rabidrobot

Reply to Anyone have any ideas for this. in Community WinCustomize Forums

I've never used Outlook or Outlook Express, but when a program keeps putting itself in the startup or making itself default the first place I look is in the programs Options or Preferences. Often there is a setting there that'll be "Make Firefox Your Default Browser and Perform This Check on Every Startup" type thing. You might dig through whatever preferences OE has, and see if it isn't actually set to be behaving this way.

Reply to Does not appear to be a valid desktop x package?? in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

Sounds like they are not Widgets, but rather Gadgets. If the author does not make it clear in their description that the object is a Gadget, this is the usual way you'll find that out. Widgets are meant to work alongside DesktopX, and as you know, can be imported and modified. Gadgets are stand-alone and cannot be reimported into DX.

Reply to New Forums on WinCustomize.com! in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

I see that the new layout is not as forgiving of "oversized" user-icons.

Reply to Hillary-ous! in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Pumakitten57, yes let us set aside these silly differences of opinion. I would like to point out that the "plays in the sticks" line is a Simpsons reference, and no personal comment about you or where you live was intended. On the contrary. I grew up in Arkansas, and perhaps that's why, after having opportunities on two occassions to shake Bill Clinton's hand (when he was Governor), I am both a fervent Clintonian, and sympathetic to the "heartland". Whi

Reply to Hillary-ous! in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

This may come as a bit of a shock if you get your news from Bill O'Reilly (falafel!) or Rush Limbaugh (too easy!) but Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 . You might want to read that again; I can rephrase if it is unclear. The selfless nobility of our servicemen is unquestioned, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your service. But I fail to see what admiring our troops has to do with supporting the "elected" Commander-in-Chief. On the contrary, o

Reply to Aero Diamond in Personal Computing WinCustomize Forums

http://www.msblog.org/?p=731

Reply to Top Ten Windows Vista Hits & Misses in WinCustomize News WinCustomize Forums

Hmm. Hits for me include the new framework. A miss in my opinion are underuse by the OS of that framework. The Aero style, for example, is bitmap based, and it really should be XAML vectors (again my ignorant opinion). The biggest miss for me was that MSIE crashes if I don't run it as an administrator - a particular pain in the ass with Vista. And, since many of the default desktop and start menu icons open IE, I was experiencing a lot of freezes. People said update Jav

Reply to Scripting question in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

CerebroJD set up a wiki just last week. http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/DesktopX The "Includes" article is by me!

Reply to Hillary-ous! in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Could you even imagine what this country would be like if she actually made it??? Oh man. That was hi-larious! I didn't watch the flash, not past the Hillary as lounge act first frame. But it is side-splitting to consider what things might be like if she were president. Like, oh man, get this, if she learned anything fro

Reply to DX in Stardock Support General WinCustomize Forums

I adapted the Get Free Space sample from over at w3Schools . It works for me. Here is a sample where I successfully polled the free space on my C: drive. Option Explicit 'Called when the script is executed Sub Object_OnScriptEnter End Sub Sub Object_OnL

Reply to What IRC client is everyone using? in Personal Computing WinCustomize Forums

Chatzilla , a Firefox extension, works great for me, and is stylable through CSS.

Reply to Will Vista increase demand for skinning? in OS Customization WinCustomize Forums

Will Vista increase the demand for skinning? I believe yes. But we may have to rethink "skinning". The new .Net3.0, with its separation of design and behavior logic, is by its very design meant to be not only customizable, but more accessible to both designers and coders. XAML, the XML based language that the new .Net3.0 apps use to define their GUI, is mind-bogglingly powerful, yet simple enough to read and know what is being described. That is, if designers feel the ne

Reply to Any way to create/modify zip files? in DesktopX Stardock Forums

XZip is a free "component" dll that provides easy basic zip access from script. I used it to extract and create bootskin archives with Bootskin Buddy . There are examples on how to use XZip at the download site. But here's a couple handy snippets for registering and unregistering the dll silently from your widget or gadget:

Reply to Hmm Need help with this. in Skinning WinCustomize Forums

I think Zubaz is on the right track. If this is a DX project, and not just an animation, you could split it up. As Zubaz suggests, a spill-over type animation to always be at the top. A static "pot" at the bottom. In between pot and spill-over you could have an animation simulating upward flow in a column. If this animation of flow is formed as a column of uniform height, with graphic bits moving upward each frame, you could then simply set a DX object to show the animat

