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Next week I'll be out at Microsoft's Profesional Developer's Conference (PDC) getting the latest info and details on Microsoft's upcoming series of development platforms. Leading the pack will be Windows Vista and related technologies. I'll be blogging on the event for Neowin.net as well as for WinCustomize.com.
There's a lot of good stuff in Windows Vista but we will also be giving our two cents on what we hope Windows Vista will be.
What we WANT Windows Vista to be:
What we DON'T WANT Windows Vista to be:
Stay tuned to http://frogboy.wincustomize.com 
as well as here to the WinCustomize home page.
The preliminary Windows Vista user interface guide is out! Microsoft is trying to encourage developers to create more consistent UIs. Here are some of the highlights:
#1: Use the new system font "Segoe"
#2 Use the built in controls instead of designing your own:
Editorial: If you really want to have your own client area look, check out DirectSkin.
#3 Don't try to mess with the non-client area (the frame of the window).
And try to support the base resolution of Vista -- 800x600 in your apps
Editorial: Again, if your app needs to have its own unique frames, use DirectSkin.
#4 Use icons that are consistent with the new Windows Vista style:
Windows Vista icons go from 16x16 to 256x256. So make sure your icons look decent in those resolutions. PNG is the new icon format.
Editorial: One of the best places to get PNG images is the ObjectDock gallery on WinCustomize.com
#5 Use the new dialog APIs to create dialogs that are easier to understand:
#6 Use the Aero Wizards instead of Wizards '97. Specifically, don't have the first page of a wizard be a welcome, have it be functional from the start. Avoid congratulation pages.
#7 Use Explorer style interfaces with a back button.
Have your UI try to be consistent with what people see the most on Windows and that's the Windows Vista Explorer interface.
#8 Use the new Windows Vista search
This means supporting the new "Find as you type" feature and don't use labels but rather put "Type to search" in the edit field.
#9 Use the Windows Vista tone in all UI text. That means make your text clear, natural and concise. Use every day words.
#10 Keep your UI clean!
That means keep your commands task oriented and in a hierarchy. Make sure commands are accessible from the keyboard. Put effort into having only the most commonly used commands be top level (visible) with infrequent commands put at a lower level. A good UI shouldn't display every possible feature command at once.
# 11 Use the notification feature of the system tray sparingly.
#12 Save time for the fit and finish. Don't look at making your program polished as a minor detail. Make it a priority.
Windows IT Pro has apparently learned that Microsoft is about to announce the specific editions of Windows Vista.
First there's Windows Vista Starter Edition which is essentially a crippled version that only allows for a few apps to be run and is designed for "emerging" markets. We'll code-name this version as "let's see how bad we can look compared to Linux which is free and isn't crippled"
Then there's Windows Vista Home Basic Edition. This version is equivalent to Windows XP Home of today.
There's also Windows Vista Home Premium Edition: This is like Windows XP Pro of today but with more consumer oriented features.
There's also Windows Vista Pro Edition. This is similar to the Home Premium Edition but without the consumer goodies.
And there's also Windows Vista Small Business Edition which includes "pre-paid" access to Microsoft Office Live and other Microsoft-specific services. We'll code-name this version as "DOJ Reactivation Edition"
Moving on there's Windows Vista Enterprise Edition which is like Small Business Edition but also has a host of intensive security features. We'll call this the "Eliminate vertical ISV edition and monopoly enhancement version"
And then finally, best of all we have Windows Vista Ultimate Edition. This version could be summed up as "Some Microsoft interns scoured the net, saw a bunch of programs that look popular and now MS is going to try bundling them with the OS because it'll make them feel cool". We'll code-name this version as "Linux ISV migration Edition". Apparently someone at Microsoft is envious of MacOS and it's 3% marketshare and thinks that the best way to lower Windows's long-term market share is to emulate Apple's ISV strategy.
This version apparently has all the features of Premium and Pro plus features such as a "Game Performance Tweaker", Pdocast creation utility, an iTunes store like feature, Movie downloads, Onlight Spotlight, Custom Themes.
