Money, money and more money?

Try here actually. quite a few it seems.... <BR> <BR>http://www.webattack.com/Freeware/security/fwvirus.shtml

You have to learn how to be a thrifty Web user. <BR>And you have to learn to be willing to give and take. <BR>There are still plenty of cheap alternatives for most anything you want, but you have to remember that you get what you pay for. <BR>TANSTAAFL. {:p <BR> <BR>Litestep is the perfect example. It will do just about anything your heart desires, but if you want to use it with confidence, you&acute;re going to spend a lot of RTFM time, and you&acute;re going to spend time hand tweaking .RC files. <BR>And if &quot;time is money&quot;, then have you saved any money? <BR> <BR>eFX is another example. So easy to skin - BUT - it does very little but skin the border of your windows, and not all of them, and not without a lot of personal tweaking. <BR> <BR>Want a free web site? They&acute;re still out there, but you&acute;re gonna have to live with banners, popups,and limited abilities such as no PHP, no server side options, limited space and bandwidth. <BR> <BR>Usually, anything you find that&acute;s &quot;free&quot; is going to have strings attached in one way or another. <BR>In the long run, you choose wisely, and then live with your choices. You thank those people that have provided those cheap or free alternatives. <BR> <BR>Either that, or you shell out the money. <BR>That&acute;s the way of the world... <BR>:)

http://www.grisoft.com/ - AVG is the only free antivirus I know of. I&acute;m not sure on the features the free one has though. I know they have free updates though. Good luck :)

hee hee Chchi <BR>That is wonderful ;)

little correction (my english is poor as i said). <BR> <BR>from the second paragraph from the bottom: <BR> <BR>but the whole power is probably not possible to integrate in a theme as it is in LiteStep as user needs vary to much and the best environment is the one you tailor for yourself. <BR> <BR>i mean LS and DesktopX share the same thing. i did not mean that LS can integrate it´s full power in a downloadable theme and DesktopX can not. <BR> <BR> <BR>

hey, mine was longer than yours. Chichigirls post does not count, as it is eays to see it was cut/paste, hehe ;)

