DesktopX 4.0 Pro Beta 1 bug reports
Questions, Complaints, issues
Saturday, November 7, 2009 by Littleboy | Discussion: DesktopX
Update: A new build has been released with some fixes (along with availability of the standard version). Bug reports should now be made in this thread.
DestkopX 4.0 Pro Beta 1 has been released on Impulse.
Zubaz is relaxing on his private island today (he will tell you he's sick, don't believe him!), so here is a thread to post issues.
There is no official changelog yet, but here are a few changes:
- Plugins and data can now be found in "%ProgramData%\Stardock\DesktopX\SDPlugins". If you have custom plugins installed, you will have to manually copy them from the DesktopX folder in Program Files for your objects to work.
- Themes, objects & gadgets are now in Public Documents\Stardock\DesktopX
- DesktopX right-click menu to create new objects
Post anything that looks odd. Make sure to give your system information including your OS (including 32 or 64 bit), Service Pack version and if it's hard to explain (or even if it isn't) a screenshot.
Reply #42 Wednesday, November 11, 2009 6:29 PM
Why all the sudden did the performance meters quit working? I mean memory and drive are still there but when go to choose system performance meter there's nothing in it. All cpu functions don't exist anymore(or anything for that matter), how come?
Reply #43 Thursday, November 12, 2009 12:46 AM
Richard, copy your old plugins into the new plugins folder.
On 7, I get an error in impulse saying that DesktopX Pro isn't compatible with my system. I can't install it!!! Help!!
Reply #44 Thursday, November 12, 2009 10:39 AM
Got rid of update & all plugins are in DX folder but still no cpu meter...When I go to configure system performance meter in performance meters plugin there's no information to configure it's empty except for wizard, novice, advanced & expert..No more meters I guess...
Reply #45 Thursday, November 12, 2009 11:16 AM
When I click Wizard, I get a full list of choices. Want me to send you my plugin?
Reply #46 Thursday, November 12, 2009 4:32 PM
Sidebar gadget export have been removed (since MS has dropped the sidebar in Windows 7 as a failure in Vista and what were sidebar gadgets can now be anywhere . . like objects/widgets/gadgets). One less thing to support so better features can be added.
i know that maybe the sidebar was not used much, however it is still available in 7, should be in the programs fiolder right at the bottom though as you said why stick them to the side when they can be anyware ![]()
Reply #48 Friday, November 13, 2009 11:29 AM
Sidebar in windows 7 is available as a runtime only.
Reply #49 Friday, November 13, 2009 1:11 PM
sViz already sent it to me still didn't work. Ended up repairing windows 7 & it finally started working again..
Reply #51 Friday, December 11, 2009 3:27 PM
I was checcking out DX4 and looking back at some of the bugs, issues I reported years ago: here's one from 2007:
http://www.thomthom.net/blog/2007/08/desktopx-bugs-issues-and-feature-requests/
with some dating as far back as at least 2005: http://www.thomthom.net/storage/software/sd_bugs_issues_features.html
And I see nothing addressed. :/
Reply #52 Friday, December 11, 2009 8:02 PM
It would be great if I'm mistaken! But it seems to me that DX will repeat the sad way of Object Bar in the first half of next year...
Besides I'm sure that Stardock lost their DX Developer Team (or at least - the Main Developers). Otherwise we would not see so ugly update for DX (which we waited so long by the way)... ![]()
Reply #53 Saturday, December 12, 2009 4:38 AM
I was skimming through this thread and forum, but wasn't able to find any changelog. Which I also looked for in the DX folder. Is there any, anywhere?
I haven't been around here at WC for a couple of years now. And I haven't used DX either for a long while. Got some hopes on this new DX4 - but I'm still not sure what to expect. Ithought I read somewhere that DX4 would allow widgets to become user skinable. Is that correct?
But before any new features I'd much more like to see years old outstanding bugs, showstopper bugs, to be fixed.
I remember that there was questions to why DX never got nay widgets more advanced than clendars, clocks etc. And why it wasn't favoured over the HTML+CSS+JS alternatives. I think the reason simply is that DX isn't very developer friendly. Doesn't scale well for larger projects.
With the HTML+CSS+JS powered variants you can code like you do with websites. Even take advantage of existing JS libraries etc. (I'm still puzzled when SD picked VBS as default language - I'd think there are far more people out there with JS experience due to it's usage with websites) And with the alternatives you can dynamically create any objects from skratch.
But with DX you have to pre-build the objects, and even then it's not easy to duplicate and reuse them. For instance, I made a Textbox object in pure DX - but reusing it wasn't easy. Which I find to be a major obsticle of making DX projects that are dynamic and user configurable.
Then you have the issues and bugs I mentioned in my previous posts - never addressed. "Developers, developers, developers" comes to mind here.
IMO, DX hasn't "made it" because of poor object model and developer tools. It works for small stuff like clocks etc, but for more elaborate things it just get too awkward.
Reply #54 Sunday, December 20, 2009 9:55 PM
- Object rotation broken: not fixed
- Objects with running script on exit crashing DX: not fixed
- Object rotation showing the last frame of animated objects: not fixed
- ActiveX controls show through hidden layer after moving parent objects: not fixed
- Size limit for remote pictures (and System.DownloadFile) and crash when viewing properties: not fixed
- Corruption with 8-bit png files: not fixed
- Crash when loading a jpeg with the png extension: not fixed
- Cycles in object parent/owner causing infinite loop/crash: not fixed
- ActiveX cloning problem (parent/child and z-order): not fixed
- Crash on export with high coordinates: not fixed
- Objects with more than 50 custom files crash DesktopX: not fixed
Reply #55 Sunday, December 20, 2009 10:23 PM
Thanks for looking into it!
It seems to be partly fixed in the last build (or might have been ok from the beginning of the DX4 betas and I only tested the script part, I can't remember).
Changing the object rotation through the UI seems to be working correctly, but if you try to change it in script (with Object.Rotation = X), it stills moves the object when rotating it. You can use the test object attached to the "Object rotation showing the last frame of animated objects" bug, it highlights both bugs (rotation + last frame).
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Reply #41 Wednesday, November 11, 2009 3:54 PM
If you make a copy of the old version folder, you can run the old version from there (obviously not at the same time as the 4.0 version). There are a few "hardcoded" (or read from the registry?) paths though, so you will have to copy some folders over to the new version folder.
Ex: if you copied the 3.5 version to DesktopX3, you will need to copy the SDPlugin folder from the DesktopX3 folder to the DesktopX folder (where the 4.0 version is installed) for DX3.5 to pick the plugins.
Also I had it crash on me at one point when loading with desktops & objects extracted with the new version. Clearing the CurrentTheme folder fixed the problem.