I'm always interested in new ways of doing things...I'm not a programmer,or even a scripter(RomanDA has been helping me with that)
So forgive me if I'm a little confused about how I,as an artist,would go about using this.I have lots of ideas...all beyond my scripting capabilities in DX.    

Yes I'm aware that it uses DirectSkin. Thats sorta the point... its this big expensive skinning thing, but there aren't even any alpha-channels (or at least weren't)

The joe-user type you are speaking of is the Skinner. You'll find that in the programming community, everyone is TERRIBLE at graphics but knows how to program. DuroBlend is more suited for programmers (understatement). From the programmer's perspective (I have both perspectives.. having first been a skinner and then a programmer), DesktopX seems extremely limited if not completely useless. For programmers, an inability to program stuff in their home-IDE is enough to prevent them from using something. Why Stardock has never simply released an "opened-up" version of dx for the developer community (ignoring impressioncreator, which sort of did this but not in a way that was very marketable... also it was too expensive), is beyond me. Thats essentially why I created DuroBlend. I was used to skinning, but I found that in programming, the technical difficulties of skinning far outweigh the graphical difficulties of creating a skin(which are really trivial). I grew tired of half-assed ui's, and thus devoted my time to a GUI engine which would act as a framework for developing applications which have seamless, adjective, adjective, etcetera ai's.

So yes, it makes a lot of sense that many people at wincustomize would initially view DuroBlend as being somewhat odd, if not oddly framed or plain useless. Its because this is a graphics community... once the programmers start streaming in (heaven help our poor moderation team.. ive seen some pretty crappy interfaces in my life but the stuff the programming community spits out is almost laughable.. though there are some go-betweens such as myself who have achieved relative proficiency in both graphics and programming), things will begin to change.

What is important to note, however, is that DuroBlend is still a fully functional widget engine, and if I felt so inclined, I could make a runtime-based version which would be more similar to dx, and hence, more skinner friendly. If there seems to be a general demand for this, then I will do so, however I was under the impression dx had already filled this niche and that the developer community was more or less untapped thus far.

If anyone knows how to program in .net and thinks they could be of some help programming/contributing to DuroBlend, PLEASE get in touch with me.. right now its just me and I am looking for more developers to bring aboard.

c242:

You raise a good point. I am aware there is a large market in consumer-tinkering with alphablending (dx), but I think there is a more profitable market in software developers buying UI components. I have seen many components which are really only a single button or something ridiculous like that... sell for hundreds of dollars and actually make a lot of money. Its ridiculous, and I intend to get in on some of it

From a more general perspective, I think there would be more people interested in software with a cool interface, then people interested in playing around with their desktop and tinkering with weather objects. Alphablending on the developer/corporate side of things has some huge marketing potential (aka developers can make xp apps that look like their on vista.. that sounds pretty marketable to me) that has gone untapped.

This isn't intended to compete with dx... though I could easily modify it to be very similar to dx and thus compete for the consumer market represented on wincustomize. DuroBlend... is for the programmers.

IR Brainiac:

Well as an artist, lets pretend for a moment you were working for a software company that decides to integrate DuroBlend technology into one of their apps. They would call you up, have you make some psd's and then they would ask you to export everything as a PNG. From there, the programmers would take over and construct your GUI in code. When you think about it, its a lot like web design. Web designers are valuable because of their ability to (generally) understand things from the code side, and the graphical side. In application development, however, there seems to be a much larger disconnect between the graphics and programming communities.

If skinners were as proficient at programming as most graphic designers are at web design (proportionally), DuroBlend would be heavily adopted by this community.

Hmm . . I think there are some skinners/developers that might argue.  But I'll wait for their evaluation so as not to speak for them.They might have something to say about this too.  You may be a better developer than friend maker. 

no its great they joke about it a lot. I saw one guy who had a program in beta and hadn't found a graphic designer to do the UI yet so he made.... "Crapui"... and it certainly lived up to its name... lets just say I now view Oedipus's decision to blind himself in a whole new light

You'd be surprised

Then again I am speaking mostly of the visual basic community, the story may be quite different in other languages/sects, but my general experience has been that good code = bad graphics, vice versa, with several people who are obvious exceptions and are equally proficient at both.

Oh and by programmers I really meant software developers.

As for the whole friends thing... if I were talking to people in the programming community right now, I would be talking about how people in the skinning community can't code. So call it what you like... they do like me there more or less.

lol..

To the people who feel left out:

Visual Basic is really easy to learn (as are most .NET languages). I mean heck I was able to learn it (ask anyone on wc... they can attest to my ... err.. uniqueness) so I'm sure most of the graphic designers here could too if they gave it a try. Microsoft has a free version of Visual Studio available.... Visual Studio Express. I suggest you get the Visual Basic version.

I'm one of the one's who'd have to argue.

While I agree the scripting only environment has it's limitations; so, to has your app.