Frogboy: thanks for this long and detailed post. looks like i underestimated the powers of DesktopX, but you underestimate LiteStep as well. i am by far not as eloquent in English as you are, so i hope this post won´t be a pain to read, as it will probably become the longest i have witten on a message board so far. ;) <BR> <BR>the COM object feature is huge indeed. what i can say about this is that i probably caters your business customers more than the desktop users. i don´t see why i should want to have a spredsheet on my desktop, i´d prefer running Excel for this. one thing that i can imagine to be useful for desktop users is the possibility to run videos on the desktop (babywatch, paranoid observation of the front door, ...). this can be done in LiteStep as well (either videobox.dll or if you want to free in size a workaround with a screensaver and saver.dll). of course LiteStep can also send messages to applications and therefore control them (script.dll). <BR> <BR>one cool thing about LiteStep is that i can write and manipulate modules for my own needs :) for an example i hacked chronos.dll back in the days when label.dll did not support timezones. i needed several instances of chronos so i did a simple &quot;search and replace&quot; action with a hex editor. no big deal, everybody can do this. totally legal as well (i asked Maduin, the coder of the module, anyways if it´s ok with him. of course it was and he later added timezone support to label). <BR> <BR>LiteStep CAN use VBS to create, manipulate, and interact with different LiteStep modules and shortcuts. lsvirus.dll provides this funcionality and future versions will support all available languages. <BR>LiteStep often does not need this, as bang commands, conditional statements and include commands are already powerful tools for most of your scrippting needs. of course there are more scripting modules as mzscript.dll that makes handling this easier. <BR> <BR>i actually don´t know this ball object, so sorry... LiteStep can respond to certain system events (when an app is opened or closed). literunner.dll <BR> <BR>nearly every vwm module for LiteStep allows users to drag and drop windows between virtual desktops. i still doubt bandvwm is as configurable as rabidvwm.dll. does it take snapshots of your apps and displays this in the mini-windows? does it zoom those mini-windows on mouseovers? just a few things ... <BR> <BR>of course LiteStep modules can be alphablended (nearly) on the fly. change the setting with textedit.dll, unload the module, reload the module. put all this into one newly created !bang command and associate it with a hotkey, shortcut or whatever, probably works faster than opening a config dialog. <BR> <BR>LiteStep shortcuts CAN be animated as well. ask Jafo about rainmeter.dll, he is an expert for this module. the new shortcut3.dll supports animations as well and is very powerful. there is also a third module that supports animations, but i cant remeber the name yet. <BR> <BR>maybe LiteStep´s monolithic architecture is a plus regarding resource use and stability. of course DesktopX runs on top of explorer what is a main disadvatage for the above mentioned points. running DesktopX on top of a minimal LiteStep might be interesting. sad enough when i tested DesktopX last year it crashed about 5 times in one hour, but i will upgrade to WindowsXP tomorrow and for sure give it a try again. <BR> <BR>as i said above you can use VBS with LiteStep, but you are correct that doing the same things with Bang commands requires a sophisticated step.rc structure and lots of included config RC files. but most things can be done in LiteStep as well, it is just harder to do. <BR> <BR>i metioned the video above. advantage for LiteStep is that you only need one program for this. of course you will need plenty of loaded modules, but only the modules you need. you don´t load features that take away system resources if you don´t want to use them. <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>RESUME: DesktopX seems to be an excellent program, i will try it again, what will probably be lots of