The new widget engine on the block...
Redefine GUI with DuroBlend!
Sunday, December 16, 2007 by Latin4567 | Discussion: WinCustomize News
For a long time, DesktopX was the only full-fledged widget engine for Windows. Then along came the copycats: Konfabulator (eventually Yahoo Widgets), that ugly "dashboard thing" available to Mac users, Google Gadgets (a me-too product in response to Yahoo's purchase of Konfabulator, or the other way around... who knows), and finally, Microsoft Gadgets (an 'all your base actually do belong to us and if you don't like it you might as well go hug penguins' product). Thus it would seem that there exists today a myriad of powerful UI products, considering the big companies involved, but the truth is that all of these widget engines are extremely lacking because of one thing... they are just about as developer friendly as a doorknob. Serious software developers who try to re-do the GUI of their software using any of the above widget engines (with maybe one or two partial exceptions) will find themselves locked into an archaic scripting engine with limited features and little to no ability to communicate with existing software solutions. In short, the technology which should have been redefining and revolutionizing user interfaces for years has been kept in the dark. But all this is about to change, because there is a new widget engine on the block, and it goes about things a bit differently then do our client-application-based friends above...
DuroBlend is a one-of-a-kind windows class library which provides software developers and user interface designers with a fast, intuitive, unique, aesthetically stunning and altogether seamless alternative to the bland Windows XP user interface. Not only does DuroBlend work on both XP and Vista, but it also allows developers to integrate some of the advanced user interface capabilities of Windows vista applications on the more popular and generally stable XP operating system. DuroBlend lets developers construct alpha-channel-aware, completely translucent user interfaces comprised mainly of PNG files, and in that sense is essentially an unlocked widget engine. It has all the powerful features of the generic widget engines, like DesktopX and Yahoo Widgets (in fact, DuroBlend has several extra graphical features these engines are lacking), but instead of taking these features and locking them down under a draconian scripting library and enforcing the use of a client .exe file, DuroBlend lets .NET developers access all of its core functions from the IDE of their choice.
Because DuroBlend is a Class Library (a .dll file developers can import into their existing programs), it has a huge advantage over its predecessors. Instead of having to import your existing software into DuroBlend, you can simply import DuroBlend into your existing software! This is a surprisingly novel concept (ignoring Stardock's DirectSkin) in the skinning world, and it is a concept which is much more commonly practiced within the programming community, where add-on components are the status quo, and client-based solutions are shunned or ignored. If you are a developer, and you want to make your xp program look like its running on vista, or if you want to give your vista program an AWESOME GUI, then DuroBlend is for you. If you are a hobbyist programmer or aspiring GUI/UI programmer or designer, then DuroBlend is literally your dream come true. If you are a corporation and want your product to become more marketable, (If the ATI Catalyst Control Panel had been made using DuroBlend, it would probably have been the coolest thing ever made), then DuroBlend was designed for you!
And don't worry, hobbyists... there is a free version for you guys, and a professional edition for the software developers... that way everyone's
happy!
Please visit www.DuroBlend.com for more information.
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Reply #22 Monday, December 17, 2007 9:09 AM
Reply #24 Monday, December 17, 2007 2:57 PM
Latin4567: I am not sure if you are aware, but ATI CCC is developed using Stardock DirectSkin.
Reply #26 Monday, December 17, 2007 3:40 PM
So forgive me if I'm a little confused about how I,as an artist,would go about using this.I have lots of ideas...all beyond my scripting capabilities in DX.
Reply #27 Monday, December 17, 2007 4:12 PM
The joe-user type you are speaking of is the Skinner. You'll find that in the programming community, everyone is TERRIBLE at graphics but knows how to program. DuroBlend is more suited for programmers (understatement). From the programmer's perspective (I have both perspectives.. having first been a skinner and then a programmer), DesktopX seems extremely limited if not completely useless. For programmers, an inability to program stuff in their home-IDE is enough to prevent them from using something. Why Stardock has never simply released an "opened-up" version of dx for the developer community (ignoring impressioncreator, which sort of did this but not in a way that was very marketable... also it was too expensive), is beyond me. Thats essentially why I created DuroBlend. I was used to skinning, but I found that in programming, the technical difficulties of skinning far outweigh the graphical difficulties of creating a skin(which are really trivial). I grew tired of half-assed ui's, and thus devoted my time to a GUI engine which would act as a framework for developing applications which have seamless, adjective, adjective, etcetera ai's.
