WinStyles has been a major project at Stardock for over 2 years now. Originally dubbed "Convergence", this program was designed to put it all together. In the upcoming Object Desktop 2002, it's installed with the label "Object Desktop Theme Manager (WinStyles)". The new version of WinStyles that comes with Object Desktop 2002 will shortly be available on its own as WinStyles 1.2. It's a pretty significant update providing a heavily revamped user interface that will make it much more appealing to users than previous versions:

Screenshot: https://www.stardock.com/temp/wcmag4.jpg

WinStyles is designed to try to hide the complexity of Windows customization and instead deal with it as a single unified whole. Casual users who found it difficult to wonder what exactly the difference is between WindowBlinds and IconPackager and Beatnik and DesktopX no longer have to even worry about what these programs are and do. And that, along with its distributed file format called .SUITE which allows a user to apply a theme in which the parts are downloaded from various locations on the fly, has made WinStyles somewhat controversal. And with some reason.

A typical WinStyles theme might include a WindowBlinds skin, an icon package (IconPackager), a DesktopX theme, an ObjectBar bar, a Winamp skin, and an ICQPlus skin. But the casual user won't know that necessarily. They simply download a theme that, for example, makes Windows look like the user interface of their favorite video game. WinStyles talks to the various programs for the user and applies their individual parts. And if the user is missing a program it needs, it will ask them if it wants it to download and install it for them. The result is that the user may be totally unaware of what goes into actually making a theme. Considering the amount of work that went into creating things like DesktopX and WindowBlinds and Winamp, you can see how some users, particularly skin authors, may see WinStyles as something that makes skinning just a little too accessible.

The other side of the argument actually agrees -- that's the whole point of WinStyles, to make Windows customization friendly and available to casual users. A casual user doesn't want to have to fish around the net looking for a half dozen programs to download, install, configure and then to go out and download and install a half dozen skins for that half dozen programs to make their desktop look different. With WinStyles, they download one program and one theme and apply it and it takes care of the rest.

What are your thoughts on the matter?