDesk.org

#462510

I think a bunch of people still use it. Just look in the screenshots section over at dA.

#462518

I think a bunch of people still use it. Just look in the screenshots section over at dA.

Infact

#462531

Well - more like 100-200 K people...

I wouldn't count the people who vote - first of all, only a few users are really active in a software forum if they don't have a problem with the program. And only a small part of these will vote.

On the other hand:

AveDesk 1.3 has been uploaded at

- Chip.de about a year ago: 21696 Downloads

- dlc.softwareload.de in February 2007: 58378 Downloads

And (even if bigger ones) these are only 2 German websites... (at softwareload.de overview it even states 63.449 downloads since February, while Yahoo only got 6.628)

Of course these doesn't mean that all of them use AveDesk on a regular base, but worldwide there are quite a lot of them (looking at deskmodded screens AveDesk is one of the most used programs, even if you see only Pidl shortcuts).

A not-even-mainstream-desklet (so I guess less than 10% of all AveScripter users even try it) -released start of the year- got about 6.000 downloads so far...

So much about numbers...

And I didn't do a real recherge, just a minute of goooooogling...

@pcm: a-h!

#462535

My main point is that if you look at the boards here, things seem quite.

And if Ave or myself is going to do any serious programming, we really want to make sure we concentrate on areas that people are going use.

Maybe a thread about "What IF we re-wrote AveDesk" What would you really want!?

Granted I don't follow any other site, this is the only place I read when it comes to avedesk.

#462536

It is rather quiet, here...certainly more quiet than it has been .

I think it's partly a feedback cycle, though--you and Ave do exciting things, which attract people, causing you to do more exciting things, etc. However, if you look at it from another direction, you and Ave (and thewer et. al) only do exciting things if people are around, and it seems like you no longer have any incentive to start.

-NC

#462537

Well, I was hoping that AveScripter would trigger more people to do desklets, but I think the direction I should have taken is to do "specific" desklets and have it skin. "Ala ITUNES"

Its easier to do that than to do avescripter. Scripting has lots of options but also involved lots of "detail" work to make it work. Where if I did a desklets like... Weather with skinning then it much faster and easier for me to create that. But would people create more skins? I got the impression that skins is what people wanted more than "scripting"

#462544

I think iys a kind of catch 22 situation - people will be attracted if avedesk continus to evolve while avedesk folks will evilve the product only if people are interested.

Honestly, i think a lot of persons were tentative over the last 18 months because of threats that this program was going to quit development and a lot of ambuigity yet surrounds this issue.

I think minor updates keeps people interested (even though they don'y really bother to know the areas of change). Its pychological - as they feel interest is being taken and improvements are continuous

Add to that a bug free base engine a detailed help file, centralisation of resources and downloads, a forum that concentartes on the 'help me' posts and you'll have regenerated wholesome interest once more and it won't be quiet around here anymore.

As regards only creating and concentrating on desklets people use - i must say the more gimmicky ones are the ones that create more interest and have a higher novelty factor and are looked forward to.

i must add, enourage the community to contribute in terms of skins - i have seen many similar appz succeeding on account of the vast choice in skins available

Personally i feel avedesk should consolidate, reorganise and then move forward in small steps and fairly assess the results

And as for open source - NO WAY (an anarchist democracy) s

#462545

The resource download was and is suppose to be Avedesk.org. (Which is why i bought the domain) Granted the site needs work and I've had a few people promise and few deliver. I had one person that gave me a site, but after showing it to key people it was put aside hoping for the "promised" versions.

So I wonder, should I spend time a do desklets for single "tasks" (weather/rss/itune/winamp/calendar) with skinning ability and not on scripting engine where only scripters use? Maybe I contributed in the wrong way ?

Open source Avescripter I don't mind. Since it can only be used for avedesk anyhow

And as for Avedesk, its done in C++ I would need to train my c++ skills more, since I'm more Delphi guy (12+ years) and C# (Lately for work)

#462547

pcm hit the nail on the head. Frogboy (don't hurt me! over at Wincustomize had an article last month asking the question if widgets were dead?

Honestly, I thought there might be a slight jump after Vista's release with people seeing the sidebar gadgets & trying to find something equivalent for XP.

