Bad idea. IMHO.

I have had some bad experinences with FX. If it happens, so be it but I will just have to get use to it I guess.

i think it would be very benificial to have the two merged. as long as you could turn certain featuers on and off.. more streamlined customizing. of course this might have been pondered over by the powers that be so if they passed on it they may have their reasons.. does winfx sell seperately? if not, sounds like a plan

they address system resources in different ways...

Otherwise Windowblinds would puke out on shared memory systems like WIndowFX tends to do on older hardware....

WindowFX like DX9...

Windowblinds could careless...

Thas why my idea to keep the executable files seperate not entirely coded together except for control, like say if the FX part failed it would shutdown and leave WB stable and intact.

now i know thats basicly how it is now, but the things is if everyone that had WB also had the options and features of FX by default i think the possibilty of newer and newr content for it being created to be alot better than it is now. i mean im bored with the stuff that is on Wincust for it lol.

and you think WB itself cant be resource heavy depending on the skin?

have you downloaded treetog''''s anteres skin from the GUIolympics?????? on fully animated subskin it eats 62% of my CPU wich is an P4 3.0ghz
yes the skin was created to show ALL the new built in features of 4.3 but so what? if those features are there and the skinners arent using them then why did the programmers put them there?

Complaining about the resources of something that possibly wouldnt hgappen untill a basic computer is like a pentium 5 6ghz with a 2ghz fsb is like people who are currently complaining about the resources it uses witch is less than the default XP themes.

and considering that Longhorn is coming up in a few years at least attempting to take the best parts of FX and add them to WB for when LH is out and its new UI systems i think at least would be good programing tactics






[Message Edited]

there is a thought i have though...
have any of you seen the longhorn screenshots when they have the transparency features of the shell turned on. (i cant remember exactly what it is called, some random letter conbination)
that looks absolutely awesome. If windowblinds could use alpha transparency like that it would be a major selling point imho
like with Xp, wb users will once again get the features of the new shell style before the OS actually comes out.
although alpha transparency will probly be a big CPU hog when used like that... err i dunno

transparency

If I'm not mistaken....there is a WBSkin Plugin to turn-on transparency in a WBSkin.

I agree with IP, MikeB and kona. It shouldn't be merged. They've raised what I think are valid objections. In addition, I don't see an advantage to merging the two. You said that it will bring more focus to WinFX, but I submit it would divert focus from furthering either app in the short term as they focus on combining the two.

Even if you were correct in the long term, where is the gain? It unnecessarily complicates skinning WB, which is already a fairly hefty undertaking. By the same token, it would radically complicate the developing of new FX, and many of those developers don't really do WB skins. The type of skinning involved for WB and WinFX have very little to do with one another other than both being applied to the same OS.

As it is now, if a user wants both, she/he can have them by going through one additional config, most elements of which they would have to go through even if the two apps were combined. There's my 2 cents.

Another "no" vote here also.

That there is exactly my point, WNFX has not only shadow support defined by WB skins but other features seem to be more attuned to what a WB skin is doing.

now that i think about it, it seems a few of you took this the worng way, thats fine its made me realize that even if this were to happen i guess some of you are not ready.

as both WINFX and WB are even more developed to be less and less resource happy i will bring this up again maybe when Longhorn is RTM lol then maybe the majority of computer hardware will be powerfull enough to allow some of you to immagine it outside of the constraints of todays hardware.

Essencay - is it just the "magic pink" kind of transparency, or actual alpha-channel blending (either a png image or like with DX's 'objects transparency is set by the bitmap used' with the grayscale image showing the level of transparency)
?

#18 by smoke-tetsu - 5/15/2004 5:16:12 PM What I would like is more interoperability with WindowFX and WB.

I thought it was supposed to be like that in the first place?

Anyway, no I don't want it packaged with WB. I can't really use WindowFX on my current computer.

""#18 by smoke-tetsu - 5/15/2004 5:16:12 PM What I would like is more interoperability with WindowFX and WB."


I thought it was supposed to be like that in the first place?

Anyway, no I don''t want it packaged with WB. I can''t really use WindowFX on my current computer."

(the quote button didn''t work here)

Not nessasarily. I mean there is code to specify a shadow but there isn''t a lot of info on how that works or code to make it work. You have to understand exactly what I''m asking for to know.

So let''s say you want to make a funky shadow for a WB skin, and put a square shadow on tool windows and menus and a rounded shadow on itunes. You can do it if the features I would like to see where in. AFAIK you can''t do this presently.
[Message Edited]