WindowBlinds 3.2 on Object Desktop
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Version 3.2 has a significance on Windows XP that previous versions did not have.
WindowBlinds 3.0 used the XP "skinning engine" (for lack of a better term - it's really a set of APIs that read in and work with .msstyles files which is contained in a file called uxtheme.dll) for large portions of skinning.
But as 3.0 came out, some critics pointed out that there were certain parts that were not truly "native". Well, 3.2 goes the rest of the way. With WindowBlinds 3.2 installed on Windows XP, WindowBlinds skins are, as far as
the OS is concerned, no different than visual styles. They just have a different format. If one were to look very closely at the APIs called by uxtheme.dll and wblind.dll they would find that they now use the same ones
for virtually everything. Put anoter way, WindowBlinds 3.2 on XP is truly native. Any differences now is purely in the skin format. There is only one more thing to be done and that is to handle the window ghosting (when an
application is not responding it gets the classic title bar - contrary to popular believe, XP's visual styles just "Skin" the "classic" title bar and when an app isn't responding, Microsoft merely hooked the proper calls to
make it stay looking skinned - we still have to do this but since it's purely cosmetic we are currently focusing on increasing WB's advantage).
Where WindowBlinds really gains its advantage is in its skin format - .UIS. Ironcially, WindowBlinds 3.2 is much faster than visual styles on XP thanks to Windows 95. Why? Because UIS was designed at a time when systems were
slower and system resources were key. The result is that WB us much more efficient in resources which translates to performance as well than visual styles which were designed with XP in mind on systems with 128MB of ram or
more running P3 or better processors. You add some hardware acceleration and the WindowBlinds advantage increases further. Things will hopefully get even better when the new OFFICIAL NVidia drivers are released. We are
working closely with Nvidia to help make sure that the new drivers (not the leaked ones) work well with WindowBlinds. Nvidia and ATI have both been
using our XPBench program (www.xpbench.com) to help tune their video drivers which in turn makes WindowBlinds's hardware acceleration better.
Now, let's say you're running Windows 98, ME, the news is very good there too. We haven't forgotten those users since they represent the vast majority of people running Windows. If you're really bored, load up WindowBlinds 3.1A and then load your favorite set of programs and check how many free resources are left. Then load up WindowBlinds 3.2 and do the same. WB 3.2 uses substantially fewer resources than 3.1A which should
improve performance and compatibility.
Please download and try 3.2 from Object Desktop. Once it is ready we will release it to registered users of WindowBlinds. There will NOT be a public version of WindowBlinds 3.2. The next public version will be 3.25 or 3.3 sometime late next month.
WindowBlinds 3.0 used the XP "skinning engine" (for lack of a better term - it's really a set of APIs that read in and work with .msstyles files which is contained in a file called uxtheme.dll) for large portions of skinning.
But as 3.0 came out, some critics pointed out that there were certain parts that were not truly "native". Well, 3.2 goes the rest of the way. With WindowBlinds 3.2 installed on Windows XP, WindowBlinds skins are, as far as
the OS is concerned, no different than visual styles. They just have a different format. If one were to look very closely at the APIs called by uxtheme.dll and wblind.dll they would find that they now use the same ones
for virtually everything. Put anoter way, WindowBlinds 3.2 on XP is truly native. Any differences now is purely in the skin format. There is only one more thing to be done and that is to handle the window ghosting (when an
application is not responding it gets the classic title bar - contrary to popular believe, XP's visual styles just "Skin" the "classic" title bar and when an app isn't responding, Microsoft merely hooked the proper calls to
make it stay looking skinned - we still have to do this but since it's purely cosmetic we are currently focusing on increasing WB's advantage).
Where WindowBlinds really gains its advantage is in its skin format - .UIS. Ironcially, WindowBlinds 3.2 is much faster than visual styles on XP thanks to Windows 95. Why? Because UIS was designed at a time when systems were
slower and system resources were key. The result is that WB us much more efficient in resources which translates to performance as well than visual styles which were designed with XP in mind on systems with 128MB of ram or
more running P3 or better processors. You add some hardware acceleration and the WindowBlinds advantage increases further. Things will hopefully get even better when the new OFFICIAL NVidia drivers are released. We are
working closely with Nvidia to help make sure that the new drivers (not the leaked ones) work well with WindowBlinds. Nvidia and ATI have both been
using our XPBench program (www.xpbench.com) to help tune their video drivers which in turn makes WindowBlinds's hardware acceleration better.
Now, let's say you're running Windows 98, ME, the news is very good there too. We haven't forgotten those users since they represent the vast majority of people running Windows. If you're really bored, load up WindowBlinds 3.1A and then load your favorite set of programs and check how many free resources are left. Then load up WindowBlinds 3.2 and do the same. WB 3.2 uses substantially fewer resources than 3.1A which should
improve performance and compatibility.
Please download and try 3.2 from Object Desktop. Once it is ready we will release it to registered users of WindowBlinds. There will NOT be a public version of WindowBlinds 3.2. The next public version will be 3.25 or 3.3 sometime late next month.