fun. still LiteStep offers a lot of the same functionality and features and is free. so as i said in my first post in this thread it depends on how much money the easy use is worth for you. <BR> <BR>from the screenshot and themes i saw of DesktopX/ObjectBar most looks like ported HoverDesk themes, XP startbars and attempts to emulate OSX. pretty boring, considering the features you mentioned above. but the whole power is probably not possible to integrate in a theme as it is in LiteStep as user needs vary to much and the best environment is the one you tailor for yourself. <BR> <BR>i´d say DesktopX (as HoverDesk and other desktop enhancement software) is well worth the money. i would like to get paid for the time i invested in learning LiteStep, but hey it was fun :) VBS has to be learned as well btw. <BR> <BR>

/Koasati: jokes? that is exactly what is one of the many reasons that make skinbase different, try smiling once in awhile, its better then being a sourpuss and demands that I see so much on other msg boards.... unless your scrollbar is broke, then don&acute;t read them :-) <BR> <BR>But thanks for the info :-)

Moshi: Furan, one of the people who is intimately familiar with Litestep (you may have heard of him as he used to moderate the #litestep channel) is also a developer of DesktopX. <BR> <BR>Just a few features: <BR>DesktopX can access any COM object on the system. Litestep cannot. This by itself is HUGE because it means every COM object on yoru system is effectively a DesktopX &quot;plugin&quot;. You want a spreadsheet as part of your theme? No problem. 10 seconds and your&acute;e set. Want to use IE controls in your theme? No problem. How about instant messaging objects? No sweat. On Litestep if you wanted any of this you would literally have to find or write your own plugin to handle this. <BR> <BR>DesktopX can use VBSCript, Javascript, or any other scripting language supported by Windows scripting host to create, manipulate, and interact with different DesktopX objects. Litestep cannot. <BR> <BR>DesktopX objects can respond to system events by moving and changing their appearance without the use of a plugin. Try creating the ball object on Litestep for instance. <BR> <BR>There is no virtual desktop program that compete with the BandVWM object from Object Desktop (which DesktopX and ObjectBar make use of). Not only is it much faster but it allows users to drag and drop windows between virtual desktops and is extremely configurable. <BR> <BR>DesktopX objects can be alpha blended on the fly. <BR> <BR>DesktopX objects can be animated. <BR> <BR>DesktopX has objects. Litestep is monolithic. <BR> <BR>Litestep items cannot respond to events without resorting bang commands which are kludgy and not nearly as flexible (I, as an end user, can tell a DX object to respond to a particular message and have another object send that message when I move my mouse over it. Or as a developer can have a simply program or VB script send a custom event to a DX object to respond to). <BR> <BR>There are things Litestep can do that DesktopX can&acute;t do on its own since DesktopX is designed to be part of Object Desktop. For instance, if you want pop up menus and to replace the Start bar or create wharfs then that&acute;s where ObjectBar really comes into play. And it and DesktopX can share plugins and can access COM objects as well (i.e. want to embed a video window into your Start bar? ObjectBar can do this too without having to write a video player plugin). <BR> <BR>None of this should be interpreted to imply that Litestep isn&acute;t good. I *like* Litestep. Lots of people here run Litestep. But those here who use it run it WITH DesktopX and our other Object Desktop stuff because Litestep is much cleaner in many ways than Explorer. <BR> <BR>You combine Litestep with DesktopX and you have a pretty formidable kiosk environment that can be secure and tamper resistant. <BR> <BR>But yea, from a feature point of view, DesktopX definitely has a lot of features Litestep doesn&acute;t have. And more importantly, it makes many of these features very accessible to lay people. <BR>

