DesktopX Journal: Day 6
Picking a style for the new widgets..
Thursday, March 10, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: DesktopX
In the good old days, the only things that lived on your desktop were icons. Ah, icons. So safe and predictable. Icons, after all, are all static pictures that are typically 32 pixels wide and 32 pixels tall.
When DesktopX 1 was released 5 years ago, a new type of content was added to the Windows desktop - objects. Objects could be any shape or size. And that was great for people who wanted to create their own stuff. But most users want some conformity. In recent years, mini-applications called "widgets" now populate the desktops of many users. And the best widgets tend to follow a consistent style.
For DesktopX 3, Stardock wanted to go with its own, unique look for how the included "widget" content would be done. So we sat down and looked at what was available. Most widgets tend to have a "glassy" look to them. The style we were most influenced by was the "Aero" look from Microsoft's upcoming "Longhorn". But we didn't just want to take the Aero-style. We wanted our DesktopX widgets to have their own distinctive look and feel.
So Scott Tykoski (BoogieBac) and Paul Boyer (Mormegil) came up with "Silica". A crystallized design that is used throughout many of the included DesktopX 3 widgets.
While many of the DesktopX 3 widgets include a user interface for changing the color, they can also have their color changes from their preference dialog. Below you can see an example of the generic properties dialog that every widget gets. 
The second page even lets users assign a hot key for bringing up their widgets or hiding them all (if you're worried about getting your desktop "cluttered" have no fear.
One of the new features of DesktopX 3 is the ease developers can add their own custom preference page to the widget properties page. This is useful on things like Disk space meters where the user might want to display the space free on a particular hard disk.
Obviously, coming up with any particular style for the widgets is tricky. Even picking the right size is important. We had felt that too many DesktopX widgets were far far too big. The Silica widgets tend to be quite small in size. Usability over flash.
Hopefully users will find the design of the Silica widgets to be both aesthetically pleasing and very useful.
Stardock also hopes (And gives permission) for widget authors to freely use the Silica artwork for the creation of DesktopX widgets so that users can look forward to a consistent look and feel for their desktops.
Please login to comment and/or vote for this skin.
Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
- Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums and downloading skins.
- Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
- Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
- It's simple, and FREE!
Reply #1 Friday, March 11, 2005 2:00 PM
Gone back to an Aero style to use them.