but andreasv, you don't trash stardock...

Not that you know of

This is going to an interesting thread when I have a chance to read it all.

lol andreasv, I prefer to believe you don't.(ostritch syndrom I suppose)

moshi: Visual styles have been used as the term for WindowBlinds skins for years now.  It is the term we use for them internally. It is the term other people use. It is a real sore point with me when people think that the term "visual style" should be exclusive to a particular skin format. What makes a .msstyles a visual styles but .UIS not a visual style? There is no logic to it.  Similarly, there are probably people out there who think that only Konfabulator can call their widgets "Widgets" but object to Samurize or DesktopX using the term widget.

You also give away a bit of bias there. You are equating the reaction on Neowin, a site I am very involved with, as a TGT Soft oriented site and WinCustomize, which is actually owned by Stardock, as a WB site.  The latter is true but the former is not.

If I went onto ThemeXP.org or TGT Soft's site, there might be more credence to that.  Besides, one thing you'll note on Neowin WindowBlinds users don't go and attack msstyles or Style XP posts (or if they do, it's very rare).

I think you have to concede that there is a fundamental difference in behavior between WindowBlinds advocates and Style XP advocates. The question is, why?

#12 by AndreasV - 3/24/2004 10:05:56 AM Hey, I use StyleXP - for my alltime favourite skin, XPerience. Also, I consider myself to be quite decent most of the time

OK, so it's settled, there is at least one decent StyleXP user...

What makes me always upset is when they tell lies or attack every newspost at da or neowin with stupid statements. Can't hold it... Even on the GUIOlympics thread.

i agree with frog boy. i was one day, a few months ago , on the MSN gaming zone i was in a lobby talking to a few friends about window blinds. a guy/or gal "i couldnt tell" a stylesxp user started attacking me and WB. calling names and swearing. this person was not only being abuseive but being vulgar and mean...even tho i had done nothing to provoke the attack ...hell i hadent even mentioned stylesxp,

he /or she was quickly removed by a + member. most in the lobby were offended the lamo. he prolly did more damage to stylesxp's reputation than convince anybody to use it .....

these nut cases remind me of those religious zealots that MUST force their misguided view points on others ..they find unknowing impressionable people who would rather than do some thinking for themselves, believe those who yells the loudest. the sad part is that unlike the bible "which is subject to the individuals interpretation" the facts about styles xp verses WB is not negotiatable...if they truely wanted the knowledge they would them selves look at the facts and know the truth......

stylesxp is a cute little "hack" for the lack of a better word . which, if they took the time to study up, could do for free.... WB is infact a true program, built by stardock.

stardock i believe also works with M.S. to better their product. im not sure M.S. would work with a company who distributes prog that distributes a hacked file .......

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I've seen c242 brutally flamed on forums simply for stating facts or simply pointing out the falacy of some user.

There's been so much FUD spread about WindowBlinds by these Style XP "advocates" that some think they're "facts".

Consider these (and I'm sure you've seen these)

claim: "All WindowBlinds skins suck!"

reality: Given that there are thousands of WindowBlinds skins, it's hard to take such a claim seriously. Especially when most of the decent msstyles are also available in WindowBlinds format. And also, amazingly, msstyles peopel are constantly asking for ports of popular WindowBlinds skins.

claim: "WindowBlinds is a memory hog!"

reality: Wbload.exe on my system uses 1.7M

Meanwhile, who knows which of those svchost.exe's is the theme service (I rarely bother to turn mine off because I don't sweat about memory because I understand the concept of virtual memory and know if it ain't being used, it's going to get swapped to disk at some point).

claim: "Style XP uses no additional resources"

reality: It certainly does if you use its config and it includes a service that is always running. And last time I used it for any length it had a small memory leak that added up if you kept your system up long enough:

And I'm not even sure what that thing is supposed to do. I wasn't even running Style XP at the time. Whatever it is, it uses even more memory and handles than WBload.exe uses when its actually running.

claim: "WindowBlinds slows down your system"

reality: Relative to what? Relative to classic? Sure. Relative to running an msstyle? No way. Not unless you're running some incredibly bloated WindowBlinds visual style. For one thing, WindowBlinds uses features in the Radeon and Geforce cards to speed up drawing. If you turn on hyperpaint, you can pretty much eliminate redraws.

