Object Desktop: DesktopX 4
Saturday, October 17, 2009 by Frogboy | Discussion: Object Desktop blogs
It’s been awhile since DesktopX got the kind of love it deserved. And with the new Object Desktop in development, it’s getting some love.
First, DesktopX is going back to its roots – desktop eXtension. Specifically, adding objects to the desktop that can be made to do interesting and useful things.
This will have some consequences and opportunities.
On the consequence side, we’re going to pull out features that are rarely used, hard to support, and are just generally not part of the core product. For example, creating system trays. That was something we hacked in years ago that really shouldn’t have been in there. In the early days when there was ObjectBar vs. DesktopX there was the desire to have these two programs be all things to all people. In an age of Windows 2000/XP, we could get away with that. But with XP/Vista/7, you really can’t, particularly in a world populated with the UAC where many many battles take place that users never see.
On the opportunity side, it sets up DesktopX to support new technologies like WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). Picture being able to take an object and apply 3D effects to it even if the object itself is static. There’s a lot of “good stuff” in Windows 7 that we want to make sure DesktopX is positioned to take advantage of.
A big area of change that most people, sadly, won’t notice (though power users might) is the under the cover work to make DesktopX not just work on Windows 7 but actually make use of the “plumbing” of Windows to do things faster, more robustly, and use less memory while doing it.
The target is to have a beta of DesktopX 4 in the next 2 weeks.
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Reply #22 Sunday, October 18, 2009 11:45 PM
So, when ya gonna show me? 
Reply #24 Monday, October 19, 2009 6:03 AM
Reply #26 Tuesday, October 20, 2009 1:43 AM
Reply #27 Tuesday, October 20, 2009 5:22 PM
I for one would gladly give up systray support(never use it) for improved & updated performance meters. Support for multi-core systems and the ability to "see" over 2GB RAM is on my wish list. Temps would be a nice stocking stuffer too.
Edit: .....or is that do-able now but just isn't being done?
Reply #28 Tuesday, October 20, 2009 8:49 PM
I am so full of ...........................................................................love!
Reply #29 Wednesday, October 21, 2009 9:34 AM
Reply #30 Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:09 PM
I would like to see some plugins updated, especially system ressources and the like. Scripting these is so, well, time consuming. 
Thinking of a meter plugin that us changable (bargraphs, colors, fonts) via scripting. That would be great.
Reply #31 Thursday, October 29, 2009 9:09 AM
Reply #33 Thursday, October 29, 2009 11:59 AM
I wonder how close the release is for this now?
Reply #34 Thursday, October 29, 2009 2:06 PM
there are a lot of plugin issues, but i guess my concern now would be if it was all fixed to work 100% with Win7, but not with XP or Vista, that leaves out a TON of people who can make use of the new gadgets.
Reply #35 Thursday, October 29, 2009 2:20 PM
We're going to do Pro betas and standard betas.
Reply #36 Thursday, October 29, 2009 2:29 PM
What about Master Betas? We have a lot of masters here. 
Reply #37 Thursday, October 29, 2009 2:30 PM
Sorry Brad, been hangin' with the Wizard too long...lol.
This is good news, Brad! I love DX!!
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Reply #21 Sunday, October 18, 2009 11:27 PM
very happy to hear dx is getting some lurv......ive only just recently gotten into dx skinning, and im hooked.