WindowBlinds 5 Beta 1 Released

Notes

Published on October 4, 2005 By Frogboy In Object Desktop

WindowBlinds 5 beta 1 (4.90) has been released on Object Desktop (it's only available if you have Object Desktop presently).

UPDATE: 4.9A now up -- support for older nVidia cards added!

Release Notes:
------------

This build is the first beta for the upcoming WindowBlinds 5. There are going to be some rough edges as it gets out in wider distribution, so please be as detailed as possible with any feedback.

Requirements:
Windows XP. Does not support Windows 2000 or Windows XP 64-bit (64-bit version will come later though).

The Big One - Per-pixel borders on XP

-Per-pixel (alpha-blended) titlebars and borders. It's been an internal struggle over the last year or more as to whether we would be able to implement these on Windows XP with reasonable performance. We have, _if_ you have a relatively modern video card and good drivers for it.

What does that mean? Your video card needs to have hardware support for alphablending and a driver with SHADEBLENDCAPS support implemented and functional. ATI Radeon's 9000+ or later should be fine, NVIDIA GeForce 6000+ or later should be fine, and even chips that you wouldn't expect like the integrated Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME run fine with it.

Some boards are not going to work with this release, though we hope to be able to work with the driver vendors to find a workaround. GeForce 4600/5200 and related seem to be a common trigger for that (like they are losing the alpha channel for the images). The top/bottom borders with per-pixel skins seem oversaturated, but the left/right borders are working (and you can click "through" the top border).

Yes, you can put shadows on your borders and make them part of the skin. See the Arrow sample that is included. The shadows are part of the skin.

Other new features:

By Per-Pixel, we mean elements that have full alpha blending support (anti-alias themselves to whatever graphical elements are around it).

-No wbload.exe process. The binary is still there for installing skins.
-Per-pixel menus
-Per-pixel taskbar
-Per-pixel progress bar overlay
-Per-pixel "Please wait" dialog
-New wbconfig previews
-New skincast features (not in this build)
-Lots of optimizations under the hood.

When reporting problems, please check the Troubleshooting section of WBConfig. Select the text with the left-mouse button and press Ctrl-C to copy the text. Please include that when reporting any visual-bugs along with a screenshot (cropped if appropriate for size).

There is an updated SkinStudio beta available to Object Desktop customers with support for creating per-pixel skins. You must still include the non-pp images for systems that don't support the new frames, so the skins should still work with WB 4.x.

Note: To change skins you have to load WBConfig now. There's no system tray icon yet. You can change skins from display properties (msstyles now show up side by side with WindowBlinds skins btw) or you can put a short-cut to WindowBlinds config somewhere handy like on the Quick Launch or use Keyboard LaunchPad to assign a hot-key to bring it up.

Enjoy!

Support: https://forums.stardock.com/?forumid=167

Comments (Page 2)

dave86

on Oct 04, 2005

First of all let me say I am quite impressed with what I've seen. The only think i've noticed up to this point is somme overlapping of windows using the 5imple alpha skin, like below:

This occurs on some windows when I select one window that is behind another, but so far it's only happend on the mspaint window and this object dock dialog window.

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

If you suffer visible corruption (overbright) on the frames and have a NVIDIA board then please be aware this is a NVIDIA bug. It has been seen on GeForce 4 cards and some FX series cards.

Video Information

You have one monitor in total.

(Default Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200

'NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 ' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAY2', but is not attached to the desktop.

'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

Daniboy

on Oct 04, 2005

Im very happy with the new build no problems so far here

skins looks awesome and i notice a slight increase in performance but it
could be that im too exited and its on my imagination lol

amunchkin

on Oct 04, 2005

So far, so good! The Arrow theme is looking awesome! There is one thing I noticed, however.

I really can't supply a screenshot, showing the cursor as it is hidden using print screen... (and I'm too lazy to grab some snapper program), but if I put my cursor approximately 8 pixels over a window border, in order to resize it, it finally appears as the Up-Down arrow. If I have my cursor ON the border, to resize it, it still shows the normal cursor, not allowing me to resize it, unless moved up a bit. This may just be a skin issue, but it's worth a note...

Tarkus

on Oct 04, 2005

FWIW, I don't have that resizing problem here, using Aura.

Mackintosh

on Oct 04, 2005

Other than the LogonUI crashing at startup and no user overrides not working, everything seems to be in order

antu^jamban

on Oct 04, 2005

Updated to this version but still not working

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

If you suffer visible corruption (overbright) on the frames and have a NVIDIA board then please be aware this is a NVIDIA bug. It has been seen on GeForce 4 cards and some FX series cards.

Video Information

You have one monitor in total.

(SyncMaster 703(M)s/ 753(M)s/750(M)s/753(M)v, SyncMaster Magic CM173A(M)) 1 is attached to ASUS RADEON 9600SE

'ASUS RADEON 9600SE - Secondary' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAY2', but is not attached to the desktop.

'UltraMon Display Mirror Driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV3', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

PLEASE report all this information when submitting a problem report, especially anything related to per-pixel skinning. We don't know what's in that Dell you bought last July or the notebook the office gave you. Per-pixel skinning requires your drivers to at least claim to support the functions needed for it.

laurentfr

on Oct 05, 2005

About the lock up at "skin apply", I had once. I killed explorer.exe and relaunched it and everything was fine.

mpapad

on Oct 05, 2005

Skin Souluna 2 is broken.
Something to do with long paths.