Now at first glance, some people might say "Hey wow great! Microsoft is bundling more stuff with the OS! That's terrific!" And more stuff is very good for consumers -- in the short term. But in the long term, it kills innovation. It's these very same third parties who come up with cool stuff that Microsoft eventually bundles in. And here's the kicker -- once bundled in, it never gets updated. Innovation ends.
In the late 90s, "Push technology" was getting interesting. There was a technology called PointCast that was up and coming. So Microsoft throws in an half-assed PointCast clone in Windows 98, kills PointCast. Now, "Active Desktop" is essentially gone. For years, Stacker and other disk compression programs were moving leaps and bounds forward. Then Microsoft bundled that with the OS. Killed them off and hasn't touched it since. The compression we have today in NTFS is ancient, inefficient, and often not used. Why improve it? For awhile, grammar checking was improving in leaps and bounds. Then Microsoft bundled a half-assed version in with Office killing off the third party Grammar checking developers. Grammar checking hasn't been updated in any meaningful way since. (and based on the emails I receive, it's sorely needed! <g>). ZIP was integrated with the OS with Windows XP (and before but not to the same extent). Has it been updated? Nope. Microsoft bundled MS Movie Maker with the OS. They updated it some just after release but it's not progressed much since. Meanwhile, the third-party video editing market has been lost to consumers (even we use MS Movie Maker for our stuff because it's "good enough").
But by bundling these things, they take away the incentive for third-parties to kee updating the technology. Third parties can compete with what's bundled to a certain extent but there's a threshold where the ISVs either have to go work on something else or go to a different platform (such as Linux which sees more and more ISVs moving to it because of competition from Microsoft).
Some naive users think Microsoft's bundled stuff is "better" than third party versions. You see this in forums all the time. The only difference between the two is bundled is..well bundled, it ships on the CD rather than requiring a download.
So while a Podcast creation utility is nice in the short term, it takes away the incentive, in this emerging area, for third parties to make more sophisticaed podcasting software. But why bother if the bulk of users would be satisfied with the "free" version. That's just one examle, the whole "Online" club services are another example. Imagine if Microsoft included a direct, part of the OS mechanism for people to get more themes, skins, icons, wallpapers for Windows? It took you to some MS site where you could download them. Why bother going to a WinCustomize? The same is true of many other types of websites, services, etc.
Microsoft needs to remember is that one of the reasons why it has 95% of the market and the Mac has 3% of the market is that Microsoft, for a long while, didn't leverage their OS monopoly blatantly to compete with its ISV partners. Mac ISVs have to contend with Apple bundling everything with the Mac. When Apple decided to compete with Konfabulator by bundling Dashboard with the OS, the result was Konfabulator for the PC. What Microsoft's bundling mania is ultimately doing, and you can already see this, is drive ISVs to Linux. Microsoft, in effect, is creating their own OS competitors.
And in the meantime, consumers suffer unknowingly because they're stuck using the half-abandoned bundled stuff that Microsoft threw into the OS on a lark years earlier that managed to kill off third party innovation.
I hope Microsoft really thinks carefully about these myriad versions of Windows Vista. Because this time around, we're not talking about Microsoft squashing some shareware author, they're going after increasing chunks of Symantec, CA, Adobe, and many other large companies (strangely, Microsoft never sees fit to bundle an office productivity suite... it's almost as if they know what the effect of bundling after all -- when it's their stuff they'd be competing with).
Companies that specialize on their core competencies are usually going to do better than Microsoft. Microsoft should quit looking at what to bundle and focus on making a stable, reliable OS that improves on the kinds of technologies that only the OS vendor can put in.
Well our guild at one point had over 120 players in it. But as time has gone on, I've lost interest and so have my officers who have slowly quit or drifted off.
I just don't find WoW compelling anymore but that's okay, it gave me many months of enjoyment which is more than can be said of most games that are released.
To those who were part of the guild, thank you for sharing your characters with my character. It has been fun.
We've been so busy lately that we haven't had time to do much in the way of journals. Things have been going a mile a minute. We're internally working on what will eventually be considered beta 3B. It's the last beta drop before we move onto beta 4 which is due out just before Halloween. What we want to do is get all the non-diplomacy, non-campaign stuff done so that when we move towards beta 4, we're feeling pretty good about the core parts of the game. Beta 3A, which is the version that is available to the beta team, is still pretty weak in terms of game-play. It's getting better but we still have a long way to go. GameSpy and Gamespot both ran very nice previews on beta 3. Even in the few weeks since that build, we've come a long way. Let me outline a few things that were just this week alone as an example.
