Slashdot Mirror

You can't do that with Windows or Apple. You get only one and if it sucks, too bad. Buy the next version and hope.

Depending how deep you want to go there are options for the shell and interface. The Windows API is pretty powerful and well documented enabling developers to make a variety of applications. Here is a list of alternative shells for Windows many of which have been around for over a decade. WindowsBlinds is another product that makes installing custom themes and interactive elements a breeze.

Productivity
- Dirkey - Free small utility that enables you to place invisible bookmarks on folders and go back to these bookmarked folders with shortcut key. It runs on startup and can be set to be invisible in your system tray. Works in Explorer and also Open/Save dialogue windows.
- ObjectDock - Free OSX-style dock for your PC!
- Windows Blinds - Skin your OS
- MS Alt-tab Powertoy - Alt-tab across open applications with an thumbnail preview of the open application.

Graphics
- Paint.Net - Free image editing program

Utilities (spam, anti-virus, FTP etc)
- Avast Antivirus - Free and better than AVG

<plug mode=fanboy target=stardock>

</plug>

Remember that Internet access was not too common in older days too, so any list would have been harder to get.

Noticeably one of those lists has styleXP from TGTSoft, which was hated by WindowBlinds and its users--and perhaps also Microsoft--because styleXP used to "hack" system files for its functionality and uses hacked theme files, unlike WB (now styleXP only changes the loaded system file in memory but still uses hacked style DLLs for each style IIRC).

WindowBlinds has that, see bottom left. There's a whole lot of software with that in the Windows Catalog. There were a lot of hoops to jump through, and yes, it costs some money (but you get software back as well as the logo).

It appears that this will do all you ask for (and more!).

I've been a Stardock follower for quite a while now. See, I tried out some of their software quite a while back, and I found a rather nasty bug in their window skinning product, WindowBlinds. So I decided to go report it.

Most companies would simply have acknowledged the bug, maybe offering a simple thank-you. Their response was to give me a registered copy of the software and encourage me to submit more bugs.

(disclaimer: this approach may not work for everyone :-)

Stardock are good. They don't mess their customers around - they might not always do what some of them want, but hey, that's true of any company, and at least they explain why ;-). They go the extra mile to help - almost every member of the company is available on IRC, from the CEO downwards. They have a dedicated community on the Stardock newsgroups and over at WinCustomize, who helped them transition from OS/2 to Windows - people bought Object Desktop subscriptions a year before it was officially out, because they trusted Stardock to deliver.

Heck, they even had a positive cashflow throughout the dot-com era, because they didn't rely on stupid business plans and massive investment. Just on listening to their customers, making a good product and shipping it.

GalCiv is one of those products. It's got a solid AI, and more gameplay than you can shake a stick at. And the price is right. So go get it now.

And no, I don't get paid for this. ;-)

The Apple comes with an actual GUI far superior to Microsoft Windows

bb4win, which mimics the black box look and feel and is even compatible with the many existing black box styles.

While LiteStep (one of the oldest windows shells) mimics the NeXT OS/Window Manager and has thousands of themes (and it's even GPL).

If you use either of these or one of the many other shells (see Shell Extension City) along with WindowBlinds you won't even know you're using Windows (you can even make it look like KDE or OS X if you want).

The point of all this is to say you're not stuck with the Windows interface, the start button, the task bar, the clock, or that annoying grouping feature of the programs menu. And I think MS has even embraced this some-what with an actual entry for "custom user interface" in gpedit.msc (Win2k and XP pro only). ... So stop complaining about the Windows interface.

On the other hand if you were talking about the much complained about "fisher price" interface you can turn all that !@#$! off, albeit in no less then 4 different places (or crack open the regedit).

----------

Well, if you get a copy of WindowBlinds, you can make your Windows 9x/2000/XP system look like Windows 3.1 ! :)

No, it's not. My task bar is two rows high, one for app buttons, one for toolbars. The Start button is on the top row, not the bottom one.

You're right, I missed this case because I never use a stretched-out taskbar. Quick Launch goes over on the side of the screen, single-line taskbar goes at the bottom. In its single-line configuration, the start button is infinitely deep along the screen edges (again, at least in the Luna theme, maybe not in classic).

