I wrote an article showing you how to create and export DesktopX widgets/objects so they will work on the Windows Vista Sidebar.  I personally like using the Vista Sidebar on my Vista PC’s, but what if you are on XP, or just don’t like to use the Vista sidebar?  Well, DesktopX can help you there too.  Not only does DesktopX Pro export to Vista sidebar gadgets, it can also export to stand-alone gadgets.  Stand-alone Gadgets will work on any Windows XP/Vista PC regardless if DesktopX is installed or not.  This exporting feature is only available in the Pro version of DesktopX. 

There are several tutorials and guides available on how to create your own objects and widgets with DesktopX.

• WinCustomize Wiki – DesktopX
• WinCustomize Wiki – Tutorials
• DesktopX Step-by-Step Tutorials
• DesktopX Documentation

I’m going to start at the point where your widget or object is created, and ready to be exported.  Widgets and objects created with DesktopX need to have a version of DesktopX installed to use.  The gadgets we are going to export do not require that, and should run on any Vista/XP PC.

When you are in DX Builder mode, just right-click your widget and click “Export”.  The following screens will guide you through creating your gadget.

After the export is done you should have you gadget that you can now use yourself, or distribute to the community with sites like WinCustomize.com.  For more information visit the DesktopX website.

I will be out of the country for the next week, so I will be putting the Icon-A-Day tutorials on hold until next Thursday. Luckily I had found something good to post that should be able to give everyone something to play with while I am MIA.

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

Bringing LaST up to date Months ago I was asked to update the IO Iconpack for MyColors. Since IO is, at its heart, a modified version of the LaST icons, I ended up doing almost all the work need to update the complete LaST icon pack. So this weekend I was able to go through and polish off the rest of it. The result was a brand new, Vista version of LaST Cobalt. There was quite a bit of work that went into this update, so it is not really possible to do a step-by-step tutorial of the update, rather I decided to go through and show a few of the highlights of what went into the update.

Vista User Folders: One of the biggest charges in Vista is the addition of several new User folders, as well as the new User folder structure. Several of the existing folders still worked; My Pictures, My Music, etc. However, I had to go through and create several new icons that are only used in Vista, such as Downloads, and Contacts.

Live Folders: The Live folders were the biggest obstacle in updated this iconpack, since the folder form factor is so non-traditional. So I had to do some tweaks, and I ended up simply creating a version of the Last folder on its side. With a few more tweaks I was able to make the Live folders work, though they obscure a bit more of the thumbnails than I like, but because the folder is translucent it still worked out ok.

Bringing along the rest of our friends: The original LaST icons we designed for a Mac icon contest, and then brought over to 9x, and XP, so it contains many icons that are not used by default in Windows Vista. But since I have all the original icons saved in nice, clean 384x384 PNGs. I was able to create new Vista style icons of even the most obscure Windows 98 icon. I can say that this new pack includes every LaST icon I was able to fit in it.  Even though I stuffed this iconpack with all the LaST icons I could, I there are still many more miscellaneous icons, that I currently have posted over in the Object Dock Library. I will be updating them to the new Vista standard soon.

Wrap Up: Since I created these icons I have learned a great deal, including ways to automate many of the steps required to create sub-packs. I have always wanted to create some other color versions of these icons; Black, Ruby, and such. I am considering putting these together, but I am going to wait to see if people use these. I know they are a bit dated in style. Let me know weather you would like to see a few more LaST Iconpacks, and if so what colors you would like.  About Me: You can find all my skins, tutorials, and articles, on my Wincustomize Homepage, at http:\\mormegil.Wincustomize.com. Questions on icon use and techniques, can be emailed to mormegil@gmail.com. Twitter users can find me with the user name: Mormegil.

Download the LaST 2.0 Iconpack:  Get today's iconpack from the  IconPackager Library. Find all the Icon-A-Day tutorials, and links to the icons and more at the Icon-A-Day 2.0 Index. All Icon-A-Day artwork, copy, and icons, are copyrighted by Paul Boyer © 2008, and may not be used with out express permission.

My original plan we to do a Video tutorial of today's icon, however after I got all the assets together I realized there was nothing particularly difficult. I realized that we can pretty much do today's icons by just tweaking our existing assets. So it looks like our first Tutorial Video will have to wait for a bit, but some videos will be coming along soon. Promise.

Day 14 (Friday, August 22th, 2008)

The Videos Folder Yesterday I mentioned that the Music folder was one of my favorites from the original series. Today we will do one of the icons I was never happy with: the Videos folder. The thing I did not care for on the original Videos folder was the film reel. Luckily I did create a clapper for the Video file, so we have something else to fall back on. So with that said, we are going to ditch the film real for good.

