Skinning the Desktop - Dynamic Dreams

For what it's worth . . If Stardock wanted dream things more public, they'd post it.  Same goes for Littleboy.  :NOTSURE: 

I didnt get this from littleboy. He told me just to look around and that the info I needed was there, so I found it(in his own DLL ironicly)). Anyway, wont people knowing how to do cool stuff lead to better skins?(as long as no one makes a keylogging desckscape dll...)

Can anyone tell me why Stardock doesnt want people to know how to make DLL/Dynamic Dreams?

So they can sell dynamic dreams and make money. With a community as big as this, people would start submitting dreams that "look better" than Stardocks.

So what are they going to do, deny my dynamic dream submissions?   
Besides, if dreammaker has the option to do it...

I doubt this is the case Pug.  That same arguement would peclude releasing SKS6 or IconDeveloper or any of the otehr content creating tools they release.

More likely, there are bugs that could screw up a users system and until it's stable enough to not due so they'd rather not spend time and resources workign with user that think the app is buggy when it is more likely the content.

Omni, jus because Littleboy told you to look around to figure stuff out does not mean that he suggested posting it.  Notice, he could but has not (by the request of Stardock I think).

Somethign to think about, no?

Note WinCustomize did not reject Littleboy's two previous dynamic dream submissions.

So should I blank-out my first post?

Me? I'd edit it to explain what you posted and why you removed it for now while you email Stardock to get feedback from them.   I wouldn't blank out the post to nothing.  that's rudish to folks who may come behind.  Better to be as open as we can in the situation. 

It may be no big deal at all . . but it might be and it would fit into the community's sense of "doing the right thing".

Best case, they approve and encourage what you are doing. Right? Worst case . . they confirm that they want it offline for now and you can continue your researches privately with more information that you might have had before.

Nah. Useful stuff

Everyone wants money, and I bet Stardock wants to get as much as possible before the SDK release. Plus all the other stuff you said, Zubaz

If it is stability they are worried about, then they should have an icon like the "WB6 ready" and "Vista Ready" saying "Not Stable" or something.

Stardock's dreams on WC: 17
Dreams they are charging for: 6

http://stardockdesign.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?libid=50

Hum.   :NOTSURE: 

Ok. The content is removed for now(it's saved in notepad though   )
I did leave 2 hints about figuring it out, although I havent handed it out on a silver platter, so I think it will be okay. If any (Mods or Stardock People) Want/need to see the original article, or how I found this out for any reson, PM me.
Also, Pugboy, Id have to agree with Zubaz. I doubt that they are doing it just for money. Stardock seems like a nice company.

Thanks.  

I hope your contact with Stardock is productive.  support@stardock.com might be a good place to start.  They'll make sure the right person gets your request.

Okay. I emailed them. This may take awhile though, as they never answered any of my 3 previous email's about stuff

How many of the 11 free are dynamic? And when did they start making free Dreams?

EDIT:
Stardock made the Shark Pit? Where have I been?! It seems all of the Stardock dynamic dreams are Premium

Of course it isn't JUST for money, but if they didn't care about money, everything would be free. They need money to run, and I bet they care about not going bankrupt.

I talked to milksama about it before submitting my first dynamic dream. I had a few dynamic dreams that were ports of XboxMediaCenter screensavers. Those were licensed under the GPL, which means you have to distribute the source code along the binaries.

I thought it was better to ask before releasing that source code. Milksama talked to Island Dog about it and he said that releasing dynamic dreams was OK, but that source code was not.

Loss of revenue can be an explanation, but given that Stardock hasn't released that many dynamic dreams, I'm not sure it's the main reason. As Zubaz said, PR and support costs probably are why Stardock hasn't released anything yet. Building a SDK and supporting it takes time and right now this time is better used adding features or fixing bugs with Vista.



Not to diminish what you have done, but getting the list of functions from the export list is only the first step. Getting the prototypes is the real problem. Doing it in a clean way while respecting the license took me a long time.

As for what I told you to do, I also suggested you could contact Stardock and ask them for the SDK (probably under NDA). Developping Direct3D-based screensavers is also an option. You can easily convert those to dynamic Dreams once the official SDK is out.

I hate to turn people down when they ask me for info. Like a lot of people, I would prefer things to be open, but in the end, it's their software and they can do whatever they want with it. They don't want everybody to have the info yet and I respect that decision.

Verry, very true.

Bah, too slow...

I did email stardock about getting a NDA, etc.
So... are you okay with any disassembly of your valentine32 dll?

Arggh I gotta be carefull what I put in these functions! Putting a Messagebox in the renderscene did NOT have good results...

6 months later...

Any replies from Stardock regarding the SDK? Any progress on dynamic dreams?

No ETA for an SDK at this time.

I don't know if anybody else has got dynamic dreams working, but I do have a few ready and waiting...

I don't think there are that many people willing to create dynamic dreams anyway (using them is easier :D)

Creating a GOOD dynamic dream is a pain in the ass.  A bad one still takes a lot of work.

As someone who has done a lot of bad ones, I can't agree more!

And I didn't have the DeskScapes devs to pester...

I never pestered!  He liked it.  I swear!