Vector text
One major feature of the upcoming DesktopX is
the option to use vector text, that's basically simple text painted over
standard objects.
Previous text was bitmap based.
Here is the new config option:

And here how it looks:

It has some advantages and disadvantages over
bitmapped text:
+ It usually provides crisper and clearer text, especially with small fonts.
+ It uses ClearType or standard antialiasing if enabled.
+ It doesn't use extra memory for allocating bitmaps. It loads faster.
- It cannot be shadowed or made transparent.
- Its background must be opaque (i.e. it's parent object must be opaque, or at
least the region where the text child is). If it is not, it'll turned solid
automatically.
Collections
Added scripting features to do the following things:
msgbox "Total objects:" & DesktopX.Objects.count
msgbox "First object name:" & DesktopX.Objects.item(1).name ' or .left or .ontop
etc
msgbox "Test1 object name:" & DesktopX.Objects.item("Test1").name
For Each elem In DesktopX.Objects
msgbox "First object name:" & elem.name
elem.left = 50
'etc
Next
Simply put the returned item is identical to the references returned by
DesktopX.Object("name"), NOT DesktopX.ScriptObject("name").
You can always do DesktopX.ScriptObject(elem.name) if you need.
There is an equivalent Object.Children
collection as well.
Tutorials and documentation
We are putting more efforts in creating better
support material for DX objects developers. We are updating the scripting guide
(fixed some errors and added several explanations about core issues).
We are also preparing some fun step by step
tutorials around specific techniques. You can preview them here:
http://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/docs/tutorials/index.html
Note: you need the DesktopX released today (Jan
5) because some of them does some complex things that didn't work before because
of weak threading and callback support. That has been almost completely
rewritten.