kukuX Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 to frogboy, at the start when styles xp was released, u were almost in everythread on the subject (here, ms newsgrps, iebeta etc) trying to knock down styles xp a few notches (i won't saying flaming becoz credit to u, u had carried out the comments on very non-threatening manner). but the reason for ur participations in those threads is very clear - as the promoter of a competing product - definitely not as hobbyist like us. the past couple days however have seen u turning on charm offensive, again entering the threads and trying to obsfucate differences between styles xp and wb. my advise to u is this, instead of spending all these past few days evangalising about wb3 and sowing confusion, just shutdup and go back and try to make WB3 a better product...faster, more compatible and less buggy. u don't see some guy from adaptec making it his duty in life to participate in threads on nero, do u? (i dunno, maybe they dont have the manpower...lol) a lot of us here have tried out wb3 betas and the reason we (or rather I, since i speak for myself only) is that it is buggy and imposes a big overhead on performance. i am not like those worshipping users u have over in your SD ngs who praises every wb release (however incremental) like mana from the skies. in fact, u'll probably learn more from critics than flatters when it comes to improving products. and the reason we stick to styles xp (and by extension the default xp engine) is not because we (or rather again, I :)) are anti-WB or trying to make a statement etc. It is simply common sense, there's not much of a performance hit to pay for making the skins look a bit different. so in conclusion, stop evangelising too much. action speaks louder than words. make wb3 a better product. personally, i would like to see ur prediction regarding more skinning programs come true. nothing sucks like a rampant monopoly. peace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thailer Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 Binary, can we have an updated preview? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binary Posted October 29, 2001 Author Share Posted October 29, 2001 My estimation would be ..... a year, j/k but I am so lazy it would have taken me that long :) But I have been working on it almost all the time, sooooo I estimate about halloweenish, maybe before, maybe after theres still alot to be done with the colours, and some bitmaps. So yeah about halloween (Oct 31st) for those who dont know ;) Right now I'm having alot of trouble with the maximized titlebar, it keeps wanting to be transparent : I'll figure it out soon enough ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binary Posted October 29, 2001 Author Share Posted October 29, 2001 kukux nero is made by ahead ..... n/m I see what you were getting at now :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kukuX Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 Originally posted by Binary kukux nero is made by ahead ..... n/m I see what you were getting at now :) lol....ya glad u understood that analogy. wuz burning some stuff while typing that post, so adaptec/nero example wuz the first thing popped into my head :) btw, ur watercolor theme rocks. better get it done soon ya lazy bum ya :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhopton Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 Hello :) Generally @ you all... 1: I see what Frogboy is saying. He's saying there no point in creating a "StylesXP" section on wincustomize because StylesXP does nothing except patch a dll. He's saying that if anything putting up a "msstlyes" section would infact be more acurate... on this subject all i can say is that this is all a moot point. Your aruging over words. 2: Styles XP is sailing close to the wind with the patching of uxtheme.dll. They are indanger of getting an asswhuppin' by microsoft. For the moment i think they will get away from it. What they've done doesnt harm microsoft, and visa versa. If they start selling/charging for StylesXP (not the builder, purely the hacked dll), then they really are pressing their luck. 3: fileformats in the past have been religiously protected. From what i remember, no-one has sued over it, and I dont think they will in this case. It doesnt mean that they wont change uxtheme etc later on. They have to be careful with that they are doing wrt the .msstyles (and it's associated files). 4: I want to know how StarDock found out all the internal function calls on uxtheme etc. I've done a depends (from vs6.0), and it's exports dont look that interesting. 5: Your comments about the ability to tap-in to the uxtheme.dll are interesting. You claim in your article about the skining capabilityies within XP nativly that you cannot move the close buttons etc. I dont know that you are neccsarily right. From what i can feel and some general other things, the themeing in XP is very powerful, and is ther to let MS change the entire UI easily as each release goes by. How do you implement you moved close/minimise buttons etc in windowblinds? When the user loads a theme that does this, do you disable themeing at the os level and then fall back to your traditional themeing methods? If you wish to answer this off-board, look up my email in my profile. 6: i was on the beta program for XP, and have access to the private groups. Could you tell me the subject of the message so i can go hunt it down? PS: Binary: Your theme rocks. Massivly. I've been thinking about digging up the 2419 build i have here and porting it forward, but you seem to be doing an excellent job. WOW :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frogboy Administrators Posted October 29, 2001 Administrators Share Posted October 29, 2001 re StylesXP. Kuku, if I seemed like I was bashing it, it's probably true I was a bit harsh on it. I was frankly very miffed because we've talked to Thomas (the developer) for months and when it first (key word, first) came out, it was clearly implying it was its own skinning application. It went to some length to imply this. This has since changed which is one reason my views on it has changed. That's one of my reasons we were making sure people were aware it was a patch. It's tough getting flamed. Look how much I get flamed here for instance. It's hard not to flame back. So when people start flaming us saying how much better programmers tgtsoft is because their skinning program was better, it's a bit frustrating. re the topic on the ms forums, it was one of the ones where people were mad at Microsoft for digitally signing themes. It was shortly after they did it. As you know, for most of the beta, you could make your own skins. I think it was 2231 that changed things. That's where we learned what it could and couldn't do. You can move the buttons on the title bar, btw. It's just not clear whether you can move them to the left borders. There's a bunch of common types of skins that one can't create with them. It's not designed as the end all skinning format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PM5K Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 I'm quite sure many of us knew what Style XP was doing just minutes after we first installed it... Also you have to understand sometimes people don't care how something gets done, they just care that it gets done. Also by pointing out that it only patched a dll, it seems like you made an even better name for TGT Soft, because you told everyone that read your article that there was another option for changing the look of Windows, and this new look didn't require a program to be running and eating memory, or having a ton of bugs......... P.S I'm getting tired of seeing a bunch of topics with Frogboy arguing about how WB is better, etc.... Stick to one damn topic already and quit screwing up every other topic with your useless rambling....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Elі Subscriber² Posted October 29, 2001 Subscriber² Share Posted October 29, 2001 Binary your theme looks VERY promising too, is there a place to download a beta of it?, looks like it's gonna rock too. by the way one suggestion can you make the background in folders stay with theme and avoid the theme from removing the user's selected windows sounds and not get them back to XP default sounds? Just two suggestions that will make your theme even better. cant wait to get yours too. Regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ry00n Posted October 29, 2001 Share Posted October 29, 2001 MMMM...WATERCOLOR! It's looking really good Binary...keep it up boi! we need that NOW! lol..take your time :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Binary Posted October 29, 2001 Author Share Posted October 29, 2001 Hi, Thanks again for the comments. I have just figured out how to get min, max, ? and restore buttons to use different bitmaps, its really a no brainer, but even with Style Builder you have to change it manually. I will mention this to TGTSoft and see if they can add it in. You just point it to a different bitmap. I just started rummaging through the ini and xml files, I had only used style builder so I didnt know you could change any of the set bitmaps. Bad news though, by the looks of it, and I've done some tweaking, you cant move where the controls will go. So it looks like were stuck with controls on the right side, unless I have missed something. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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