Scott started implementing tool-tips. The tool-tips are going to be a major part of the game this time around because we want every variable in the game to be understood by the player. We're also working on the large hulls for human players. And in fact, most of the ships aren't in yet. Right now, we've only got 3 total hull styles (human and two others). In the final game, there should be around 5 total. Joe worked on performance and usability items. For instance, a lot of screens had the full ship model in there, which looks nice because you can rotate it in the thumbnail but it is an expensive call that slows down the game. So we moved to a static bitmap which looks just as good (and I suspect few people even knew they could rotate their thumbnails around when they selected ships or planets). This makes the game a lot quicker and more responsive.
We also worked on the fog of war. In Beta 3, the fog of war didn't really work right. You could see enemy ships in it and visually places you explored were pretty transparent. Now if you don't have sensors, the explored but out of sensor range areas are pretty opaque. Joe also did work on the mini-map to make it more usable. Ships look like triangles, you can zoom in easier on the mini-map, and the strategic map scaling is much nicer (and you can see shields on planets in strategy mode now).
Another area of work has been in things most people won't notice but they would notice if they were missing. We had to put together a new mode for displaying ship info if you clicked on a ship that was in orbit. Since we have less room, we had to pick the most important parts. We also had forgotten to have a "Planet" button on the planet context window. In beta 3, the only way to get to a planet was to double click on it. That's not really intuitive. Now there's a button that takes you there.
Another thing that was changed is that when you click on the build ship button on the planet context window it brings up a little dialog that lets you quickly pick your ships rather than going to the full-blown start port window. And in the progress screen of it we put a little tiny buy button so players can buy ships directly from the main screen.
I should go on about performance for a bit, under the covers so much work has been done to make the game faster. We haven't heard complaints about it but we're kind of anal about the speed of the game. This is a game that is meant to be played for many many hours so we don't want the game speed to get in the way of the enjoyment.
The ship yard got some playability love too. Ships you've built in one game now live into the next game. So if you have the proper technologies, a ship from previous games will be displayed. This is really handy because I built a ship called the Velocity Colony Ship. It has poor range but it can move at two moves per turn. With the new system, it's always there at the start of the game. So one can imagine new players creating their own set of default ships at the start and only having to do this once.
We've started moving on cultural warfare. It's quite a bit different than GalCiv I's system (and we think much better and more intuitive). Every planet has a number of forces on it (culturally) working to influence the people. You have your own pushing out and other influences pushing in.
We've defined this as a ratio (alien influence vs. native influence). If a planet is within its own territory, that number will be less than 1. If it is 1, then the planet is on the border. If it greater than 1, then alien influence is greater than native influence. At some point, alien influence can become so much more that the planet will "flip". Certain things will help (planetary improvements and a fleet parked in orbit) but sooner or later, if the ratio is too much, it'll revolt and become part of the other civilization. In the screenshot on the left, the Korx are suffering from a 4.69 to 1 alien to native ratio. Unless they do something, that planet will be mine soon. 
Of course that touches on the AI which is still pretty weak. My biggest pet peeves with the AI (and it's my job to fix this stuff) is that it's currently horrible at managing its planets, its ship designs have no strategy beyond brute force, and its battle tactics are pathetic -- just dribbles ships. In Galactic Civilizations I, the AI had a concept of "force projection". It didn't work out terribly well in practice so this time I'm going to toss that out and put in "battle groups". I hope to make use of the internal rally points features and have the AI make use of them. They'll send their ships to a rally point that they make and then when enough ships are at that rally point they'll go at a particular target. This way, when you get attacked, you're getting attacked by something that matters and not just isolated fighters.