Your library can't be compared equally to DesktopX. It's merely a skinning extension to an already existing development environment...right?

In Order to basically create a program to sell I've got to buy the development environment for how many $100s then shell out $50 to licence your library.

Personally, I'm getting sick of all the bashing on the standard widget's that exist; yes, I do get bored of the same "functionality" but, how many free stand-a-lone apps out there also fall into the same habit? How many .net based calculators, text editors and other stream of similar app's exist? Although at least the can look better now with your app but, if memory serves me correctly there are already components/libraries available for some programming platforms.

Sounds interesting,I can usually understand something thats ALREADY coded...but from scratch...forgeddaboutit.  

I think you would be hard pressed to demonstrate that a Duroblend gadget uses less memory than an identical DesktopX gadget.  DesktopX has years of memory optimizations and does not require .NET to run.

DuroBlend is more of a development platform. A full-blown library for creating flexible UI applications.  But the challenge there is that Microsoft has Windows Presentation Foundation and XAML which compete directly with what Duroblend is trying to do (DuroBlend is effectively an extension to .NET but .NET 3.x adds Microsoft's own answer -- WPF).  And it turns out WPF will run on XP.

The key advantage of DesktopX is that artists can make cool stuff without needing a developer.  DuroBlend requires a software developer. For example, as a practical matter, could you make a DuroBlend "widget" without Visual Studio?  DesktopX doesn't require any development environments and it's all drag and drop for creation.

I just don't think DuroBlend and DesktopX are aiming at the same group of users.  DuroBlend is more of a DirectSkin competitor except even there, they are going after different markets as DirectSkin aims for developers who want to simply snap on skinning.

I would argue that the ATI control panel does look pretty nice. But it is certainly not as visually exciting as it could have been had it used a flexible visual library (such as DuroBlend). 

But ATI's priority was robustness and reliability. Their control panel has to work on 100% of their customer machines. What they wanted to do is have their cake and eat it to - develop it using .NET and then apply a custom skin to it.  That's what DirectSkin does.

If they had used DuroBlend they would have had to use your library throughout the development process and be dependent on it for the actual functionality of their program.

Moreover, if a non-standard UI for their app was a priority, Duroblend would have to compete with Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation.

That's what Yahoo decided to do: They chose WPF.  You would have to make the case why they would choose DuroBlend over Microsoft WPF which has the advantage of being supported by Microsoft, comes with Windows Vista and works on Windows XP, has Expression Blend as a development environment (Sparkle) and a huge developer community.

Even without WPF, you would have to make the case why they should use yours instead of DesktopX. Its SDPlugin architecture would allow them to make their app in .NET still but have the front end use DesktopX which is already a proven technology.

Some excellent points, frogboy.

If WPF really is going to work on xp, then I don't see how I could compete, though I'm sure I'll find a way.

You are correct in your assessment that DuroBlend is a lot more like DirectSkin. I think one way I could survive this is if I made my library cross platform (sigh... more code)

Right now, I see DuroBlend as being a sort of "last big bang" for developer-oriented GUI components. While vista is still less popular then xp, there should be a huge market for making apps look like they are running on vista, on xp, and this is what I intend to take advantage of.

Though microsoft may claim that WPF works on XP, I suspect there may be many compatibility issues... I'd have to see it myself to believe it. In any case, DuroBlend was designed for XP, and should have an advantage in that sense.

And yes the ATI control panel does look nice... I just have this thing for non-alphablended graphics, which is understandable, considering I am the creator of a widget engine.

I think the coolest thing I could possibly do with DuroBlend, would be to make it cross platform, but more then that. I could write a flash actionscript library that could extend DuroBlend apps to work on the web. I think that would give me a rather competitive edge. Yet microsoft does have its silverpoint thing... Still, adobe isn't letting flash die any time soon so I think I would have a slightly better chance if it was me + adobe vs microsoft instead of just me vs microsoft.

I think the best case scenario would be if Vista failed and new re-vamps of xp began circulating... not that this would happen

Another exciting feature I have in the works for DuroBlend, which should make it more able to compete with changing times, is the ability to display gadgets over DirectX applications... aka full screen games. There are two or three existing software solutions which offer this functionality, but they only work in-game. My dream is to make the DuroBlend framework supportable under any operating system, make it able to work over game windows, and even make it work on the web via flash (or even silverpoint).

Even without flash, many of you may have noticed that png's are slowly starting to be rendered correctly (alpha channels in-tact) by modern browsers. The new firefox and the new IE both support translucency via png images. Potentially, I could extend DuroBlend (if I ever made a format that can be replicated under multiple systems) to have a web version written in javascript. Then I could compete with the rest of the AJAX libraries, etc.

But you are right in your assessment that the core desktop version of DuroBlend may have its days numbered. I'd say I have one or two years before I will have to make some sort of switch.

Thanks for your feedback

and yes, it makes a lot more sense to label DuroBlend as a framework, because thats really what it is at this point.

