What's Going on with ObjectBar 2.0?

*eerie silence* ... *occasional wind rush* ... *tumbleweed* ...

I will find out for you

I'd like to know as well. I'm still waiting on renewing my OD membership until I see what OB 2.0 will be like (since the betas were so pathetic).

(since the betas were so pathetic)

Ouch

What kind of problems did you have with the betas?

What kind of problems did you have with the betas?

Since you asked...

My problems have been minor, but only because I have not personally liked working with the post 1.65 interface. In fact, aside from adding a shortcut or two, I haven't changed my Bars much at all from their pre-1.99 setup.

One reason for this is that I set up my bars with cool roll-over effects for many of the icons--I used an icon set available in a monochrome and color version to get some neat images. The image-color change along with the change from, say, a taskbar wba skin applied can be very neat. BUT, as far as I cna tell you can no longer assign Mouse-Over images with the new GUI. My old bars work, but I can't make changes to them in keeping with their previous style.

I also have another problem I can't track down, although this seems like the type of thing that is my fault (missed a setting somewhere?). I have a bar set to open one of several folders as a pop-up. Using the pop-up menu I will often select another folder and double-click to open it in a traditional explorer window. In the past when I did this the ObjectBar pop-up menu would close (as you might expect). But lately the pop-up menu often, but not always, stays open after I have selected from it. To close it I must Right-Click and select from that menu Close Bar. These extra steps reduce the utility of my ObjectBar greatly, but I am so used to having the menus there that I haven't tried other solutions.

Maybe it is time for me to give up OB and try and work something out with OD or DX. I really like OB, and think it is underrated, but the last few updates have only removed and broken functionality as far as I can tell, while adding only a slightly easier interface.

Widget integration is iffy...it would probably be best to recommend some standards for widget creation in DX if a widget is expected to be used with OB.

Just my thoughts.

What kind of problems did you have with the betas?

You couldn't define your order for items on a bar when it was displaying the contents of a folder (Quick Launch). It would only allow alphabetizing. There was also the issue that you couldn’t turn off the caption (title) of a bar. It’s like the program was being dumbed-down.

I had posted quite a few other issues (not bug, but lack of features) on the newsgroup. I just fail to see that fewer features and configurability is an improvement. I’m still using 1.60. Since I let my subscription lapse, I guess I’ll have to wait for the final 2.0 version to check it out before I renew my subscription.

Regarding problems with the beta: I found that if you create a popup menu that contains shortcuts and also a taskbar item, when you click on any of the shortcut to start a new program the popupmenu then stays open. If I remove the taskbar item it closes as it should.

If you look to the development of other products, it seems that ob is not anymore developed.
Wow we have in WB5 nice thigs like transparency etc., but is wb5 a tool for doing the daily work easier?

I think ob is a workinghorse in the day to day business, but an very old one.
Why can't i use png files for icons etc.....

I've bought odnt last year, because it looked for me that someting is going on with objectbar but really nothing happend. Look to the other complaints of lost functionallity and Stardock is doing simply nothing.

Stardock, we all want to know what is going on with Objectbar? (Short-/Mid-/Longterm)
Does it make sence to renew the subscription?
Regards,
Thorsten

Regarding this, I have passed the query onto the correct people (its not my area).

*eerie silence* ... *occasional wind rush* ... *tumbleweed* ...

Hi Neil,
thanks for the Answere, the same you gave us on the 20 December last year.
Am i right, that you are part of the development group of Objectbar?
And if so:
Why didn't you know what's going on with OB?
We here as an example have meetings where we are discussing progress and future plans.

It would be nice, if you can speak with the right people so that we all are getting a response here.
Thanks
Thorsten

ObjectBar isn't something I am involved in I am afraid.

I would really like to see OB2 get finished. I've been waiting for it to be complete before I can start rolling out some new skins for it.

From --> *eerie silence* ... *occasional wind rush* ... *tumbleweed* ...

To --> *natives getting restless* ... *beating on drums* ... *occasional scream*

Stay tuned!

*cough-cough* RightClick Too! *cough-cough* Virtual Desktops Too ! *cough-cough*

*cough*Object Edit, DriveScan, Component Tray, Object Sweeper*cough*

What kind of problems did you have with the betas?

I'm not sure if you can search by poster on these forums or not. If you can search for posts by brain21 and you will see explained in detail the number of problems I had with the STILL current build of OB.

For myself as well, WB is cool & everything, but as far as productivity and convenience OB is what I use CONSTANTLY. I would love to have a version that addresses all of my listed concerns, and if we could get that whole RSS feed & other plugins that came with 1.99b to work correctly that would be great.

If you want a list of things to fix for 2.0, just search for my posts!

(some are in the OB forum & I think I posted maybe a couple under DX by accident)

Thanks,

Brain21

I used to get so frustrated with the lack of progress in ObjectBar development, especially w.r.t other Object Desktop components and Stardock products. I'd report bugs, help out when I could etc. But every visit to Stardock Central or to the newsgroups and forums resulted in disappointment. Now that my subscription has lapsed (first time in about 5 years) each fruitless visit now makes me feel warm inside instead of hollow and sad. I'll still keep checking, but I've just given up holding my breath.
Rob

You know, no one has answered my original question.

There's a lack of movement on multiple products atm due to QA and management bandwith (or lack thereof). A lot of effort is going into Galactic Civilizations II and we're having to rob from Peter, Paul, and Mary right now.

See Brads post here: Link

Regarding Brads Post:
What do you think about making Objectbar to a nice game?
Maybe someone is fixing the bugs and implementing new features like png support, transparency and 24h music?

Now this Thread is nearly one month old and still no answere....

Look like the internal communication is also non existing

so, who is with me to declare OB 2.0 death (and so will my subscription )

Felix

Look like the internal communication is also non existing

I am not sure I agree. Nakor and Brad [of Stardock] have both commented that Stardock is currently focused on GalCiv2 [a game I am very much looking forward to].

External communication has been lacking in the past but has been better the last while.

I too would like to see OB updated. But Windowblinds 5, Icon Packager, DesktopX ahve progressed and I use them too. There are only so many resources to go around. I'll bet there is more business in WB than in OB. Sometimes you have to choose.

If I didn't play Stardock games and didn't use WB skins I'd probably be more upset. But I don't recall Stardock promising me an OB update either. I bought it at a particular version for specific features with the ability to recieve future updates [if there were any] (while my subscription is good). I've gotten what I paid for.

I think that if Stardock is going to announce an upcoming version, they need to give general dates and update the users if that date is slipping and why. In the end it would make for happier customers.