Umh, I don't know, but do I feel some slightly negative vibrations between Pixtudio and Stardock lately ? Please say that it is not true...

What exactly is wrong with the Toon-XP skin?
Please send full reports to: [email protected]

No, c242, there aren't any bad vibes.
We work with Pixtudio on corporate projects all the time.

Well either way, I paid MY MONEY for this Toon skin. I will not purchase another skin, I said SKIN from Stardock or Pixtudio until this issue is resolved(and I'm pretty sure I've purchased all of the ones both Stardock and Pixtudio sold) . I mentioned this bug in the skin weeks ago and now finally somone from Pixtudio answers this thread. I know Pixtudio and Stardock reads this messageboard and neither has done nothing about it, that I've seen anyway. Take the money and run I guess. If you guys don't have time to fix your products, then why make them. This is very disapointing. I'm sorry for sounding harsh but that's the way it is to me.

I'm not aware of any problems with Toon-XP that need to be addressed. But if there are, and Alexandrie doesn't have time to work on them (Pixtudio is very busy with lots of projects presently), I can look at fixing them myself. Either way, one of us can look at updating the skin if there are problems.

But I think the tone of the initial post here is what kind of took us all aback. It implies that there was some sort of promise that we'd be making some sort of "Face lift" or something.

If there are issues with it, please send detailed reports to: [email protected] As stated many times: this message board is *not* a valid means of getting support. If reports are not sent to support, they can't be reviewed, reproduced, or fixed if needed.

BTW, Stardock and Pixtudio talk on a daily basis. Heck, I talk to Alexandrie via IM several hours per week. Even as I type this, Pixtudio is redesigning Stardock's home pages.

I do not receive anything from the money you are giving on that suite, we have been paid a fix amount, so jarget, we will not argue on this point, if you are not happy with it, write Stardock so they can at least know about the problems.

im glad something will be done. I've heard peeps complaining about problems and theyve gone un-noticed and obviously some just didnt care.

Frogboy, this is what took me back, and why I got involved despite not having the skin. It has nothing to do with additions or the likes.

"ToonXP wblinds skin was built at first version of Wblinds supporting ShellStyles, so Alpha version, it's normal there is tons of bugs now."

Alexandrie new their were bugs, or at least a good chance and took the 'I dont care' route, blaiming her reasoning on money a few posts later. As the one of the authors, didnt even at the very least acknowledge a responsibility to inform Stardock/you.

In anycase, thanks for addressing the issue Frogboy.

KarmaGirl, Alexandrie point taken.

Thornz, I do not even have this skin anymore, I told people to wrote stardock directly. How can I test something I do not have anymore? I lost everything because of a virus in January.

you could at least inform stardock, you were the author. You've come off as callous and uncaring about the situation, not even willing to extend a little help to those who need it by sending a simple email. Its just a nice thing to do.

I totally agree with Thornz. On that note, Pixtudio lost me as a customer. I think I purchased all your suites except the last one, Abracadabra.

jarget has left the building.

ya know, I've defended you and pixtudio countless times on the neowin wb boards because I had respect for you. I think my biggest dissapointment has been your attitude, its void of care and seems to express only greed. While I would assume this is from from true, as youve givin so much to the community, thats whats been expressed here.

Am I missing something? I have purchased every Pixtudio suite. Period. Absolutely beautiful and absoulutely no problems. What exactly is supposed to be wrong with "Toon"? And who exactly is this "genius" who is bitching about something he never ever paid for in the first place?

gregory, I got inolved because people were exressing problems and being turned away. Its called principle, and there was also concern that someone I was supporting may not have been the person I thought they were, naturally I was going to find out. Im glad I did.

Karmagirl : Glad to hear.

Thornz and Jarget : I know I am in danger to be called 'Stardock Fan Boy' again, but what about the huge amount of support already given on other matters by Stardock and Pixtudio ? I think it is a little exaggerated to nail them down only on that Toon XP matter. Just my 2 cents.
And on another note : I think You both would have the ability to fix the error by Yourself. I am for example waiting for the Universe Metal skin for WB 4, but in the meantime I made a version for myself, gave me some practice.

Frogboy : I also must admit that there have been reports about problems with Toon for a longer time now in the stardock newsgroups.

c242, im not upset with Stardock, and I dont recall ever receiving support from Pixtudio for stardock products. If I had the skin I wouldve fixed it, and still complained, my involvement was in support of others, including those who dont have the ability to fix the skins themselves. Not everyone posts, many people read. It's solely principle.

In anycase, Frogboy has addressed the issue and I'm satisifed knowing he'll take care of any problems.

Of course I don't meant that Pixtudio gives support for the programs.