MountainMint

on Oct 05, 2005

*sigh*...I've tried alot of things to get WB5 working but nothing seems to do anything. It installs fine, then when I find a skin and press "Apply this skin." n-o-t-h-i-n-g happens...at all. Anyone have ideas?

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

If you suffer visible corruption (overbright) on the frames and have a NVIDIA board then please be aware this is a NVIDIA bug. It has been seen on GeForce 4 cards and some FX series cards.

Video Information

You have one monitor in total.

(LG StudioWorks 78i) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000

'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

PLEASE report all this information when submitting a problem report, especially anything related to per-pixel skinning. We don't know what's in that Dell you bought last July or the notebook the office gave you. Per-pixel skinning requires your drivers to at least claim to support the functions needed for it.

Icecream2

on Oct 05, 2005

Here everything installed fine, works great. So far the only thing that I have noticed is that on the user overrides in the advanced settings it will not let the skin perform the roll up/roll down feature for the skins. Also as mentioned previously windowblinds 4.90a(

.002 shows as still being installed along with windowblinds 5 4.90a(

.002 is this just a glitch, this show in the stardock central browser as to programs that are installed. But overall this is really cool, I will have some fun. Thanks stardock

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

If you suffer visible corruption (overbright) on the frames and have a NVIDIA board then please be aware this is a NVIDIA bug. It has been seen on GeForce 4 cards and some FX series cards.

Video Information

You have one monitor in total.

(Dell M991) 1 is attached to SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 ATLANTIS

'SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 ATLANTIS - Secondary' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAY2', but is not attached to the desktop.

'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

bioxeed

on Oct 05, 2005

Looking good. Definately faster overall, Though I've had some weirdness changing skins with explorer and mirc (what i had running at the time) locking up. This was when I went from a per-pixel skin to an older skin. The lockup has happenned twice so far. The first time I had wfx running and the 2nd I had a video playing in MPC. The first time this happenned I tried logging out and back in which gave me the 1st bsod i've seen in a very very long time (last time was due to bored installtion of nforce4 drivers). BSOD was related to "logonUIx.exe" - I think the same as what Developer MountainDragon got.

Also when I was running winfx (2.21) with a per-pixel border skin it always rendered a new window without the skin until I tried moving it or resizng or such. After unloading wfx windows were drawn as you'd expect them.

In addition to below I'm using the latest ATI drivers (catalyst 5.9 with control panel)

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

If you suffer visible corruption (overbright) on the frames and have a NVIDIA board then please be aware this is a NVIDIA bug. It has been seen on GeForce 4 cards and some FX series cards.

Video Information

You have 2 monitors.

(SyncMaster 172X/177X,SyncMaster Magic CX710X/CX714X(Digital)) 1 is attached to RADEON X850 Series
(SyncMaster 172X/177X,SyncMaster Magic CX710X/CX714X(Digital)) 2 is attached to RADEON X850 Series - Secondary

'UltraMon Display Mirror Driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV3', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

Kuruus

on Oct 05, 2005

Beautiful!

Brilliant!

Bravo!

iPseudoNym

on Oct 05, 2005

The Good:

The alpha blending looks great! I also like the Advanced skin browsing with the categories, search, and sorting. Previews look much better as well.

The Bad:

The lack of support for user overrides, specifically the Right Click and Double Click Actions. This will prevent me from using any per-pixel skins as I religiously right click to roll windows up and down. I will not give that functionality up to use a cooler looking skin. I hope that there are plans to address this issue.

The Ugly:

Like other that have posted I encounter a logonuiX.exe Application Error upon logging in followed by it crashing resulting in no visible means to log out.

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

If you suffer visible corruption (overbright) on the frames and have a NVIDIA board then please be aware this is a NVIDIA bug. It has been seen on GeForce 4 cards and some FX series cards.

Video Information

You have one monitor in total.

(Default Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800

'NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAY2', but is not attached to the desktop.

'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

ImANicePirate

on Oct 05, 2005

I'm having the same sort of problem as Last Triarii, everything appears to be installed correctly but not matter what, no skin is applied. I've uninstalled and reinstalled severl times and the only thing ive managed to due is change the color of the window borders, but it is still in classic view.

WindowBlinds 5 BETA Troubleshooting Report:

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.

Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

If you suffer visible corruption (overbright) on the frames and have a NVIDIA board then please be aware this is a NVIDIA bug. It has been seen on GeForce 4 cards and some FX series cards.

Video Information

You have one monitor in total.

(Plug and Play Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700LE

'NetMeeting driver' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV1', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

'RDPDD Chained DD' also exists as device '\\.\DISPLAYV2', but is not attached to the desktop and is a mirror driver.

PLEASE report all this information when submitting a problem report, especially anything related to per-pixel skinning. We don't know what's in that Dell you bought last July or the notebook the office gave you. Per-pixel skinning requires your drivers to at least claim to support the functions needed for it.

Antonak

on Oct 05, 2005

Everything runs fine, but I'm missing a large number of skins I've downloaded. I can see them in the directory structure, just not in the Appearance tab of Properties or in the WindowBlinds configuration window.

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