It has nothing to do with IE. Many applications open windows that way. Part of the problem is that Windows allows this pseudo-maximisation without detecting that the window occupies the full desktop (or maybe almost all of it, with some tolerance) and snapping it into true maximised mode.

True, but I've never seen any app psuedo-maximized other than IE when browsing "bad" (*cough*pr0n*cough*) sites. IE shouldn't allow that, or should allow for some way to programmatically go maximized via script if people must have this feature. (I guess on lower resolution screens, you might have windows that open up covering the entire desktop without being maximized, but XP won't let you run in anything less than 800x600 unless you really force it). Yes, maybe Windows should do some sort of detection on almost-maximized windows. I bet you could write a small app that would do that.

None of this changes the fact that the rounded corners suck from a usability perspective anyway. Some of us tile windows side-by-side when using two versions of the same program on different documents. Your window isn't maximised, but you still have cornering issues.

If you're running tiled, the worst that can happen is you click on the space under the window. However, the rounding of the corners is only a few pixels, so you have to really be mousing for it to hit that. Anyway, if you don't like rounded windows, do something about it (btw, the tgtsoft page has the freely-available uxtheme patcher, so you can patch your uxtheme.dll and use different visual styles without having to buy StyleXP).

It's a great gui program for windows, which does just what you'd expect, it skins the windows interface, all of it. There are hundreds of differnet skins you can get from places like the se. Its not free software, but the trial doesn't seem to expire, you just get a pop-up everytime you boot up or change skins, but an added bonus is it doesn't take up much in the way of system resources, unless your running some gaudy skin with animations everywhere. Some of the skins do have all the bells and whistles crap you seem to be complaining about, but others are very minimalistic. Also many skins have added features, like a clock in the window, winamp controls at the bottom edge of the window, buttons to launch noptepad, browser etc. Another cool feature is the roll up, right clicking on the top bar of a window, or clicking on the first button(roll up, minimize, maximize, close), rolls the window up into the top bar alla macOS. Another cool program that could ad some funcionality is Hoverdesk, the trial expires after 30, and i didn't have the time to completely configure it for myself, but with some time it seemed to me like it could make a really fucntional alternative gui. I know this sounds like a shameless plug, but i really love windowblinds.

Beos has fewer applications, sure, but it also has a consistent interface...

Those two things are related. As soon as you get a real rush of programmers and popularity, you can kiss your consitency goodbye. You're always at the mercy of some idiot who thinks that his "revolutionary new idea" (bitmapped buttons / custom window frame / dark grey on black text) is worth throwing own consitency and ease of use. You just can't win, they outnumber you. Enjoy it while you can.

This change is to remove a bewildering either-or choice that paralyzes many newcomers

this is a very excellent point, new users will arrive with a Gnome / KDE that look very similar... now, they might like some wm or other, or maybe GTK theme or somesuch that looks sexy, or simple or whatever TO THEM, but they arrive at all the (still existing) GNU/Linux Desktop GUI opportunities all the same..

when new users are forced to make the choice that seems somewhat arbitrary (at that point (the beginner, newbie)) that it seems confusing.. more capable users will discover Bonobo and DCOP (and other real fundemental KDE/Gnome differences) in due time.. but why force the issue..? and why make a few icons an issue..? dont like something, well, they can change it.

Further, think of some of the more cluefull (l)users you know with-regards-to their W2K or WXP systems... some of them will take what MS shipped, decide its ugly and change it, with themes, screenies, desktop-backgrounds (whatever) while others will use the standard look-feel.

less cluefull users will encounter a desktop that is farmiliar -- and because they are LESS CAPABLE and DONT UNDERSTAND their 'puter all that much, this IS A GOOD THING - they will not be needlessly alarmed.
While other users, who want to trick out their desktop will still do so...

Another way to think of it is this: a new user chooses "KDE" as the default at installation; will they ever arrive at the Gnome opportunities if they lock themselves and their discovery into the KDE world and vice-versa? What RH is doing is making the 'starting' point as similar as possible - this actually expands the users options in future.

X11 is the equivalent of GDI or Quartz; it doesn't have to enforce GUI semantics. If you want to enforce a "coherent" desktop on top of it, you can impose whatever draconian measures you like. KDE looks quite coherent and standardized to me, for example.