My lack of contribution has actually been laziness. Instead of learning a scripting language outright I've just been learning as I go in DesktopX.

As for the skinnable desklet idea, maybe that would work great for AveDesk. Somebody tried it with gadgets over at Wincustomize in an effort to minimize some of the repetitiveness but, it didn't fly so well.

#462557

I think that the widgets are already good enough. I think what should be done is:

For AveDesk

1-Make fully vista compatible and fix all bugs

2-Simplify the interface

3/4-Stand alone widgets

3/4-A WYSIWYG widget creator(both Avedesk and Avescripter)

5-compatibility in other OS

while for AveScripter probably skin able widgets and HTML, XHTML language

#462650

I have been using Avedesk for just about a week, and being a former yahoo wid. user i can say avedesk has so much potential to it. I dont think i ll go back to using yahoo now.Ave is pretier and it seems you guys put a lot of effort to make it what it is today.

I agree with thewer, there are just a few functions the users seek, i am guessing it is all about the variety of skins -and maybe a few original ideas-now. People get bored quickly, unless they are presented something new. Not me, Iam quite loyal:) But I know nothing about coding, scripting, cooking nor driving. so i can be no help there. I have to admit it was a pain in the ass for me to get avedesk started and installing new desklets. I guess thats what you get for being a girl -hmm I don't know, maybe getting ave to start IS kind of hard for an (below) average pc user, and maybe this is a turn off.

Thats about it,thanks for creating ave. I hope you go on for many years to come. I uninstalled yahoo wid, dont make me download it again, i have better things to dl now so good luck!!

#462703

Hi there again -

Actually if people think, AveDesk is alive, I guess it will have a revival soon -

with the new MacOS...

The widget fever has gone back a bit, cause a lot of people just live on hypes...

After widgets came out, everone wanted them to make his PC look like a Mac,

after the first Longhorn screens came out, everyone wanted a sidebar and a visual style just like that,

with the new MacOS - widgets will look a bit different, some new stuff coming out -

people will want it again...

I'm not really a "hypist" or mainstream fan, but I like stylish stuff and AveDesk is just made for that.

Moreover it's useful and resource friendly...

And soon people will crave for it again with the hype coming back - so heads up.

Regarding AveScripter - It was the best contribution you could make.

Think of idiots like me who never will be able to code in a real language...

AveScripter desklets can be modded easily without any development environment - without it there wouldn't have been a lot of new desklets at all.

Making AveScripter desklets skinable is what it needs in my opinion...

So I wouldn't change the concept.

What - maybe - would be great however, would be plugins for AveScripter. E.g. some delphi-dll's that could be integrated by any non-programmer in the desklet to enhance it. A skinning module for example...

What do you think?

#462706

Actually plugin support is already done for avescripter. Look at the OSXVolume desklet. (Which I'll be updating for Vista support, Andreas sent me a link for a fix)

And there is a "partial" skinning ability done with avescripter, but never really been used correctly. I should finish that part and do more desklets.

#462707

Hi -

I know of the support and -as far as I understand it, which as non-programmer is not very far- I think it makes it possible to use it with dll's one finds in the internet. But there aren't too many which are free, useful and well documented...

I was thinking more of maybe special dll's for desklet creators that allow them to e.g. address system ressources more easily... or enhance skinning possibilities...

I don't know - just an idea. So that an AveScripter desklet creator, who can't program could do the real cool stuff...

E.g. an effect-dll that allows to use effectlets with layers

Or do you think it would be easier - if people want that - to "pack" it in an AveScripter command instead of a dll?

I had the idea because I think e.g. DesktopX is using this method to let scripters create widgets that show the SysTray etc. (I'm not a DesktopX user, so I don't know for sure, but I did a quick research once in such a widget, cause I was noisy how they do it - so that's how I think it works)

#462710

Effectlets with layers sounds really cool.

Not sure what you mean about DesktopX. I have Pro version. They do include the plugin dll's if you use them but, most of the developers use scripting that doesn't require that just like AveScripter. You really can't do much with the tray icon and I think it's possible to do somethings with the AveDesk tray icon???

From the skinning perspective, don't know if you're familiar with Xion but, that's one easy way to make skins directly from a PS file. Did a search for programming information on how to do this but, haven't found much. Actually, I think that's planned for WindowBlinds?

#462712