People like them, download them and use them.

They have just as much (if not more) value as the most complicated thing you make because more people might use it.  [I think your stuff is amazing and I don't use any weather widgets, I have my weather on a dock.]

DX is not one of thier most popular products even if it is one of their best.  {ObjectBar is their best!  }  The spend most of their time on WindowBlinds and their games I think.  Those bring in the most money.

I know what you want to happen.  I agree with what you want.  I want it too (for you and the other DX devs).  But for most of the community . . weather widgets are all they need.

I'll say it again (or steal it from someone else), start writing articles and forum posts about what you are doing with DX.  Collaborate with the other DX coders on a few projects and write about that.  I'll do QA on your stuff and help write what you want written.  If we want change, we need to generate "buzz".

Also, we don't want to seperate ourselves from the weather widget makers.  They are a valuable part of the community.  The other question is, "How can we teach or improve what they are doing?"

But then again, what do I know?  I can barely skin or code anything.

OK, here's an idea.  One Carl has been advocating (to a degree) I think.
Create a new app with DX Pro.  Call it RainWeather or something like that.  Make it easier to skin than the DX weather.  Make it like Xion (which really needs a galery here )  Write a easy tutorial and watch the weather skinners flock to it.

Hey! Watch the titles wacking about. I've got a project called "Rainmaker" in concept phase...bet you can't guess what that does!

The thing is, since DesktopX uses VBScript and Javascript, then you'd think that more people with web undeveloped background would find it useful and interesting. Particularity with the whole AJAX and rich content development hype currently. Gadgets are very similar to AJAX apps. In fact nearly all gadgets use DHTML and JS except DX which got Objects to define the layout instead of HTML and CSS.
I wonder how much SD has focused on getting DX out to web developers, because it should be right in their ally. Scripting isn't really that hard to learn. There's so many good tutorials out there that anyone is able to, but they have to be willing to set off some time to learn it. I think the problem is that you have to read to learn it, not like many other things which got a UI, like photoshop where you can learn by clicking around.

The creativity you see in website, whether it's HTML+JS or Flash should be present in DX since it's back end and tools are so similar.
And I don't really get why VBS is the default language of DX and not JS seeing as JS is more widespread.

Zubaz, I think DX is pretty much limited when it comes to that. I don't think You can realize that only by script (and I believe that until a master comes along and does it). I like Your idea of just taking parts of a windowblind or even a single photoshop file to build backgrounds, but is that really possible at this state of DX development ? I think if it is, someone would have made a widget that is capable of it. At this pont I see noc chance to do that.

So what I am always missing in DesktopX are official words from the developer or some helping hand from an official side. Or a plugin, named 'WBImporter' or something like that. If You want people to push the limits of DX (and in my mind Vad and Roman are the only ones that do that to a great extend), don't let 'just' users fiddle with things and write tutorials. I think Stardock is a little 'lazy' in terms of documentation, which is still a point Brad mentioned in his article some time ago but I see no improvement comimg for some time. Also I am fully aware that it is a problem of manpower and can't be solved shortly.

As for my little personal project : Many people tend to download it, but looking at the feedback I really don't even know if any of them are using it besides the few that reported problems or gave suggestions. And looking at the widget gallery there is no intend of the weather-makers to try and use it. And I haven't seen one single screenshot containing it. So, besides making it for my own use and learning purposes, what is the point anyway ?

To clarify it : I don't see it as the next Uber-widget (looking at the works of Roman or Vad I still feel like a newbie), but I thought it could change a little something. It clearly failed completely. A reason for that could be I complicated things with the ini file, but the main reason for that is simply DX bugs like not storing or simply forgetting local storage and preferences. Was that fixed although it is known for a very long time ? No. Update cycles became too slow, not to mention You have no chance to see betas (which may contain fixes if You are lucky besides new functions) if You own DX pro...

good idea (applause)

Thats a shame.. I didnt even know they released anything like that.

I would generally agree with most things David has said on this issue, with one caveat:

If ALL weather/clock/standard widgets are put in their own gallery, this will act as a disincentive to create new, more interesting and functional variations on these themes.

Personally, I have no problem with people reskinning existing widgets. After all, what is the WB gallery, but countless reskins of the same format? I agree however that it was sometimes disheartening to work for months on a 1000+ lines of script widget, upload it, and watch it vanish rapidly in the morass of reskins.

Perhaps the solution would be to seperate original widgets and reskins? My definition of a reskin would be a widget where essentially only the graphics had been alterred, but adding 3 lines of code would not qualify it as an original widget . Of course this would be more moderation intensive and therefore perhaps not viable.

There are standard widgets and niche widgets (as I see it). Standard widgets would include weather, calendars, clocks, meters, todolists - widgets that would be useful to almost anyone. As such, I still enjoy developing new variations of the standard widgets, I have a weather widget on the go for example. Whilst I would applaud any attempt to address the issues that David has raised, I wouldn't necessarily like weather widgets to be discriminated against en masse.

I hope that made sense.

I keep hearing "just search for what you want to see". But how do i EXCLUDE something from the search? With the OLD site we could "PICK" from a list of options like [ ] clock [ ] calendar [ ] weather, etc. But we lost that on the new layout. There is no "easy" way (or a way at all?) to list out just things that are NOT weather/clock/to-do/etc??? is that possible now? And how would someone know how to do this?

Stardock?? WC ADMINS?? Are any of you watching this at all? Does anyone know a way to do this???

Until we get some WC/SD people to at least acknoledge that this thread/issue is out here, there is no reason to keep going back and forth.

I think we ALL agree that a DX Gadgets gallery is needed, but WE don't make anything happen here, WE are not in charge of the site (not that i want to be). So, unless SD/WC takes some interest in this issue, there is no point in going on and on.

Yes, more powerful filtering tools would certainly go a long way to addressing these issues.


Zubaz!!!!

Hi Vad!

Yes, I have awoken from my slumbers. I took at least 1 year off when I didn't skin anything - the reasons are too long and complicated to get into

The last 2 months I have started skinning again - I have 3 unfinished WB, 60 icons into an iconpack, and maybe 10 incomplete widgets (some of these are left over from 2 years ago, but they ask me to finish them, 1 of which is a WB skin using widget).

I saw this thread and was compelled to respond. Widgets are my primary love in skinning terms, and any discussion about promoting them in the general conciousness, making them more accesible, is very welcome. Since day 1 I have felt that widgets have an enourmous potential, but it is a potential that is rarely achieved. Even if certain developers reach that potential with individual widgets (vad, romanDA, and many others) the dx widget scene as a whole is confusing and amorphous, of which the current gallery layout is indicative.

More than any other section at Wincustomize, widgets comprise a huge range of creations - from simple reskins, to very complex mini-programs. I would love to see these different approaches being given their own sections, or at least some kind of differentiation in the galleries. How this would be achieved in practice, I don't really know, but any discussion toward that end can only be a good thing.

Does that mean the widget uses the skin of the current WB ????

That is something I have been wanting to make...

and WELCOME BACK!! You have been MISSED!