I too am not mad at anybody and I would not have brought it up if the skin was free. It was not free.
It is the principle of the matter. I paid money for a product. My boycott on Pixtudio is my right as a consumer. I'm just excersing my rights as an American. If I don't like the service and or attitude of a manufacturer, seller, reseller, producer, artist, designer, what ever your title is and you sell products to consumers, I will just not buy the product from them anymore, simple as that, no harm, no foul. It does not mean I am angry with anybody. Sure maybe I could have fixed it by myself, but why should I? I paid for the darn skin. I know Stardock has done alot for the skinning community and so has Pixtudio but to say I should not mention or bring up faults because of that is ridiculous. It seems like alot of people hold these skinners up on a pedestal. They're just normal people like all of us, they wipe their butt just like we do. Don't get me wrong, I love the work these skinners in the community put out, and I have my favorites just like you all probably do. Most of the skins they put out are free and some are not but either way they put alot of time and effort into making those skins but at the same time I put alot of time and effort to earn my money.

Given what's been said here it seems perhaps Stardock jumped the gun in releasing the Toon suite based on an early WB 4 Alpha? Perhaps it would have been better if Stardock had waited until WB 4 was final and made sure the suite was made to suit? Given the circumstances, I think it's not completely unreasonable to ask that SD update the Toon suite to clean up any known bugs that resulted.

Frankly I did have problems with the Toon XP Suite. The Pixstudio skins I've purchased have been great and problem free (for me at least) and PixOS is a fine example IMO. So I'm not knocking Pixstudio. But I'll probably hesitate to buy another SD skin suite after having seen reports of bugs without (unless I've missed it) any indication that the vendor intends to address them.

The only reason I brought this up was because when I had mentioned the buggy shutdown/logoff dialogs (which I managed to fix myself but have to "re-fix" each & every time I install/re-install the Toon-XP suite) someone whom I can't remember now (unfortunately) respopnded to the thread that indeed there was some sort of update in the works and that's the last I ever heard about it until I started this thread. Maybe the person who posted that was talking outta the other side of their butt, I dunno. I can't seem to find that thread anymore, maybe an admin has the ability to find that thread from a few weeks ago & let me know that whoever responded to me was or was not fulla sh... er.. lies. It was just my wishfull thinking that maybe we'd get a cursorXP theme and/or maybe an XPlogon theme to go with the bug fix(es).

I will email Stardock with my bug KarmaGirl, thank you.

smooches,
» Phy³ . . .

Just so we're clear though so that in the future we don't have this kind of mix up:

Posting on some news group or forum is not reporting a bug. If you have something that you really think really needs to be fixed, you need to email [email protected] (support at stardock.com). Then it'll get added to our bug tracking database and then a developer resource (a person) can get assigned to that task.

*I* use Toon-XP all the time. I haven't had any problems with it. It's one of the best skins of all time.

I can't imagine any problem with it being more than some fairly trivial little tweak that needs to be made.

Ok, my previous post was written before FB and KG posted so I'm a bit late.

But...it should be no news to anyone who has read the SD newsgroups or here that people have reported problems with the Toon suite. How many people actually contacted SD support I don't know. How many people contacted Pixstudio instead because they were told to do so here and in the ngs, I don't know. I emailed SD support and after 4-5 days I got a classic have you unintalled/reinstalled response. In the meantime I eliminated the problem myself in a manner other than that suggested by SD.

Still, the 'buy a product and figure out how to fix or work around it yourself' method which some people have recommended in response is not the ideal mode of support for a commercial product IMO. Sorry, but unfortunately Toon is the one SD purchase I have made that I am not that happy about.

ToonXP is not a Pixtudio product, it's Stardock product, if you have bugs to report you have to do it directly to Stardock support.

If Stardock always get reports from Pixtudio of problems people have, it's time consuming because we have to write back to the person, and the person write back, then we write again stardock, then the person, then Stardock, totally non sense, imagine we would have to do that with lots of persons. This is why we do not provide support we are not supposed, but at least we do reply them.

We do our own support on our suites, we even hired someone to have faster and better support last month.

People have to understand we are gettings lots of emails everyday and it's hard to deal with all of them. We are doing our best to help everyone but there is some things we can't do forever if they are not releated to our products, we have to make things the way they should to not spend our 24 hours per day on emails.

I have a son and I have a husband I don't see them enough just because I answer my emails, talk with people over msn, icq and more. I am not a robot, I am human, and if people are mad at me for wanting people to contact directly the concerned persons when they have trouble... well fine, I prefer to deal with this than let my son grow little more without seeing him that much.

I do care about people, but we have to make things working the right way now or we will never see the end. If we had some kind of partnership on this suite we would have done the changes, but this is not the case. This was a contract, we have been hired to do the job, but after that Stardock is the one dealing with anykinds of things with the suite. They can even hire someone else to do the updates, they own the skin and they paid for it. We are doing our best to do support on free skins and our suites we made, the rest we tell people to contact directly the right persons for the reason already explain above.

Sorry if some people hate us because of that.