It's a myth, in any case, that Windows or MacOS are any more coherent than, say, KDE. Take a look here for an extensive critique. And you think that the appearance or window management behavior can't be changed on Windows? Think again: Stardock, Litestep, Microsoft PowerToys.

but isn't the fact that video drivers are implemented in userland an architectural problem to begin with?

The video drivers are in the kernel. The drawing and acceleration is in the display server. The toolkit is in the application. It's fast and it's robust. It's what NeXTStep and MacOSX do as well. Where is the "architectural" problem?

Plus, the resources mechanism is absolutely byzantine and needs to be be razed,

Neither Gnome nor KDE use the X11 resource mechanism. They use something much more like Windows. That's actually a shame because the X11 resource mechanism is better.

as well the complex distinctions between server and client (wait, who's the server, who's the client, who has the toolkit?, who's running the window manager? what the fsck is going on?).

Windows, MacOS, and NeXTStep make the same distinction as X11: they have a low-level graphics and windowing component that runs in a display server, and they have a high level toolkit part that runs in a display client.

Altogether, it looks to me like you have a rather outdated notion of what Windows, MacOS, and X11 are. Windows and MacOS have pretty much become like X11 architecturally; they simply lack the well-defined and efficient X11 protocol to support that architecture. On the other hand, X11 toolkits (for better or worse) have become much more like Windows and MacOS toolkits. All three of them have gotten direct rendering and 3D acceleration.

Also, for people running Windows (gotta play warcraft3!) there is this site. The skins work with XP, but if you have 98/2k you can also use them by running Windowblinds. Note that this is commercial software, which is kind of a bummer.

And if you use Windowblinds, you can even get the Eyecandy on Win2K. Skin away!

• WinAMP
• WinZip
• WinRAR
• WindowBlinds (well, it's not "Windows"...)
• WinTV

Then of course there's X-Windowing System...

Unfortunately, none of these are operating systems - they are all software packages and quite distinct from the OS to most people (er, except for WinTV, which is a hardware card). I seriously doubt "Lindows" has a leg to stand on. (I'd have named it something like "WinOnLin" or something else that gets the idea that it's a Windows emulator running on Linux, Lindows is a pretty dumb name... Although I suppose they could argue Lindows = LINux + WinDOWS, but I doubt that'll fly...)

Or you could run a version of XP which has product activation disabled. But really, I don't see a single advantage XP offers over W2K: if you upgrade the messenger, browser, and media player you basically have XP. You can even get the eyecandy skins if you use something like windowblinds.

I really like geoshell and all, but KDE on my windows boxen would be great!

You can always use X11 in Cygwin. To pretty-up and make more useful normal windoze, you can buy a copy of stardock's windowblinds. These guys started out by customizing OS/2's wps (which was easy for them since all they needed to do was extend the OO stuff that already existed). They started their windows product to do the same things, and it took them a bit longer, but they came up with basically what was once oject desktop on OS/2 and more.

Windowblinds

Nope. Can't do pixmap themes (that is, themes where all of the widgets, title-bars, etc have pixmaps, not just flat colors or gradients).
>>>>>
Nope, sorry. Try Window Blinds

Can't do windows with transparent backgrounds.
>>>>>
Wrong again. transparency too. Plus, this is even better than GNOME's transparency. Performance is great. Moving is instananeous, and resizing is only a little worse than KDE-2's without transparency. Plus, you can make any window transparent, play a video, and then put the transparent window over it. The video will by alpha-blended with the window in real time, without ANY flickering or jerking. I tried it with the opacity program web page, and the logo overlaid perfectly over a CNN newfeed. Last I heard, X won't allow *real* transparent windows, where the window underneath can update and the updates will show through. Oh, and all this is on a lowly PII-300 with 256MB of RAM.

Can't do much of the customization that you can do with Gnome.
>>>>>>
Like?

MS has just failed to put in the features that I'm suggesting low-end users turn off.
>>>>>
So, these features are just in my mind? I'm imagining real transparency because its so late at night?

www.windowblinds.com o wait thats not it :D nice if you want to decorate your appartment :D www.windowblinds.net this is it :D www.desktopx.com o wait thats not right either www.desktopx.net here it is

As a long time computer user, starting from a C64/Floppy/300 baud modems to DualP3s/Terrabyte storage/DSL I have migrated and changed the way I interact with GUI's and store my files many times over the years.

