DesktopX 2.2 arrives: Widgets & Objects & Themes! Oh my!

Monday, August 23, 2004 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News

DesktopX is a program that adds all kinds of features to your Windows desktop. And it would take way too long to list down all the incredible things it can do.  So in a nutshell it does 3 things:

1) You can put mini-applications called "Widgets" on your desktop. Think of widgets as being tiny desktop level utilities that don't have the overhead of a standa lone program. And better yet, these widgets can be irregularly shaped and support alpha blended edges.  Windows Media Player could be a DesktopX widget (for instance). Well, except if it were a DestopX widget it could support shadows and alpha blended (no jaggies) on its edges.

Example of DesktopX widgets: Screenshot

2) You can have what amounts to animated icons on your desktop via DesktopX objects.  So when you put your mouse over them, they can animate or they might walk back and forth around your desktop. Or they might play a sound or spin around or do all kinds of other things. 

Example of DesktopX objects in action: Screenshot, Video

3) Building entire desktops. This is where you combine the power of DesktopX objects and widgets to build a whole new shell environment for Windows.

Example of a DesktopX theme in action: Screenshot

There are 3 sections for DesktopX here on WinCustomize. One for objects, one for widgets, and one for themes.

If you've tried DesktopX in the past but don't use it now, try out this new version, it's a whole new ballgame. 

Stardock's new game, The Political Machine, was developed in part with DesktopX 2.2 (this is the game that was featured in Time Magazine last week).  DesktopX has also been seen in various movies providing those fake computer screens. 

DesktopX is part of Stardock's Object Desktop suite of Windows extension utilities. Object Desktop includes WindowBlinds, ObjectBar, IconPackager, Keyboard LaunchPad, IconDeveloper, SkinStudio, DesktopX, and much more.

You can also get DesktopX on its own at http://www.desktopx.net.

See full list of changes here.

43 Reply 6 Referrals
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department27
Reply #21 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 2:53 AM
After uninstalling both desktopx and iconx, and deleting hte relavant directories, rebooting and then reinstalling I still had the problem.

Very strange.Did notice that when I looked at the files i.e desktop.exe the time stamp said february 2004. Gave up and went to bed.

Tried again this mornign and it worked. Now have v2.2 working.

nocool
Reply #22 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 4:29 AM
All that needs to be done to DX now is to be able to use the show desktop button without it removing all DX content of my screen. Been waiting many years for that feature.

Skryme
Reply #23 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 5:07 AM
I uninstalled version 2.19 and then tried to download via SDC that new 2.20.024 but everytime coming installation error!!Other updates works ,only desktopX not!

Enzyme
Reply #24 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 5:44 AM
Like Skryme, I'm also getting an error trying to download via SDC, interestingly it shows 2.20.026, NOT 024:

Download: C:\Program Files\Stardock\SDCentral\temp\dx.sdc 0 (attemp: 1, The Url is invalid, code: -14)

Mebion
Reply #25 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 6:04 AM
Problems galore with 2.2! Installation fails with dx.sdc 0 (The url is invalid, code:-14). Uninstalled previous version and tried again - same problem. Now I can't even restore archive as it can't find files or being used by another application. Icon X seems to be working OK.

department27
Reply #26 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 7:34 AM
Another interesting bug/feature, if you use stardock central and look at the history of desktopx all it babbles about is the beta's. Last entry is info on 2.19p. Although it says I have 2.20.024. Well I hope that is what I have, it seems to works -)

Skryme
Reply #27 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 7:35 AM
Hi Enzyme and Mebion! I tried to install it maybe 15 times and after that at least SDC downloaded it correctly,now 2.2 works!So,try again!

_Martin_
Reply #28 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 7:43 AM
No problems whatsoever updating here

Mebion
Reply #29 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 8:14 AM
Thank you Skryme! It seemed to be upset with trayserver.exe and clicking on this cleared the logjam. 2.19 loaded and I was able to upgrade to 2.20.026

Robyn Henke
Reply #30 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 8:27 AM
"Download: C:\Program Files\Stardock\SDCentral\temp\dx.sdc 0 (attemp: 1, The Url is invalid, code: -14)" Same problem I am getting also. It seems strange to me.... I have uninstalled, re-installed numerous times and nothing seems to work. At one point, I thought I had it and tried running a widget and got a message saying that "It appears you do not have DesktopX installed on this machine...." when I clearly did..... All I read is how great this new version is and all I am having is problems. It irks me that the more experienced ones usually reply to these strings with "No problems whatsoever updating here" or "I just tried a bunch of themes and it's working fine." With the wide variety of machines and configurations out 'there', I would think more testing would be done before a version is put out there. I really was interested in using DesktopX because a lot of the widgets look really cool, but, I guess I won't because of the hassle it is trying to get these programs to work on my machine.

Castle
Reply #31 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 8:32 AM
I only see 2.20.24 in SDC?
I tried uninstalling DesktopX and IconX, rebooting and reinstalling both. IconX integrates with DesktopX and I still lose all my IconX settings. I reset everything, rebooted and my desktop icon size is back to 32 with black labels.....yuck. Back to 2.1 for me

Mebion
Reply #32 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 8:54 AM
Perhaps someone would be good enough to tell us what this "dx.sdc 0 ..... code:- 14" is all about?

department27
Reply #33 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 9:20 AM
Another question is how come some people see version 2.20.024 and others 2.20.026...!!???? >

Frogboy
Reply #34 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 9:33 AM

2.20.24 is the latest version.


As for IconX, you need to make sure you install IconX 1.0 from SDC.


Castle
Reply #35 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 10:03 AM
Frogboy,
I did and icons revert to a visually unattractive default no matter what I do until I unload or uninstall DX 2.2 and use IconX on it's own.

Frogboy
Reply #36 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 11:46 AM
By default do you mean the IconX default or the Windows default?

Castle
Reply #37 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 1:04 PM
It appears to be the IconX default but only when DX 2.2 is loaded. If I unload DX 2.2 then it reverts back to what I set. When I reload DX 2.2 the IconX system tray icon disappears. The IconX config settings show up in DesktopX again and all icons are back to 32x32 with thin black text.

[email protected]
Reply #38 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 3:12 PM
I've found and corrected the issue that was causing the -14 URL errors for some people. Should that turn up in the future, flip the server you are using in Tools / Settings / Internet to the other one. But it should be ok now.

Will Rose
Reply #39 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 3:55 PM
IconX transitions (state changes between mouseover/mouseaway) seem to be broken in 1.00a. It doesn't properly respect the icon size or offset specified in the configuration dialog. For example, the mouseover transition occurs when you mouseover the area the mouseover icon would cover if it were visible (but it's not, yet). The transition should occur when you are over the area covered by the mouseaway icon. To see this, set your mouseaway size to 32, and your mouseover size to something like 256. Now move your mouse towards the icon. It will zoom before you get anywhere near it. This worked fine in 0.99b

Are others seeing this too, or am I uniquely blessed?

Will Rose
Reply #40 Tuesday, August 24, 2004 5:10 PM
Following up on my previous post, I finally managed to downgrade to 0.99 (although the archive said 0.95) and it seems to be working the same way with large icons as it does in 1.0. Isn't this still incorrect behavior, though? It basically makes "zoomer" type IconX icons unuseable.

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