chichi...if 1 is the best and 10 is the worst, I guess I&acute;d give them a 3 maybe even a 2 on the virus and firewall. I had MicroTrend&acute;s PC-cillin 2000 for 2 years, and was delighted to find that they made and update the anti-virus software in the suite. The firewall, is very similar to Zone Alarm. I say it&acute;s a winner, even without the other goodies. <BR> <BR>ps.....I do wish you would stop with the mile long jokes in the middle of a discussion. ok :)

&quot;Chchi&quot; = &quot;Chichi&quot;

he he he....... speaking of toilet paper.......... LOL <BR> <BR>FINALLY AN EXCUSE!! <BR> <BR>This is to all women everywhere who have ever had to deal with <BR>a public toilet. And it finally explains to all you men what takes us so <BR>long. <BR> <BR>My mother was a fanatic about public toilets. As a little girl, she&acute;d <BR>bring me in the stall, teach me to wad up toilet paper and wipe the <BR>seat. Then, she&acute;d carefully lay strips of toilet paper to cover the <BR>seat. Finally, she&acute;d instruct, &quot;Never, never sit on a public toilet <BR>seat.&quot; And she&acute;d demonstrate &quot;The Stance,&quot; which consisted of balancing <BR>over the toilet in a sitting position without actually letting any of <BR>your flesh make contact with the toilet seat. But by this time, I&acute;d have <BR>peed down my leg. And we&acute;d go home. <BR>That was a long time ago. I&acute;ve had lots of experience with public <BR>toilets since then, but I&acute;m still not particularly fond of public <BR>toilets, especially those with powerful, red-eye sensors. Those toilets <BR>know when you want them to flush. They are psychic toilets. But I always <BR>confuse their psychic ability by following my mother&acute;s advice and <BR>assuming The Stance. The Stance is excruciatingly difficult to maintain <BR>when one&acute;s bladder is especially full. This is most likely to occur <BR>after watching a full-length feature film. <BR>During the movie pee, it is nearly impossible to hold The Stance. You <BR>know what I mean. You drink a two liter cup of Diet Coke, then sit still <BR>through a three-hour saga because, for God&acute;s sake, even if you didn&acute;t <BR>wipe or wash your hands in the bathroom, you&acute;d still miss the pivotal <BR>part of the movie or the second scene, in which they flash the leading <BR>man&acute;s naked derriere. So, you cross your legs and you hold it. And you <BR>hold it until that first credit rolls and you sprint to the bathroom, <BR>about ready to explode all over your internal organs. And at the <BR>bathroom you find a line of women that makes you think there&acute;s a <BR>half-price sale on Mel Gibson&acute;s underwear in there. <BR>So, you wait and smile politely at all the other ladies, also crossing <BR>their legs and smiling politely. And you finally get closer. You check <BR>for feet under the stall doors. Every one is occupied. You hope no one <BR>is doing frivolous things behind those stall doors, like blowing her <BR>nose or checking the contents of her wallet. Finally, a stall door opens <BR>and you dash, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get <BR>in to find the door won&acute;t latch. It doesn&acute;t matter. You hang your <BR>handbag on the door hook, yank down your pants and assume The Stance. <BR>Relief. More relief. Then your thighs begin to shake. You&acute;d love to sit <BR>down but you certainly hadn&acute;t taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet <BR>paper on it, so you hold The Stance as your thighs experience a quake <BR>that would register an eight on the Richter scale. <BR>To take your mind off it, you reach for the toilet paper. Might as well <BR>be ready when you are done. The toilet paper dispenser is empty. Your <BR>thighs shake more. You remember the tiny napkin you wiped your fingers <BR>on after eating buttered popcorn. It would have to do. You crumble it in <BR>the puffiest way possible. It is still smaller than your thumbnail. <BR>Someone pushes open your stall door because the latch doesn&acute;t work and <BR>your pocketbook whams you in the head. &quot;Occupied!&quot; you scream and you <BR>reach out for the door, dropping your buttered popcorn napkin in a <BR>puddle and falling backward, directly onto the toilet seat. You get up <BR>quickly, but it&acute;s too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with all <BR>the germs and life forms on the bare seat because YOU never laid down <BR>toilet paper, not that there was any, even if you had enough time to. <BR>And your mother would be utterly ashamed of you if she knew, because her <BR>bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, &quot;You <BR>don&acute;t know what kind of diseases you could get.&quot; <BR>And by this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so <BR>confused that it flushes, sending up a stream of water akin to a <BR>fountain and then it suddenly sucks everything down with such force that <BR>you grab onto the toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged to <BR>China. At that point, you give up. You&acute;re finished peeing. You&acute;re soaked <BR>by the splashing water. You&acute;re exhausted. You try to wipe with a <BR>Chicklet wrapper you found in your pocket, then slink out <BR>inconspicuously to the sinks. <BR>You can&acute;t figure out how to operate the sinks with the automatic <BR>sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk <BR>past a line of women, still waiting, cross-legged and unable to smile <BR>politely at this point. One kind soul at the very end of the line points <BR>out that you are trailing a piece of toilet paper on your shoe as long <BR>as the Mississippi River. You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in <BR>the woman&acute;s hand and say warmly, &quot;Here. You might need this.&quot; <BR>At this time, you see your spouse, who has entered, used and exited his <BR>bathroom and read a copy of War and Peace while waiting for you. &quot;What <BR>took you so long?&quot; he asks, annoyed. This is when you kick him sharply <BR>in the shin and go home......... <BR>LOL LOL so you men out there better come in one hand a single rose and the other he hee sangria <BR> <BR>

/Koasati: thanks for the tip, info and link, did you say you have it? If so how would you rate 1 the best- 10 thumbs down, on the virus scanner and firewall protection? A lot of the programs offered are useless for me, my main concern is virus/security :-) Kaspersky is excellent, but I feel....... hmmmm lets just say their Russian and see wealth in America that I don&acute;t see :-) <BR> <BR>moshi, I have not had much experience with free programs, I always thought as you said... and if the program is worth the monies I&acute;m happy to pay and support them, but some are just getting greedy, take my scanner by Kaspersky for the last two years I paid $35.00 pr year, now I was informed its $80.00 per year..... I say, thats a big jump and I&acute;m not a happy camper with that......... One of my biggest downfall is I&acute;m spoiled, I like convience not irritation :-)