Probably the biggest and most complex feature we've been working on is the fleet battles screen and fleet management system. It's not in Beta 3 at all but it will be part of Beta 3B. Beta 3B will only be available to a handful of beta testers so that we can nail down problems as we progress to beta 4. The fleet combat is really slick as you get to watch ships battle it out in a full screen view with Star Trek like battles. I have to say, it's definitely the most impressive "action" stuff I've seen us do before. There's about 2 months of effort into this feature. How that feature evolves will remain to be seen (depending on how much time we have). We want to stay away from having players control the battles in any way since most people won't want to do that, they'll want "auto" but that means having some "AI" do it which will never be as good as a human player (as long time MOO fans know). Hence, we don't want the overall effectiveness of a player come down to how good they are at tactical battles. Galactic Civilizations is a "clash of civilizations" games. Not a clash of tactician skills.
When beta 4 rolls around, the most obvious change will be that it will have the textures in them. Diplomacy will be in its infancy but it'll be in. And the fleet combat will be in and hopefully be in pretty solid shape.
There's still lots of tweaking to go. We'll be listening to feedback and making adjustments based on it. Stay tuned!
Allen "Delsyn" Rausch has checked out beta 3 of Galactic Civilizations II. Allen is not just any old preview editor, however. He was the one who reviewed Galactic Civilizations for GameSpy back in 2003.
Quote: "Galactic Civilizations II may very well turn this game into everything Master of Orion III should have been. Watch for it when it releases in February 2006."
Stardock has put out the first public beta of ThinkDesk. ThinkDesk is Stardock's new suite of utilities that has been in development for over two years. It is quite unlike other utility suites out there. ThinkDesk was designed as a set of utilities to deal with the problems users have today. The four primary components of ThinkDesk include:
Multiplicity. Multiplicity lets users take their computers and put them together and use them as a single computer. Lots of people over in the "show us your setup" thread have desks filled with keyboards and mice. They should be using Multiplicity. Only one computer needs to have a keyboard and mouse and a universal clipboard is set up between computers. This news post was created with the help of Multiplicity ("test" box with all the beta software for getting screenshots and the production machine for doing the post, print-screen on the test box and pasting into the editor here). Anyone with a laptop and a desktop PC should have this.
KeepSafe. Nobody does backups it seems not matter how easy you make it. Stardock developed it in response to its own issues. It automatically creates a backup revision of any file type you choose to protect with it. Users can go back to any revision of any file they've protected simply by right clicking on the file in question. Stardock uses it heavily in development and with .dxpacks and WindowBlinds skins since often...mistakes are made and the need arises to go back to a previous revision. Users can set where file backups are placed (such as on a server or a removable drive).
SecureProcess. Virus scanners and spyware scanners are great but they really are only useful after you've suffered from a problem. SecureProcess is designed to prevent you from running into problems in the first place. The way it works is that a user "trains" their system over a period of a week or two. SecureProcess learns what programs you normally run and builds an "approved" process list. Once training mode is turned off, other processes are prevented from running (unless you're an admin at which point you can add them to the approved list). It's an ideal program for people trying to keep things from getting onto their systems, people who used shared computers (such as if you have kids using your PC) or for network administrators who want to keep their machines stable.
ThinkSync. Folder synchronizing programs are nothing new. But ThinkSync takes it to the next level. For users who have files on multiple machines, even over the Internet, ThinkSync uses your Stardock.net account to keep different folders containing the same things. Anyone who has files at home and work that they wish were in both places will definitely want to be part of the ThinkSync beta. If you're using USB keychains to take files back and forth, ThinkSync is for you. It is also very good for local synchornization for those who want to complement KeepSafe's backup features into protecting (synchronizing) entire directories with remote backup servers or USB hard drives.
ThinkDesk is still in beta and will be in beta for the rest of this year as we listen to your feedback and suggestions on additional features, interface options and of course bug reports. Some of the programs are already done (Multiplicity). Others are nearly done (KeepSafe). By joining getting it now, you get to shape the future of the suite and you receive updates from now until it's official launch plus a full year's worth of updates after it's released.
The ThinkDesk home page is http://www.thinkdesk.net. If you have Object Desktop, you can get ThinkDesk for $25 less!
On September 13th, DesktopGadgets.com will be officially open to the public.
DesktopGagets.com is a new concept for skinners/developers/etc. It allows people to create programs, upload it, name a price, and then split revenue with DesktopGadgets.com 50/50.
