adysoft

Join Date 09/2004

myBoard : The Mac OSX Dashboard on Windows

The ultimate Vista Dashboard killer application

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Hi,

I'm working on a project called myBoard, it's basically a port of the MacOS X dashboard on Windows XP/Vista. The only difference is that gadgets/widgets are called magnets in myBoard.
Basically myBoard is a semi-transparent layer that is invisible to the user unless activated by moving the mouse toward one of the user screen's corner or pressing a hotkey, which can be set to the user's preference.

When myBoard is activated, the user's desktop is dimmed and magnets appear in the foreground. Like application windows, they can be moved around, rearranged, deleted, and recreated (so that more than one of the same magnet is open at the same time, possibly with different settings). New magnets can be opened, via an icon bar on the bottom of the layer, by dragging a widget icon out into the layer. After loading, the widget is ready for use.

The nice thing about myBoard is that unlike Vista dashboard magnets don't eat space on your desktop, they just appear when you saumon them, and leave when you don't need them anymore.

See myBoard in motion here.

Official myBoard website.

Let me know what you think

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ZubaZ

Join Date 11/2001

+917

How does it compare to DesktopX both in regards to using aas well as creating gadgets/widgets/magnets?

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Well I don't know/use DesktopX, so I can't compare myBoard with it. The idea behind myBoard is to provide widgets services without having your desktop covered by them all day long. For instance I don't need the to see the calendar all day long. If I need it, I just press the middle mouse button to saumon myBoard and see the calendar, then I click anywhere to make myBoard go away. This is how it's done on Mac OS X, and I think it's very smart.

For magnets creation, it's all C# .Net 3.0, SDK is available on the official website

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ZubaZ

Join Date 11/2001

+917

Since you are posting here it might behoove you to see what Stardock's done.

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I'll be honest here, I doubt that this approach will work. Find a way to interoperate with existing widget engine, be it Yahoo! Widgets/Konfab, the actual OSX dashboard widgets, DesktopX, or Kapsules. Requiring people to use an IDE like Visual Studio is unwise for creating widgets and it will require the widget creator to be a programmer, not necessarily a user.

Also, .NET 3.5 is another problematic choice...the download for XP users is ridiculously huge, and it requires a download for Vista users as well. Honestly if you want an out of the box solution, go with .NET 2.0 or at least 3.0, which is loaded on Vista but not XP.

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I'll be honest here, I doubt that this approach will work. Find a way to interoperate with existing widget engine, be it Yahoo! Widgets/Konfab, the actual OSX dashboard widgets, DesktopX, or Kapsules. Requiring people to use an IDE like Visual Studio is unwise for creating widgets and it will require the widget creator to be a programmer, not necessarily a user.Also, .NET 3.5 is another problematic choice...the download for XP users is ridiculously huge, and it requires a download for Vista users as well. Honestly if you want an out of the box solution, go with .NET 2.0 or at least 3.0, which is loaded on Vista but not XP.

Thanks for being honest, no pb about that. I decided to create myBoard because I like the idea of creating gadgets, but I hate Javascript, I think it sucks and really limited when it comes to create advanced things such as 3D / DirectX, Pixel Shading, and stuff. I wanted to be able to create gadgets with only one langage : C#
And as it wasn't possible to do this with Konfabulator, i decided to create a gadgets engine capable of hosting C# based gadgets. Seing how the .Net community is growing I thought other developpers might be intested in this.
So basically the idea behind myBoard is : "Let's see how advanced a gadget can be if we use latest technologies like .NET 3.5".

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andrew_

Join Date 03/2005

+53

Mmmm browser content without a background color on a window. Interesting. andrew_ fires up Reflector.

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andrew_

Join Date 03/2005

+53

Well after having looked through the source code I think it's pretty neat what you're doing. I've seen some of the code in this app around the net in examples on code sites, some of it I think is pretty creative. Although requiring vs.net, .net 3.5 (which is an effin massive download) you're going to limit your developer base pretty severely.

The success of Yahoo!Widgets/Konfabulator/OSX Dashboard is attributed mainly due to its ease of development, and DesktopX ships with a built in editor. It's going to be pretty hard to keep people interested if imho. Of course, if youre just doing this for yourself thats cool but I doubt you would have posted here if you werent looking for some public exposure.

The Mac emulation scene has died down dramatically over the last few years, and interest is waning. You'll probably want to put your own spin on it, and get someone to do some original graphics to keep Apple off of your back.

Good luck

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Hi Andrew !

myBoard is for people like me, .net developers who just hate html/javascript and who have no alternative to create gadgets. So these people already have Visual Studio installed, and they will just have to update their framework.

Honestly, I really don't think it's easier to create a gadget on Yahoo!/Konfabulator or the Dashboard. Especially if it has animations.
myBoard is not designed for web developer, it is for hardcore C++/C#/VB.Net developers who are looking for a more advanced gadgets/widgets framework

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looks too close to the real OS X dashboard...

It's a nice idea, but Apple might not like it (if we recall what happened to Yz Dock).

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umm dude can u like tell me how 2 actually get some new widgets/magnets from online? where and how??? that's what makes a lot of the other widget things better.

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Lantec

Join Date 07/2003

+346

umm dude can u like tell me how 2 actually get some new widgets/magnets from online? where and how??? that's what makes a lot of the other widget things better.

dude, the dude hasn't been here in almost a year....ummmm dude y not fall0 the "external link" n like the original post

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