oops! forgot the obligatory http://www.ontrack.com/systemsuite/

Yes /Elwin: I agree, but why do these programs have to have such a high price tag to&quot; renew&quot;.... I understand they need monies to pay for the ongoing coding and virus codes, but their now asking you instead of a renewal price their asking full price every year :-( I agree strongly you only get what you pay for, thats why I had AVP Kaspersky package that has a combo of protection (First Time Purchase $100.00) for almost 3yrs now at $35. a year for renewal.... now their making it like when the year is up, throw it away and by a new package, to me that&acute;s ripping people off now, a renewal should be at least half the price of the first time purchase price... my opinion though, I see the net getting to expensive to even be able to skin any more too, you need to buy all these different graphics programs then editers etc and that can end up in thousands of dollars if you want the better programs out there, and then the skinner makes the skins for FREE for certain programs, at least some programmers offer their program for free if you make a skin for it, at least that helps the skinner too........ not just business sites that want the skinners to support their bandwidth untop of all the cost the skinner has too...... am I coming accross clear enough on what I&acute;m trying to say?

Incidentally - Object Desktop is $49.95 which gives you everything it alreayd has plus all updates for a year. At the end of the year a user can renew their subscription for $34.95 (which is quite a bit less than the original purchase). <BR> <BR>If the user chooses not to re-subscribe, the software continues to function fine. I.e. they don&acute;t hve to upgrade. And in fact, a user can re-subscribe at any time even years later still at $35. <BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>

Chichigirl, complaining won´t help. if you still buy and use these programs you prove the companies right. simple as that. there are free alternatives for nearly all needs. there is no need for a $1000 Photoshop for skinning, some of the very best skinners and icon makers can be found in the Linux world and use a free OS and a free mature graphics editor. i have even seen some really trippin´ Winamp skins done in Paint. also there is no need for Object Desktop, LiteStep is free and also superior in features. <BR> <BR>on the downside those free programs are demanding and require to read the documentation and to be willing and able to spend time to learn how to use them. so the decision is how much money are you willing to pay for the ease of use.

moshi - if you are arguing that Litestep is superior in features to Object Desktop then all I can say is that you are obviously not very familiar with Object Desktop. <BR> <BR>I like Litestep a lot but it doesn&acute;t even have all the features of DesktopX has on its own let alone what DesktopX + ObjectBar + WinStyles + WindowBlinds + IconPackager + Tab LaunchPad + SkinStudio + Treeview + WindowFX, etc. etc. <BR> <BR>Moreover, other non-free programs like Hoverdesk are on par if not superior to Litestep in many ways. <BR> <BR>In other words, I don&acute;t think it&acute;s accurate to describe Litestep to be &quot;superior in features&quot; to DesktopX let alone all of Object Desktop nor other commercial programs like Hoverdesk. <BR> <BR>Similarly, I&quot;ve seen little of value come out of the Linux community, particularly in the form of icons. And while I definitely consider Photoshop overpriced, Gimp is not comparable. <BR> <BR>Like ChiChiGirl, I don&acute;t like feeling like I&acute;m being nickled and dime&acute;d to death. I resent having Corel not fixing bugs in their programs or Adobe ding the same and releasing &quot;upgrades&quot; that cost hundreds of dollars. <BR> <BR>But I think it&acute;s a matter of thresholds and for each of us it&acute;s different. Some software I think provides a good value for the money. I think most of the desktop enhancements fall into that category (Object Desktop, Hoverdesk, NeXTStart for instance). They&acute;re all relatively inexpensive and provide a good value and don&acute;t require yearly upgrades for them to continue to function. <BR> <BR>I think the biggest hussle we&acute;ve seen has come from Microsoft with their OSes - Windows 98 came out in 1998, 98SE in 1999, Win2k and 2000 and WinXP in 2001. 2002 is going to be the first year that Microsoft hasn&acute;t asked people to pay bucks to receive decent support (and it&acute;s a lot harder to stick with an older version of an OS than it is with other types of software because of third party OS support).