Mark Hursts ideas are almost like mine. I will break it down a little as to HD layout then OS.
I have normally have 2 HDs in my system, HDA for my OS's and HDB for my Games and Work. HDA I break down into 4 Paritions.
HDA1 for Win98,
HDA2 for Win2K,
HDA3 for either a Linux dristro or WinXP beta
HDA4 for the swap if im using linux.
HDB1 is 1 parition, normally 3 folders, Games, Work and Emulators. (Im a UAE and Mame freak.)

I dont normally use boot loaders other than Win2k's, If i boot linux i use loadlin, it seems easier for me to maintain. (C:\linux)

Im a big fan of Norton Ghost, using ghost on the paritions, I can restore quickly. As I like to play around with drivers and migrate my HD's to more space. I also burn the .gho files on CDs. If the files are larger than 700 megs, I rar the ghost images and make it self extractable. So I can boot a fresh HD from floppy. I also copy the CD images to the HD, unrar, and ghost from the whole image.

I'm a little more in depth on my HDA1 drive, I use directory names, Apps, GFX, Net, Sound, Utils, Work. I also have the normal windows directories, My Documents, Windows and Temp. Under My Documents I put My Pictures, My Music and Favorites. I then use M$ Tweak UI to point all windows versions on my HD to c:\My documents, C:\My Documents\favorites, etc.. This keeps all my files at hand if im either Win98, Win2K or linux. It makes it easier to keep every file in the same place under ever os. (Example, IE for Win2K and Win98 point to the same favorites, so my bookmarks are the same.)

After I get the basic windows installed (doesnt matter what version). I upgrade the entire installation with the newest patches and drivers. Then register file types for my apps, not windows defaults. Apps include textpad, winzip,winrar,cdrwin,nero,acdsee,winamp,proxomitro n. Windows modifications as x-teq and m$ powertoys.

Now that windows is installed, and apps, I keep a shortcut to a folder NET in c:\net\net on my desktop. This folder c:\net\net keeps shortcuts for all my programs. Even if I reinstall windows, my c:\net\net folder stays. I put a shortcut of my NET folder in my tooltray. I can either alt-tab or click on the tooltray icon (in case my apps are maximized) to have access to my favorite apps. I really dont use the start menu, as it takes longer to get to my commonly used applications.

Microsoft has weened us off Dual pane file managers.(I miss fileman!) This was (IMHO) the hardest thing to get used to in win95 and new versions of windows. Trying to copy files from a file viewed pane, then select the destination folder is slower and has more steps involved. M$ introduced powertoys that included "Copy To and Move To" extensions to windows, that at least helped. I do keep a copy of 2xExplorer for when I need to handle large ammount of files.

The part that actually increased my productivity was the toolbar. Being able to have access to my running applications, instead of alt-tabbing was a nice changed. It also provides a quick visual que on what programs im running. The tooltray also speeds up access to my c:\net\net quick launch folder full of shortcuts.

Drag and Drop, right mouse menus have become standard. I have found that I now drag mp3's onto winamp, and right mouse clicking and enqueing them. My older habit was using playlists for everything. IE didnt have the best right mouse menus, but with IE6, they have the most common menus again. (Using proxomitron and enabling all right mouse clicks also helps)

Now as my Linux GUI, I really use Windows as workstation, and unix as a server and display X back to my windows box. (X-win32 is far the best for this.) But when Im using a unix workstation, I normally install IceWM. IceWM is small, fast and has a toolbar and tooltray. It is highly customizable and can add those extra buttons that come in handy. The windowshade mode which rolls up the window to a bar is very handy. Comes in handy when I need to view multiple load balanced servers at the same time. Also for quick eye-candy, I like the network and cpu meters on the toolbar, dont really need it, but nice to see.

Started to use WinXP beta, and I'm pretty impressed with its Font Smoothing features. Check out some screenshots I made for friends here and here.. The font smoothing works all throught the GUI, notice how the menus are changed.

I spend too much time playing around with new utilities and GUI's for windows. If your interested in modifing your windows GUI, check out Shell City, WindowBlinds, and Litestep.

Have fun!
-Brook

Then the solution is a standardized "skinning" platform. Then Winamp and Netscape could leverage the same skins. Anything like this exist or in the works? You would think Microsoft in all it's glory would have thought it up.

