Why WindowBlinds over msstyles?


Recommended Posts

I acknowledge WB is superior to msstyles in regards to features and such, but, I'm curious, when I decided to give it a whirl, it seemed to crunch up about 10 to 15% in the processer usage department when I was working away (hardly anything when left idle), and seemed just.. slower, more sluggish. I'm not trying to join the league of retards who flame WB at some desperate stab at sounding computer savvy, I'm actually wanting someone to convince me otherwise! I can see major faults with msstyles, it's got a good chance of being wiped out (at least the current method of disabling the security authetication) with SP1, the msstyles files are freakin' huge, depending on the quality and size of theme it tends to take a chunk of system resources down with it via svchost, the list goes on.

Is WB faster? Is WB more stable? Are the features WB offer worth it? Is there an exciting future for WB? Post your opinion please!

Thanks in advance!

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

well , in style xp does it have a start bar that has swimming fish in it?

no!

WB offers more fetures and doesn't require you to pay.

the skins look more pollished in WB any way :)

And my WB doesn't suffer from Retardation (oppisite of acceleration, slowing down) which is a good thing :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Firstly, speed. WB skins tend to be a bit slower than some msstyles themes. This is because they do more. They have wider borders, or use dynamic alpha-blending, or are just badly optimised (people tend to stretch all the time, which isn't very efficient). The UIS1 format solves many of these problems (it actually tests out to being 2/3 as fast as Windows *classic*, which is a pretty good achievement), but isn't widely used yet because it shares many limitations with msstyles, and skinners want the flexibility that comes with UIS2.

UIS2 has variable border sizes. It skins menus - background, items and borders. It has animation support (not just the titlebar - taskbar/normal buttons and menu items are included). Both UIS2 and UIS1 share many highly flexible titlebar buttons - fancy a rollup button? Always on top? Anywhere you want? You can also do some really nifty things with UIS2 scripting - I have an expanding button tray. The big thing for users is skin colouring - want a dark green skin? You can have it - just select the colour, and WB will dynamically colour the skin with no performance drop in use. That's one reason why WB skins are so small - authors don't *need* to distribute separate colours, just the skin and the highly-compressible colour masks.

I'd say the "exciting future" bit is certainly more true for WB than for msstyles. I doubt you're going to see an update to msstyles until the next version of Windows . . . and, of course, you'll have to *have* that version to use it. WB has regular updates where new features are added, including new features requested by skinners and users. You can actually go into IRC and talk with the developers. Even from 3.0 to now we've seen IE scrollbar and button support, gamma adjustment, per-pixel alpha for just about every object and start panel logoff/shutdown buttons added.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by nomis_nehc

no meaning of rudeness but, greenreaper, you work for stardock?

reading your other posts seems to give this indication, hehe... or maybe it's just me.

Nope. I don't work for Stardock. I just hang around their IRC channel harrasing their developers. ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

* Running the same exact skin, WindowBlinds is faster. If that skin has been done as a UIS1 skin (and ALL msstyles skins can be done as UIS1) then WindowBlinds draws about twice as fast.

* WB can skin a lot more

* The skins can do a lot more

* For $20 you get a lot more than just a skin/wallpaper selection program. ;)

* WB uses less memory and resources

* WB is hardware accelerated

* WB will continue to be enhanced and gets improved in real time, msstyles are stuck where they are (when was the last time Active desktop was improved?)

* WB works on all versions of Windows.

* WB has a LOT more support from third parties.

* WB is approved and certified for use by Microsoft whereas third party msstyles may stop working with the next fix pack and very likely to stop working with Longhorn.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.