The Desktop Pet arrives!
A fun diversion for your family and friends!
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Just in time for Christmas, Stardock has released the Desktop Pet. The Desktop Pet lives on your Windows XP desktop. He will interact with various included desktop objects. A sophisticated artificial intelligence engine helps bring him to life by giving him needs such as hunger, sleep, boredom, and even (ahem) the need to take a potty break.
Users can set the various included desktop objects to be automated or take care of the feeding and cleaning up on their own. It also includes options for muting sound, pausing, and unloading. The pet is saved to disk regularly so that if you close it or reboot he will be back to where he left off when you bring him back up again.
Stardock hopes to keep updating the pet after release to keep adding new behaviors, additional objects, and new habits to help keep the experience fresh and to respond to customer input. The Desktop Pet is a fun $10 diversion and makes a great stocking stuffer for the computer user in your family.
The home page for the Desktop Pet is https://www.stardock.com/products/desktoppet
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Edivion
Reply #22 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:00 PM
Reply #22 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:00 PM
Hey everyone i want to play but everytime i go over the items it dissapears?? Any idea!! Thanks
GreenReaper
Reply #23 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:02 PM
Reply #23 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:02 PM
Mr Edivion: That's an odd one. Are you using Winkey+D or Show Desktop to go to the desktop? That can interfere with it because of how DesktopX (and explorer's Show Desktop) works. If that's the problem, try Winkey+M instead.
Jeff T
Reply #24 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:09 PM
Reply #24 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:09 PM
Mr Edivion: I am having the same problem...
Don't quite know what Winkey+D is GreenReaper...
I have sent a report of this to [email protected]
I will report any solutions...
The Pet is still really cool..
Don't quite know what Winkey+D is GreenReaper...
I have sent a report of this to [email protected]
I will report any solutions...
The Pet is still really cool..
GreenReaper
Reply #25 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:49 PM
Reply #25 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:49 PM
It's when you press the windows key and D at the same time to show the desktop. The trouble is, the way Explorer does this is just to put the desktop background window on top of everything else . . . including DesktopX's destkop. 
GreenReaper
Reply #26 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:50 PM
Reply #26 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:50 PM
Also, when you say "it", what do you mean? The cursor? The object?
If the cursor, do you have any cursor-modifying software installed? You could try renaming the hand.cur file in the DesktopPet\SDPlugins folder to Hand.cur.bak and see if that helps.
If the cursor, do you have any cursor-modifying software installed? You could try renaming the hand.cur file in the DesktopPet\SDPlugins folder to Hand.cur.bak and see if that helps.
GreenReaper
Reply #28 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 1:14 PM
Reply #28 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 1:14 PM
c242 (who initially posted more than ...): I personally passed your recent note on the newsgroups on to the project manager. They are read. The simple fact is that the best developers are doing the most programs, because they are the most productive. However, even they can only focus on one program for a specific period of development, or nothing gets done.
It is not (in general) practical to pass these projects on to other people, because it would take them time in learning the program that would be better spent on doing original work of their own (quite apart from legal restrictions due to our historical development model).
I believe ThinkSync and ThinkDesk products in general will get more attention after Christmas. I agree that Rightclick has been left too long. Again, this is because the main developer of it has been doing other things. But if there is no news, then what point is there in not posting about other things that are in development?
As for ToonXP . . . well, if people still buy it and enjoy it, is there a problem? It would be nice if they were updated, but the artist responsible has their hands full with GalCiv2, and that games has a fixed ship date. Alas, there are only so many hours in the day for people to do things.
It is not (in general) practical to pass these projects on to other people, because it would take them time in learning the program that would be better spent on doing original work of their own (quite apart from legal restrictions due to our historical development model).
I believe ThinkSync and ThinkDesk products in general will get more attention after Christmas. I agree that Rightclick has been left too long. Again, this is because the main developer of it has been doing other things. But if there is no news, then what point is there in not posting about other things that are in development?
As for ToonXP . . . well, if people still buy it and enjoy it, is there a problem? It would be nice if they were updated, but the artist responsible has their hands full with GalCiv2, and that games has a fixed ship date. Alas, there are only so many hours in the day for people to do things.