Reply to Hard Drive Activity Light in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

The meter method can also monitor partition activity if one selects the Logical Disk Performance Object, %Disk Time, and your partition on the right. I am unfamiliar with how DX handles these meters. Is there a way to access the values, or can we only display the graphs available by default? If the values can be accessed from a script, a closer approximation to an activity light could be made. Judge averages the percentage over a period of time, and returns values analago

Reply to Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awincustomize.com+sparkle+avalon

Reply to Flash object in DesktopX with transparency to reveal desktop in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

I have not personally experimented with the Flash player control. I don't know anything about Flash. Can you have transparency in flash? I dunno. You can, though, have transparency with some of the ActiveX controls. There is a trick to it though. First, the ActiveX control must be a Child of another Object. The ActiveX control must have a parent defined, and also be set as a Child "Yes". Once that is done you can adjust the ActiveX control's transparency in whatever m

Reply to Group Therapy and Family Counciling in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

I know the plug-ins and ActiveX controls for DesktopX were intended to make certain tasks much easier. Such as the DXPlayer plug in can make it easy to create a very simple control that will work with any of several different applications. But, and I speak only from my own experience as an experimenter in skinning, the Plug-Ins and to a lesser extent the ActiveX controls are, well, crap. For example, the DXPlayer plug-in. This is a neat idea. Most media player apps have

Reply to WB Border z-order problems in Object Desktop WinCustomize Forums

The OS will then paint the normal semi transparent window over the always on top semi-transparent window. This is incorrect and the app has no idea that it has happened. If a theoretical application was aware that layered windows were being drawn in an incorrect z-order, could it take steps to remedy the problem? I mean, co

Reply to Need a little more help with script in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

DesktopX uses the PNG format for transparency. I guess it might also accept the "magic pink" trick with bitmaps, but that is an old workaround, and PNGs are the way to go. MSPaint will save as PNG, and I'd wager Paint.Net will also. I haven't used either much, but with my graphics program I create an empty canvas with a "transparent" background. Then I can create my image using varying lavels of transparency via the tools my app provides (Fireworks has all sorts of places one can a

Reply to Need a little more help with script in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

werewolf, the link works for me in firefox. But I am logged in and the link I gave was to a page on my "personal site" which have been having issues with the site makeover. Here is a link to the widget on a normal gallery page: https://www.wincustomize.com/ViewSkin.aspx?SID=1&SkinID=632&LibID=34&comments=1 BDBF, I only linked to that Enterprise page because that is the only place I am aware of that has documentation links all together. It's been a while sine I tested thos

Reply to Need a little more help with script in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

I don't know why I was only able to find a page of links like that for the Enterprise edition, but all that info applieas to all versions (except Gadget stuff is Pro only). The enterprise edition costs thousands of dollars, I believe, and is for companies who want to make whole executable desktops (for example). But the Pro version is only like $80, and the normal standard version (aounds like what you have) is great too. So, while that page mentions Enterprise edition,

Reply to Need a little more help with script in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

Another link, to a thread where RomanDA and CerebroJD, et al, firgure out a shorthand for setting font attributes for non-activeX text objects: http://forums.desktopgadgets.com/index.aspx?ForumID=276&AID=91958

Reply to Need a little more help with script in DesktopX WinCustomize Forums

Hey again! vbscript with the FileSystemObject has powerful tools for creating and manipulating text files. Using string and array manipulation you should be able to easily split your edit control content for writing to a text file. Here is a page of links to several examples; you'll have to pick and choose which bits you need for your project: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/scripts/misc/text/default.mspx DesktopX and vbscript also have easy file save a

Reply to Is it possible in WindowBlinds WinCustomize Forums

Heh heh, I've been here. Taking note of what is showing when you open the config window is a good way, but many times I apply a new skin without ever opening the config. I launch the .wba file right from my download manager, and WB pops up a notice over SysTray when it has been "installed". I can click on that notice and it will apply the skin without me ever seeing the config window (which can be dangerous, because it keeps any recolor settings you have applied to current blind).