permanently placed desktop windows?! etc...

from WinCustomize Forums
in taking a look at the winstyles screen shot on the news/home page of wincust, i saw what looks like a very basic explorer window or scrolable window embeded into the desktop! i would LOVE to be able to do this and if anyone can tell me how to, it would be extremely appreciated! im sure im looking over some simple explorer commmand or somthing rediculous, but humor me and tell me how i can do this! thanks. also, how do i enable drop shadows on the outsides of explorer windows, or any window opened for that matter?

any help is much appreciated, thanks.
1,734 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I don't know for sure, but that is probably an embedded DXScript object. It would probably require writing a little code to implement, but one of the DXScript programmers could probably release it as an object, so anyone could use it. Possibly ask around the DesktopX newsgroups to see if someone there knows how?

As to the shadows, that looks to be the next version of WindowFX (coming soon to an ODNT near you, hopefully).
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Woah! I think I agree in saying that is cool! And wierd. I would like to know whether this can be done without and of OD running (on WinXP). Can anyone help?
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
hmm.. ill ask around about the desktopx theory. another idea ive heard is that it could be done by wrting an html file and having it display on your desktop through active desktop. this sounds like a time consuming preocess, especially if you want the window in a certain place with certain proportions... so im sure theres gotta be an easier way! keep the ideas coming!
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
DesktopX now supports embedding ActiveX controls on the desktop. That looks like Internet Explorer's Web Browser control embedded on the desktop and pointing to a directory rather than a web page.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
you bet! ive got a working script for this exact thing. now to start my desktopx theme. i may or may not use these in my theme, as they are still pretty glitchy, dont support any alphablending, and they always seem to default to the same view type. go to my author section here https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?AuthorID=163939 to see a screen shot of what ill be converting into a desktopx theme! any suggestions are welcome here or at the screen shot thread.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
HTML file? sounds possible. If it is set up to show the same background image as the desktop anyway but with a window in it, it should be able to be done. Web pages could be done this way too. Now how would I actually go about writing this HTML file, I wonder...