Bear in mind, the ATI Control Panel was made a couple years ago.  You may have noticed that WindowBlinds can do alpha blended skins these days.

After reading some of your replies, I get the feeling this is just for serious programmers and is not that easy to just start creating stuff.

I'm a little confused on how to use this so I've got a coupla questions:

What is the learning curve for this program?

Is a background in programming/coding required to use it?

Which coding languages do I have to learn to use it?

Where do I do all my coding; in Visual Studio? (Which means I have to learn to use Visual Studio?)

Can I make anything without having to use a script?

Does DuroBlend make applications or just skin them?

There are two ways of looking at your questions, each with their own set of answers:

set 1:

The learning curve isnt very steep because you can use Visual Basic Express which is probably the easiest IDE/language ever contrived. Microsoft designed it to literally spoon-feed everything. Its probably easier the vb scripting for desktopx, though I'm sure someone would find ways to disagree.

A pre-existing background isn't required, per say, but you will have to learn a little programming to get it to do anything. Its very easy to be learning how to program, and to use DuroBlend at the same time.

all .NET languages are supported because this is a component for .NET. Therefore Visual Basic .NET, C#, C++ .NET and J# are all equally supported simply because of the multi-language nature of the .NET platform. I programmed the engine in Visual Basic, so most of the tutorials will be in Visual Basic, but other then that there's really no advantage having one over another - they all do the same things. If you are learning to program, Visual Basic is the easiest to learn. If you have a background in Java or PHP, I suggest learning J# or maybe C#. If you have a background in win32 development or if you are familiar with C or C++ syntax, then I suggest using C++ or C#. C# and Visual Basic are basically cousins in the .NET framework, J# is on its own, and C++ is the snooty I-own-all-of-you-so-go-away language.

In theory, you could do your coding in any .NET supported IDE, but you would probably want to use visual studio. There is no need to purchase the professional edition, etc, as I actually developed DuroBlend entirely on Visual Basic Express Edition (when it was still in beta!), which is free. I only recently got the professional edition and have concluded that it is unnecessary.

At this time, it would really be impossible to make anything without touching code. There is a visual form designer, but it is only intended for determining the xy positions you would use in code. I want to emphasize that the code is extremely easy to understand, however. You can create a widget in 2-3 lines of code. See the support forums on durosoft.com.. I have a short tutorial posted there in the mean time as I make more comprehensive tutorials. In the future, I could make a more skinner-friendly version of my engine. If anyone has any suggestions on how to do this other then the dx method with a scripting engine, I'm all ears. I have been toying with the idea of creating a mini program which uses the DuroBlend dll to create .dbpack files which would still use visual studio for any scripting. It would be like the ultimate hybrid between dx and DuroBlend, conceptually speaking. Let me know if this sounds like a good idea.

DuroBlend is a framework of ui controls and functions which one could use to create superior UI's for an existing software solution, or a new software solution. If you are vaguely familiar with how to code visual basic (a two year old could do it... if then.. end if.. etc), you could make gadgets/widgets



Now some more programming-ish answers

Well its really designed for software developers who want to take existing programs and give them an alternate UI by reprogramming their UI code, or for software developers who want to develop an entirely new application which uses DuroBlend for its GUI. In that respect, DuroBlend is comparable to windows forms... the caveat to this is that windows forms get skinned all the time these days. DuroBlend does have several ui controls of its own, which do support skins, however there is as of yet no skinning format, mostly because there aren't enough controls for that to matter at this point. If DuroBlend is heavily adopted, and becomes a standard among software-side UI developers, adding full-fledged code-free skinning suppport for the engine and the apps that run on it via a universal skin format would be quite doable. The "InterfaceSkin" property which controls the graphics for the MsgBox function is a precursor to this.

If you ever get a chance to look at Designer.exe, you will find that you can lay things out quite easily. This base program could be modified in the future to be a development environment for .dbpack files (note: .dbpack files don't exist yet.. I'm just speculating, which is feasible when I control the source code...). A skinner-friendly future is very possible, I'm just testing the waters first.

frogboy: yes, I'm aware. Wb6 looks pretty awesome. I heard somewhere that you got alphatranslucent window elements to resize/maximize without lagging. Seeing how I tried to accomplish this for two years within my own engine, I am baffled by how you were able to accomplish this on xp. Then again as long as they are thin in at least one dimension, they don't really lag that much, so I guess you could do it that way. Actually, ya now I'm pretty sure I know how its done. lol (just window borders are alphatranslucent, but not content... this is doable under DuroBlend, as well as any other senario you could think up with translucent +/- non translucent forms/windows/objects/controls/etc

Id be curious to see if anyone had any feedback on the "make-it-work-on-top-of-game-windows" idea.

If its target is professional developers than it must not get compared with Dx, not at all. Its cool that you are trying to make gadgets world nicer. Will be looking for it if it gets added to WC gallery.