/me values toilet paper over software anytime <BR> <BR>Nobody is forcing you to buy it, you know. And then there&acute;s inflation. That said, I can remember the days when the web was bannerless.

toilet paper rules! and you can skin it too (well, not that anyone wants to see it..) (blahh)

The bannerless days of the web were mainly when most sites were run at universities of various kinds so you paid for them iwth your tax dollars. Well actually, we Americans paid for them with our tax dollars. ;-) <BR> <BR>Then you had the phase when it was venture capital money used (and abused).

Well it ain&acute;t free, but On Track&acute;s System Suite comes with a full load of prorams. <BR>Firwall <BR>Anti-Virus...with auto updates <BR>Optimization, Maintainence, Dianostic and Recovery tools <BR>Internet cleanup tools <BR>it even came with PowerDesk. <BR>I can&acute;t remember if it was 29.95, or 39.95, but it was well worth it. <BR> <BR>OK........I stop with the commercial now. :D

&quot;I like Litestep a lot but it doesn´t even have all the features of DesktopX ...&quot; <BR> <BR>That&acute;s a bold statement, Brad. <BR>One that I&acute;d be afraid to either make, or defend. <BR>But then, I don&acute;t have the same reasons for making them. <BR>:)

Frogboy: here are links to my favorite Linux iconists: http://www.everaldo.com/ http://jimmac.musichall.cz/ <BR> <BR>you are correct, i meant DesktopX and ObjectBar. <BR> <BR>i am using LiteStep and i am a HoverDesk beta tester. there is no way HoverDesk is superior than LiteStep except the ease of use (and that´s well worth the $20 !!!). everything HoverDesk does can be done in LiteStep except the slider on the colorpicker, the eq sliders and the icon tinting on the popup menu. <BR> <BR>but there are literally hundreds of features LiteStep has, that HoverDesk and DesktopX/ObjectBar lack. seeing the posts on the dream os contest, LiteStep is actually the only one of the three that has a fully functional vwm. also hotkey support is poor compared with LiteStep. these are basics in my eyes. <BR> <BR>DesktopX is a great program, but for each feature LiteStep does not have (besides ease of use stuff like drag and drop), i could name at least five things you can´t do in DesktopX. as an example actually no one has ever used the full power of lsdialog.dll (but i am sure there are widely unused gems in DesktopX also). the new shortcut3.dll is very powerfull as well. <BR> <BR>of course GIMP is not comparable with Photoshop, but it works very good for skinning. it has all the features needed fro skinning, but again it´s not as easy to use.

Great post Moshi. <BR> <BR>I&acute;m very familiar with what Litestep can do and it is very impressive. <BR> <BR>Plugin wise I don&acute;t see that as a Litestep advantage as DesktopX can do the same thing you can code up your own DLLs too. <BR> <BR>But plugin wise it goes beyond that. A DesktopX object can use MULTIPLE plugins. Let me give you an example: <BR> <BR>I could have a plugin that creates virtual desktops and tie that to &quot;MyObject&quot;. I could then tie a second plugin to that same object that uses a second plugin that lets the object respond to hot keys (so I could hit Ctrl 1 to switch to VDM 1). I then could assign a third plugin to &quot;MyObject&quot; that lets it respond to mouse moves (i.e. like have the VDM pop up when I move my mouse to the right edge of the screen). These 3 plugins don&acute;t have to know about each other. <BR> <BR>Incidentally, there&acute;s nothing stopping someone from simply porting any Litestep over to DX. They tend to be open source and Litestep plugins essentially are just &quot;programs&quot; where they hand Litestep a HWND so that Litestep can move it and dock it to other things. DesktopX plugins can do the same sort of thing. <BR> <BR>But there&acute;s a lot more to COM than spread sheets. There are literally hundreds of COM objects on your system. Why write a plugin for video when you can just take advantage of MS&acute;s video player window natively? <BR> <BR>Or take this example: <BR>http://www.wincustomize.com/library/Frogboy/dx/kids2002.jpg <BR> <BR>I created this without having to use plugins. Just a single IE container COM object with buttons that send messages to that object. No programming, done in 10 minutes. <BR> <BR>And by alpha blending, I mean literally you can use a PNG file with an alpha channel as your graphic for ANY object and it&acute;s alpha blended on the fly. That&acute;s why you see so many of those MacOS X like themes because DesktopX can animate objects on the fly easily and have them be alpha blended the whole time. <BR> <BR>Most Litestep themes tend to be much more like ObjectBar themes (i.e. they tend to focus on creating bars and menus which DesktopX isn&acute;t designed for). <BR> <BR>I only know of a handful of Hoverdsk themes that have been ported to DesktopX. It doesn&acute;t make much sense to port DX to HvD or vice versa, ObjectBar and Hoverdesk compete but not DesktopX and Hvd. <BR> <BR>Anyway, I don&acute;t want to try to debate which is &quot;Better&quot; because it&acute;s subjective. I am only demonstrating that DesktopX is very feature rich. Or more to the point, that one can&acute;t say that Litestep has more features than DesktopX. <BR> <BR>