Exactly. Gnome/GTK has this functionality right now under the name "Themes". I believe KDE/Qt has similar functionality. You can get a third party product for Microsoft Windows (WindowBlinds) to accomplish this. The neat thing is that if the software developer uses the standard user interface API, the end user can gain this benefit.

I personally feel it is too bad that the Linux community can't agree to build on one graphical environment.

Yes, Linux needs to grow up and have a single, consistant interface, just like Windows. Look at the many products which accept the need for conformance under Windows. Products like Softimage (example) (though they may have an advantage, being owned by Microsoft for a while), LightWave [6] (example, check out the conforming buttons and tabs), and Kai's Power Tools (example)

Media players naturally conform to the standard Windows look and feel. Winamp led the way. Soon there were competitors like K-Jofol and Sonique which felt that they could make their mp3 players conform even better to Windows GUI standards. RealPlayer quickly followed. Apple realized they couldn't rehash the Macintosh interface for QuickTime, and delivered a version that perfectly matched the Windows standard. Not to be out done, Microsoft released a new version of the Windows Media Player which perfectly complied with the Windows standards for interfaces.

Even the next version of Windows, Windows XP, has been carefully crafted to conform to existing standards. With such strong and unwavering leadership, no one would even think of using an alternate shell or replacing the entire widget set.

Thank you, Microsoft, for getting the world to agree on one graphical environment. Thanks to your efforts to end competition, there is no risk of the Windows platform fragmenting into a pile of inconsistent applications, each making their own rules.

that new interface looks like a skin to me... and yet Microsoft still hasn't thought of a skinnable UI. pretty sad, especially given how ugly the new default look is. ...then again, WindowBlinds is alway an option.

You're thinking of WindowBlinds? Very nice program, and it doesn't suck up system resources either. Combined with shells like Litestep et al, one can make Windows look like anything.

I don't see at all how either Qt, Motif, and GTK+ look any less professional than Windows MFC and the MacOS GUI. Could you please state your reasoning for your beliefs?

The lack of consistancy is my main gripe about these toolkits. Whilst they've certainly come along in leaps and bounds over the last few years, there still remain several areas where components behave in a way that doesn't match the rest of the system.

GTK+ is themeable to the point that you can more or less make it look like anything you want. AFAIK it provides all the relevant widgets that Win MFC does. Win MFC is customizable to what degree? Well, you can change the colours of a few things, if you want.

Sure it provides all the same widgets, I never said it didn't. As for theming, under Windows try Windowblinds. It allows you to change the look and feel of the GUI.

And have you ever tried programming a Windows application without using a GUI builder?

Yup, using direct API calls and resource files. But I can't see why I'd want to when I could use Delphi/C++ Builder instead...

Let me tell you... MFC programming is some of the ugliest programming that I have ever seen. Weird types such as LPSTR, having to call macros like BEGIN_MESSAGE_MAP, etc... make it very ugly and very unintuitive (not to mention hard on the wrists of programmers - why did MS make all their keywords capitalized?).

Very true, MFC sucks which is why I don't use it ever. There's no need to use it though, use the VCL toolkit instead which is much better, and makes programming Windows apps a piece of piss. There's nothing forcing you to use MFC, it's not integral to Windows after all.

Apple, far ahead in design? What are you smoking? Apple hasn't even got preemptive multitasking yet! And when it comes to configuration, it's not good. All I need to make my Windows box look like Mac is either MacVision, or WindowBlinds and WinMac. So there.

Definitions:
XML: Leading the way to make the web a print medium

Not to troll on my first post, but this is kinda dissapointing. Slashdot is always pretty up to date on things relating to *nix and whenever ESR sneezes there's a post about it, however now we find a post about the previous build of Whistler. This was news about 2 months ago, kids. Here's the lowdown.. The build number of the latest build that leaked out is 2257. They introduced actual theming (but still very restricted, nowhere near the level of customization that Windowblinds offers. Should /. users (and or admins.. lets keep the info current shall we) wish to keep up to date, here's a few URLS to keep you busy: http://jotenet.koti.com.pl/ http://betaxtreme.hypermart.net/ and http://www.wininformant.com/ (which is biased as hell but still useful)