So yes, it makes a lot of sense that many people at wincustomize would initially view DuroBlend as being somewhat odd, if not oddly framed or plain useless. Its because this is a graphics community... once the programmers start streaming in (heaven help our poor moderation team.. ive seen some pretty crappy interfaces in my life but the stuff the programming community spits out is almost laughable.. though there are some go-betweens such as myself who have achieved relative proficiency in both graphics and programming), things will begin to change.
What is important to note, however, is that DuroBlend is still a fully functional widget engine, and if I felt so inclined, I could make a runtime-based version which would be more similar to dx, and hence, more skinner friendly. If there seems to be a general demand for this, then I will do so, however I was under the impression dx had already filled this niche and that the developer community was more or less untapped thus far.
If anyone knows how to program in .net and thinks they could be of some help programming/contributing to DuroBlend, PLEASE get in touch with me.. right now its just me and I am looking for more developers to bring aboard.
Reply #28 Monday, December 17, 2007 4:18 PM
You raise a good point. I am aware there is a large market in consumer-tinkering with alphablending (dx), but I think there is a more profitable market in software developers buying UI components. I have seen many components which are really only a single button or something ridiculous like that... sell for hundreds of dollars and actually make a lot of money. Its ridiculous, and I intend to get in on some of it
From a more general perspective, I think there would be more people interested in software with a cool interface, then people interested in playing around with their desktop and tinkering with weather objects. Alphablending on the developer/corporate side of things has some huge marketing potential (aka developers can make xp apps that look like their on vista.. that sounds pretty marketable to me) that has gone untapped.
This isn't intended to compete with dx... though I could easily modify it to be very similar to dx and thus compete for the consumer market represented on wincustomize. DuroBlend... is for the programmers.
Reply #29 Monday, December 17, 2007 4:23 PM
Well as an artist, lets pretend for a moment you were working for a software company that decides to integrate DuroBlend technology into one of their apps. They would call you up, have you make some psd's and then they would ask you to export everything as a PNG. From there, the programmers would take over and construct your GUI in code. When you think about it, its a lot like web design. Web designers are valuable because of their ability to (generally) understand things from the code side, and the graphical side. In application development, however, there seems to be a much larger disconnect between the graphics and programming communities.
If skinners were as proficient at programming as most graphic designers are at web design (proportionally), DuroBlend would be heavily adopted by this community.
Reply #30 Monday, December 17, 2007 4:35 PM
Reply #31 Monday, December 17, 2007 4:53 PM
You'd be surprised
Then again I am speaking mostly of the visual basic community, the story may be quite different in other languages/sects, but my general experience has been that good code = bad graphics, vice versa, with several people who are obvious exceptions and are equally proficient at both.
Reply #32 Monday, December 17, 2007 4:54 PM
Reply #33 Monday, December 17, 2007 4:56 PM
lol..
Reply #34 Monday, December 17, 2007 5:09 PM
Visual Basic is really easy to learn (as are most .NET languages). I mean heck I was able to learn it (ask anyone on wc... they can attest to my ... err.. uniqueness) so I'm sure most of the graphic designers here could too if they gave it a try. Microsoft has a free version of Visual Studio available.... Visual Studio Express. I suggest you get the Visual Basic version.
Reply #35 Monday, December 17, 2007 5:17 PM
While I agree the scripting only environment has it's limitations; so, to has your app.
Your library can't be compared equally to DesktopX. It's merely a skinning extension to an already existing development environment...right?
In Order to basically create a program to sell I've got to buy the development environment for how many $100s then shell out $50 to licence your library.
Personally, I'm getting sick of all the bashing on the standard widget's that exist; yes, I do get bored of the same "functionality" but, how many free stand-a-lone apps out there also fall into the same habit? How many .net based calculators, text editors and other stream of similar app's exist? Although at least the can look better now with your app but, if memory serves me correctly there are already components/libraries available for some programming platforms.
Reply #36 Monday, December 17, 2007 5:19 PM
Reply #37 Monday, December 17, 2007 5:32 PM
I think you would be hard pressed to demonstrate that a Duroblend gadget uses less memory than an identical DesktopX gadget. DesktopX has years of memory optimizations and does not require .NET to run.