i agree, saying that LiteStep has more features than DesktopX was wrong. it has others (Winamp3 remotes as an example). <BR> <BR>btw: this little discussion inspired me to start a new project. a LiteStep dock that runs on top of explorer and has smooth alpha blending. i use DesktopX zoomer objects for this. current state is an app launcher, neighbouring objects zoom as well (0-1,0-2,0-3,0-2,0-1 states). works great (coding the step.rc was hard, but for me the coding is sometimes more interesting than the graphics). now have to add more features. <BR> <BR>i am not 100% sure, but if lsbrowser.dll (that i did not test yet) works as it´s supposed to be, i can rebuild the Kids desktop (what looks far more interesting than the whole OS X emulation) in 10 minutes as well . required modules: desktop2.dll, shortcut2.dll, lsbrowser.dll and script.dll (sends hotkey messages to IE with the forward and back buttons). i don´t have children yet, but good idea :)

LiteStep has that real-time alpha-blending as well: http://www.skinbase.org/rate.php?id=6498 <BR> <BR>actually the first time i try this (on XP since sunday) and i really love it. the shadows under the application windows are done by Y´z Shadow. amazing freeware (and so light on resources)

Come on Moshi give yourself the credit for finding this great apps Y&acute;z Shadow <BR> <BR>Original thread on AU: http://www.artuproar.com/index.php?page=fullnews&amp;num=20 <BR>website: http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~yzathome/software/yzshadow/ <BR>Download: http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~yzathome/software/yzshadow/yzsdw107.zip

Brad... <BR>that example about VDM changing via mouse movement and hotkeys etc all together, can be done with LiteSTEP as well. <BR> <BR>Animated objects are fairly straight-forward in LS too...alpha-blended etc....but at this stage I&acute;m using bmps not pngs....rainmation.dll needs the former...;) <BR> <BR>moshi...I&acute;m no &acute;expert&acute;, I just like using the animated &acute;shortcuts&acute; because it&acute;s &acute;fun&acute;...;) <BR> <BR>I just wish I knew more about scripting....everything I&acute;ve done has been via trial-and-error....[no background in programming]...;p

Jafo: well, you are probably the one that uses rainmation.dll in themeing most. ;) <BR> <BR>but give layercut.dll a try. the greatest thing besides the PNG transparency is that shortcuts can overlap each other and all the transparency is done in real time. also great is that you can use DesktopX zoomer objects with it. also great is that layercut has the same !bang commands as shortcut2.dll. <BR> <BR>scripting: well i have no programming backgorund either (besides some Commodore64 Basic), but in LiteStep the whole thing is about commands and conditional statements, so everything is pretty logical in the end.

/me doesn&acute;t like Litestep..

to complicated for my bonehead!

Programming in general is commands and conditional statements. Oh and crap like memory management and having to be intimately familiar with the Windows´SDK´s.