For starters, the site will focus on gadgets created by DesktopX Pro. While many people are familiar with "widgets", gadgets are relatively new. Widgets are mini-applications that are used in conjunction with a "widget enabler" (such as Konfabulator, Kapsules, DesktopX Standard, etc.). Widgets typically use less memory than traditional programs, are much easier to create, and are designed to be "skinnable" from the start.
Gadgets are identical to widgets in every way except for one important difference: They don't require the "widget enabler". A gadget is a stand-alone program. They have all the advantages of widgets but none of the disadvantages. Gadgets are created with DesktopX PRO.
Making gadgets is as easy as making widgets. Which means it's quite easy depending on what you want to make. You don't have to be some sort of hard-core software developer to make neat things. You can make really simple things for personal use, make games, desktop decorations, you name it. When a user finishes working on a gadget, they export it as a gadget which is a standard Windows .EXE. For example the sticky-note gadget can be downloaded here. It's less than 700k total and uses relatively little memory.
For aspiring artists and software developers, gadgets offer a unique opportunity -- they can create neat things that they can either give away or sell on DesktopGadgets.com very easily.
What are some examples of things people can do with gadgets?
Stardock is using DesktopX Pro to create Aquarium Desktop 2. While Aquarium Desktop 2 isn't a gadget per-se (it's a full blown desktop which involves a different DesktopX license) it still illustrates what is possible to do with DesktopX Pro.
Aquarium Desktop 2 will be released along with DesktopGadgets.com.
Another well known product that used DesktopX Pro (again, different licensing since it's a desktop) is Natural Desktop. This desktop uses VB Script to grab local weather and then sets wallpaper and sounds based on the conditions. It's been a big hit with users everywhere (especially people stuck indoors working on nice days or in the winter when one wants to remember the summer.
One gadget Stardock is working on (early screenshot shown) is a desktop pet. This gadget involves a virtual pet that lives on your desktop and interacts with various objects on your desktop. He eats, sleeps, plays, and just generally lives in the background of your desktop.
The desktop pet should show up a few weeks after the launch of DesktopGadgets.com.
Other gadgets in development include a registry editor, a Tivo manager, and a disk defragmenter.
What makes gadgets different from traditional programs is that they don't require anywhere near the effort to make something that is visually interesting and user-interactive. Things such as animation, mouse interaction, states, etc. are all built in allowing the gadget maker to focus their efforts on the core logic.
Gadgets can be as simple or complex as you'd like. For example, a gadget could simply be an image that you want on your desktop. Perhaps as a decoration or a photo of a family member.
Stepping just beyond that involves using some VB Script or JavaScript. DesktopX's documentation is very complete and makes it easy to create interesting and useful things easily.
For example:
DesktopX Pro 3.1's environment makes it easy to create objects and start manipulating them. The documentation includes small samples. If you've ever wanted to try your hand at programming, this is the way to go. That's because DesktopX doesn't use some proprietary language, it's VB Script or JavaScript that is applicable in all kinds of ways.
Some types of uses are common enough that they've been turned into a plugin. For example, MP3 players are common enough that Stardock developed a media player plugin that makes it a snap to create very cool looking media players.
Anyone who has ever made a Windows Media Player or Winamp 5 skin can tell you it is a lot of work. With DesktopX Pro, making the same skin is relatively easy and best of all, when you export it, it's a stand alone program. It's YOUR media player. Your users can have it play music directly or have it control Windows Media Player, Winamp, iTunes, and others.
DesktopGadgets.com is being designed as a show-case for gadgets. Most gadgets submitted won't be accepted, it will be heavily moderated. Gadget makers will be able to distribute their gadgets for free or set a price on them giving them an opportunity to make a little money from their creations. And for gadget users, they will gain access to a host of small but useful programs whose functionality goes beyond what widgets typically have. One might argue that it will be gadgets, because of their stand-alone nature, that demonstrate the true potential of widgets. A developer or artist is much more likely to put effort into something that is truly theirs than something that requires their users to go and download an enabling program in order to run their "program". So don't expect to see clocks and RSS feeds on DesktopGadgets.com.
If you don't have DesktopX Pro, you can get it HERE. If you have Object Desktop already, there are discounts available for it as well. We hope to see you at DesktopGadgets.com starting September 13th.