DuroBlend is more of a development platform. A full-blown library for creating flexible UI applications. But the challenge there is that Microsoft has Windows Presentation Foundation and XAML which compete directly with what Duroblend is trying to do (DuroBlend is effectively an extension to .NET but .NET 3.x adds Microsoft's own answer -- WPF). And it turns out WPF will run on XP.
The key advantage of DesktopX is that artists can make cool stuff without needing a developer. DuroBlend requires a software developer. For example, as a practical matter, could you make a DuroBlend "widget" without Visual Studio? DesktopX doesn't require any development environments and it's all drag and drop for creation.
I just don't think DuroBlend and DesktopX are aiming at the same group of users. DuroBlend is more of a DirectSkin competitor except even there, they are going after different markets as DirectSkin aims for developers who want to simply snap on skinning.
Reply #38 Monday, December 17, 2007 5:42 PM
I would argue that the ATI control panel does look pretty nice. But it is certainly not as visually exciting as it could have been had it used a flexible visual library (such as DuroBlend).
But ATI's priority was robustness and reliability. Their control panel has to work on 100% of their customer machines. What they wanted to do is have their cake and eat it to - develop it using .NET and then apply a custom skin to it. That's what DirectSkin does.
If they had used DuroBlend they would have had to use your library throughout the development process and be dependent on it for the actual functionality of their program.
Moreover, if a non-standard UI for their app was a priority, Duroblend would have to compete with Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation.
That's what Yahoo decided to do: They chose WPF. You would have to make the case why they would choose DuroBlend over Microsoft WPF which has the advantage of being supported by Microsoft, comes with Windows Vista and works on Windows XP, has Expression Blend as a development environment (Sparkle) and a huge developer community.
Even without WPF, you would have to make the case why they should use yours instead of DesktopX. Its SDPlugin architecture would allow them to make their app in .NET still but have the front end use DesktopX which is already a proven technology.
Reply #39 Monday, December 17, 2007 7:38 PM
If WPF really is going to work on xp, then I don't see how I could compete, though I'm sure I'll find a way.
You are correct in your assessment that DuroBlend is a lot more like DirectSkin. I think one way I could survive this is if I made my library cross platform (sigh... more code)
Right now, I see DuroBlend as being a sort of "last big bang" for developer-oriented GUI components. While vista is still less popular then xp, there should be a huge market for making apps look like they are running on vista, on xp, and this is what I intend to take advantage of.
Though microsoft may claim that WPF works on XP, I suspect there may be many compatibility issues... I'd have to see it myself to believe it. In any case, DuroBlend was designed for XP, and should have an advantage in that sense.
And yes the ATI control panel does look nice... I just have this thing for non-alphablended graphics, which is understandable, considering I am the creator of a widget engine.
I think the coolest thing I could possibly do with DuroBlend, would be to make it cross platform, but more then that. I could write a flash actionscript library that could extend DuroBlend apps to work on the web. I think that would give me a rather competitive edge. Yet microsoft does have its silverpoint thing... Still, adobe isn't letting flash die any time soon so I think I would have a slightly better chance if it was me + adobe vs microsoft instead of just me vs microsoft.
I think the best case scenario would be if Vista failed and new re-vamps of xp began circulating... not that this would happen
Another exciting feature I have in the works for DuroBlend, which should make it more able to compete with changing times, is the ability to display gadgets over DirectX applications... aka full screen games. There are two or three existing software solutions which offer this functionality, but they only work in-game. My dream is to make the DuroBlend framework supportable under any operating system, make it able to work over game windows, and even make it work on the web via flash (or even silverpoint).
Even without flash, many of you may have noticed that png's are slowly starting to be rendered correctly (alpha channels in-tact) by modern browsers. The new firefox and the new IE both support translucency via png images. Potentially, I could extend DuroBlend (if I ever made a format that can be replicated under multiple systems) to have a web version written in javascript. Then I could compete with the rest of the AJAX libraries, etc.
But you are right in your assessment that the core desktop version of DuroBlend may have its days numbered. I'd say I have one or two years before I will have to make some sort of switch.
Thanks for your feedback
Reply #40 Monday, December 17, 2007 7:43 PM
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Reply #21 Monday, December 17, 2007 8:30 AM
For those that don't, it basically means that DuroBlend has 10x better support for integrating existing windows controls (buttons, textboxes, non-alphablended things, groupboxes, etc) then does DesktopX, which I believe still uses activex (