Of course, you're lucky to even get those specifics. Most of the time it's just shrieks of "WindowBlinds blows!".  It's just software and yet some people take it like a religion. And I bet there's 50X more WindowBlinds users than Style XP users. It's lucky for them that there isn't a proportional # of WindowBlinds trolls out there. Imagine if every time someone previewed yet another "Hey, it's like 50 other skins out there but with different title bar buttons" someone didn't say "Looks lame, you should get WindowBlinds."

And then there's copyright. Style XP includes as its default skin a MacOS X visual style complete with Apple logo. We don't because we know how Apple feels (we include a Mac classic skin because Apple legal said they didn't have a problem with that as long as it doesn't include the Apple logo).

I'm just glad our other products don't run into this though. Imagine if every time there was a post for Galactic Civilizations some Master of Orion 3 fan or some Space Empries fan trashed the posting for GalCiv? Or if every post on DesktopX had varius Litestep or Samurize advocates come out and say it's crap. I'm not saying that never happens, but it's rare.

Frogboy,

Isn't it time for a couple of WB skins to find it's way into the next Microsoft Plus! pack?

Just a thought

what cracks me up is that THEY are suing YOU. this thread alone is enough evidence to SHUT THEIR COMPANY DOWN.

i'd speak softly and not make my enemies.
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Yea, I don't think things are going quite the way they had hoped in that.

OK now this is funny. Another forum I'm on has yet another fascinating StyleXP topic going. There's so much misinformation being spewed, it's crazy, thought I'd come here for some peace.
I'm trying to explain, again that StyleXP does indeed use resources but it ain't working. >

There's been so much FUD spread about WindowBlinds by these Style XP "advocates" that some think they're "facts".

yeah I love this one :

"the Windowblinds themes add stupid window borders and 15 bazillion buttons so that you can access every possible function of your computer from one freaking window."

15 bazillion eh. I must have missed that particular WB.

it must be that limited edition over comercialized, hyperglossy, turbo powered user, gui/os replacement skin ive heard about ....
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Typical example of totally uninformed not to say stupid people : http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=151509

I think it should be a law that You must be able to handle Your machine first before messing with skinning and using programs.

Look at the 1st answer to that thread: Since when is the uxtheme-patch able to do all the skinning including icons and wallpapers ?

I can only say 2 things after reading this thread. 1)I love WindowBlinds and all the fixin's. And 2)I'm kind to dumb animals.

Ok....3 things.

"the Windowblinds themes add stupid window borders and 15 bazillion buttons so that you can access every possible function of your computer from one freaking window."

And this is a bad thing? Like I said...I'm kind to dumb animals.

From a skinners perspective, one thing that REALLY irks me is the attacks on the skins themselves.
I take that very personally as it's an attack on all the skins really.
My skins may not be the most highly polished, or usuable, but they are Unique and I know the gfx don't suck.
If I wanted a fast, clean, minimal skin, why bother any skinning software at all. XP classic does all that.

Hippy, your skins rock, dude. We all know that

OK, I'm going to take the initiative here to install StyleXP and get down to just how much memory it uses. I have a nifty little program here that will let you drill into a processes details and see exactly which modules are loaded by the process and how much system resources they are using. Once I have the time to do this I'll report back then we'll have some real data to use against these StyleXP zealots..

Until next time...

Yea, the attacks on skins get on my nerves.

I was doing an article today on the history of WindowBlinds skinning. And I firmly believe the msstyles zealots have really done real harm to skinning. I say that because skin authors have become so paranoid about making anything that isn't "minimalistic" because not only will they not be appreciated for being creative and original, they're likely to get flamed by the msstyles militia.

Let me show you some skins from 1999 so you can see what I mean in terms of originality.

 

This is old but when was the last time you saw a skin that tried to look like something other than "Look, it's another generic GUI"? Or at least done reasonably well?

This is from 2000! Sure there's OS skins in here too but look at that Allend Bond skin. Or Dangeruss's skin.

This is from Shoggot. His title bar blade actually rotated (animated) when it was the active window and the blade stretched as you increased the size of the window. I can't even remember the last time someone made a good animated title bar. And it's so easy. It's just frames of animation. Some little glowing effect or SOMETHING other than the usual gradients that everyone seems fixated on.

I believe that the reason for the lack of creativity these days is because of the obsession with downloads combined with fatigue from being flamed by the msstyle kiddies who will look at a skin that took 2 weeks to make and shrug it off "I won't use that crap" simply because it's not Windows Luna (but red) or some skin that looks like a slightly more minimalistic version of Luna.