Step 1: Let us start by getting our assets together, and removing the objects that we don't need.  You can see our original Icon-A-Day 1.0, Video file in the line up. Step 2:   Now, just to make sure our basic composition works I move all our original assets together. If we were in a hurry, we could probably use this as our final icon, but we will be doing some tweaks to sexy things up a bit. Step 3: The first thing I want to do is replace the film images with something a bit more colorful Iin order to do this I'm going move the film strip out on its own for a bit. Then, using the same techniques we used on the photos folder, I bring in a new image, duplicate it 3 times, and skew and crop the images to where they fit in the film.   Step 4:   Now I want to change the copy on the clapper. I do this with the standard Text tool, and the Perspective tool. Step 5: Now we we start fixing some things. It looks like we can re-use the shadow on the video file. But we will need to crop it where it hits the back of the folder. I can also use the shadow, for our drop shadow by skewing it and dropping it behind everything. Then I fade it out with the interactive Transparency tool.   Step 6: Now we use shadow and reflection techniques to polish things off, starting with a few new shadows,  Step 7:  Last we finish off the the reflections, starting with the reflections in the folder front, and finishing up with the traditional floor reflection.   Finished Icon:     Here we have our the last of our classic "My" User folders.

Wrap Up: With the Videos folder we come to the end of week 3 of our Icon-A-Day 2.0 tutorials. I'll be back Monday with another User folder, and since we are just about out of the classics we will need to create something new from scratch. About Me: You can find all my skins, tutorials, and articles, on my Wincustomize Homepage, at http:\\mormegil.Wincustomize.com. Questions on icon use and techniques, can be emailed to mormegil@gmail.com. Twitter users can find me with the user name: Mormegil.

Download Videos Folder Icon:  Get today's icon from the Miscellaneous Icons Library. Find all the Icon-A-Day tutorials, and links to the icons and more at the Icon-A-Day 2.0 Index. All Icon-A-Day artwork, copy, and icons, are copyrighted by Paul Boyer © 2008, and may not be used with out express permission.

I have a vision for Object Desktop. I have always had an idealized vision for it.  What stops it from becoming a reality is that my vision involves a lot of work that is not economically feasible.

Part of the problem is that what I think is super cool isn't necessarily what other people think are super cool. 

Let me outline things in Object Desktop that bug me today:

1. I want to see Theme Manager massively updated. I'm not talking about MyColors. I don't want to see MyColors replace Theme Manager. I want people to be able to take a snapshot of their desktop and I want to see MyColors themes that don't use licensed IP include a .suite file option.
2. I want a consistent user experience between all the programs.
3. I want to see TweakVista get a LOT more features so that I can do a lot more surgery on my computer.
4. I want to see more productive features integrated into Object Desktop that extend the OS.
5. I'd like to see DriveScan re-introduced,
6. I'd like to features that extend the windows shell to be more useful but without having to get rid of explorer,
7. I'd like to see Object Package (from the OS/2 version) brought back so that I could press a button, get a big giant .package file and take it to a new machine and press unpackage where it reinstalls all my stuff.
8. I'd like to see features that speed up my system. Why isn't anyone doing anything that can speed up perceived performance of Windows anymore? If I have 2 gigs of RAM, why can't Object Desktop have some feature that better manages the swap file or something like make sure all shell related stuff stays in memory or whatever?
9. I'd like to see a feature that better handles my Windows start up. It's crap right now. I'm not talking about something that lets me kill off stuff that loads up, I mean something that lets me get to my desktop quicker and has an explicit loader for all the other crap that can load later in a low priority state?
10. For that matter, why doesn't Object Desktop have features that make Windows use the priority settings for processes better?
11. I want to see DesktopX re-imagined completely so that I can build fantastic shells and user experiences using .NET, WPF, etc.
12. I want to see cloud computing features integrated into the Windows shell.  If I have multiple computers, on a high speed connection, why should I give a crap where a folder physically resides? Let it invisibly sync everything together. I don't even want to know it's doing it (other than at a technical level). Just make sure I have my stuff wherever.

So why don't we do this? This is where the vision and reality collide.  A lot of the coolest features rarely get used and sell terribly.  Keyboard LaunchPad, for instance, is insanely useful but it's not very popular.  Same with RightClick.

A lot of cool features are hard to market and get people to understand or not be afraid of. 

And a lot of cool feature are simply very difficult to develop and there just aren't a lot of developers capable of making this kind of stuff well at any price.

But the above are some of the things I'd love to see make their way into Object Desktop.