GreenReaper
Reply #29 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 1:44 PM
Reply #29 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 1:44 PM
darksmiler: It is standalone. It uses DesktopX Professional - it's a great example of just how far you can take a gadget, if you want to. We want to do more characters and items as well, but as I mentioned above, we have limisted resources . . . we have to make sure there's a market for upgrades and addons first, so get your friends to grab a copy and we'll see what happens. 
Digital3000
Reply #30 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:03 PM
Reply #30 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:03 PM
This is a great app with unlimited potential, I do hope there's more to come this could turn out to be one of those never-ending app's. Add-on Toys, Characters.. There's lots that can be added...
One thing i've noticed though, when you close the app and then reopen it doesn't save the state in which you had it on the desktop. (The Lay-out) Which isn't to bad but it would be nice if it saved where the items were placed instead of everytime you open it you have to replace everything... Other then that i've found no other things wrong.. Love it!
One thing i've noticed though, when you close the app and then reopen it doesn't save the state in which you had it on the desktop. (The Lay-out) Which isn't to bad but it would be nice if it saved where the items were placed instead of everytime you open it you have to replace everything... Other then that i've found no other things wrong.. Love it!
GreenReaper
Reply #31 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:11 PM
Reply #31 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:11 PM
Digital: Yes, we noticed this too. It appears to be a bug in DesktopX. 
We will be trying to get that fixed for a future update. Fortunately it doesn't take up a significant amount of memory or CPU if you just keep it paused rather than closing it. Glad you like it!
We will be trying to get that fixed for a future update. Fortunately it doesn't take up a significant amount of memory or CPU if you just keep it paused rather than closing it. Glad you like it!
NightTrainthedark
Reply #32 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:15 PM
Ditto
Also, it appears to be limited to the primary monitor in a dual monitor setup. If you keep him on the secondary, he kicks his ball onto the primary and then can't kick it back. He can go get it but it keeps bouncing back into the primary.No biggie, it is just that the little guy has to walk an additional 1280 pixels to go play.
Reply #32 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:15 PM
| One thing i've noticed though, when you close the app and then reopen it doesn't save the state in which you had it on the desktop. |
Ditto
Also, it appears to be limited to the primary monitor in a dual monitor setup. If you keep him on the secondary, he kicks his ball onto the primary and then can't kick it back. He can go get it but it keeps bouncing back into the primary.No biggie, it is just that the little guy has to walk an additional 1280 pixels to go play.
GreenReaper
Reply #33 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:19 PM
Reply #33 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:19 PM
Well, he's got to burn off all those cheese calories somehow . . .
NightTrainthedark
Reply #34 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:33 PM
Reply #34 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 2:33 PM
The green cheese sends him to the outhouse more often than the yellow cheese. 
GreenReaper
Reply #35 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:10 PM
Reply #35 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:10 PM
Well then, don't let him eat the green cheese!
Edivion
Reply #36 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:26 PM
Reply #36 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:26 PM
He Greenreaper first I like the pet very much but i have still the same problem i don't use winkey + d or show desktop...any other idea thanks
Edivion
Reply #37 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:38 PM
Reply #37 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:38 PM
GreenReaper, when I unload IconX everything works fine...
GreenReaper
Reply #39 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:55 PM
Reply #39 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 3:55 PM
Ohh, that's a nice one. Thanks for tracking that down, Edivion. I think most people here run IconX with DesktopX, so that's probably why it slipped through the cracks.
GreenReaper
Reply #40 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 5:07 PM
Reply #40 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 5:07 PM
As a workaround, please launch the Desktop Pet *before* IconX, as this appears to let the two co-exist. I have forwarded the issue to the IconX developer for further consideration. Thanks again!
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Reply #21 Wednesday, December 14, 2005 12:00 PM
LOL. I wonder if Furby got permission. I wonder if Creatures got permission. I wonder if the trillion other similar things got permission. Little harry critter with big ears is pretty generic these days.