White Paper
Summer/Fall 2000
Contents
I. Executive Summary
II. General Overview
III. The Components
a) WindowBlinds
b) DesktopX
c) WindowFX
d) ObjectZIP
e) Component Tray
f) Control Center
g) IconPackager
h) Tab LaunchPad
i) BuilderBlinds
j) DriveScan
k) Component Manager
l) Coming attractions
IV. Stardock.net: The Object Desktop Network
V. Availability
VI. About Stardock
Executive Summary
Object Desktop is a desktop environment designed to take advantage of the long underused object oriented technologies (COM) of Windows. It provides end users and/or administrators unprecedented levels of control and flexibility over the operating system. Its goal is to allow users to customize Windows to suit their needs. This includes the look, feel, and function of the operating system.
The net result is that a system with Object Desktop installed is like upgrading your OS to the next level. It makes Windows easier to use, more powerful, and more productive and because it works directly with published APIs, it is compatible across multiple versions of Windows.
General Overview
Background on Windows
One of the complaints of Windows is that it has a very rigid way of doing things. The designers have taken great lengths to try to provide a standardized way of working on the computer. One of the goals for Windows 95 was to move away from the significant variety of ways Windows was implemented in different places that so pervaded the Windows 3.1 world.
Any long time user of PCs will likely remember that visiting a company (our household) running Windows 3.1 would show a large variety of ways it was being used. Some users stayed with Program Manager and organized their work in a specific way unique to them. Other users replaced Program Manager with something from PC Tools or Norton Desktop. One thing was certain, there was little conformity in how the OS was used.
When Windows 95 was designed, the lack of conformity in Windows 3.1 was a significant issue as it created immense training issues for companies. When Windows 95 came forth, it became apparent that one size would fit all. There would be a Start bar and it would be located on the bottom of the screen (though it can be moved around, few people do). There would be several icons on the desktop – “My Computer”, “Network Neighborhood”, and a few others. The OS was going to become a commodity that would be no different than using your toaster or refrigerator. Or at least, that seemed to be the intent.
Of course, this was in stark contrast to other operating systems – notably IBM OS/2 and Linux which put the environment in the user’s hands. IBM OS/2 in particular had the workplace shell which enabled both massive customization by end users and strict controls by administrators. On OS/2, for instance, terms like “desktop” and “folders” were taken seriously. An OS/2 desktop was meant to be as varied as real desktop. In contrast, a “desktop” on Windows is meaningless. Most desktops on Windows are identical other than wallpaper and various numbers of icons on the desktop.
Contrary to what many of Microsoft’s critics may contend, Windows does have an object-oriented layer. It is simply not used very much yet. Object Desktop is being created in order to take advantage of the object oriented technologies in Windows to give users and administrators the power to tailor how Windows works to their needs.
A background on Object Desktop
Object Desktop was originally created by Stardock for IBM OS/2. Even before Windows, OS/2 had a powerful and pervasive object oriented layer called SOM (System Object Model) as well as a shell that readily used it called The Workplace Shell (WPS).
In 1994, OS/2’s environment was powerful and flexible but very chaotic and often difficult to get things done. IBM gave the users and administrators the raw pieces to do many wonderful things but left it to the users to put together their solutions. Object Desktop, released in 1995, provided the structure users wanted while leveraging the object oriented technology in OS/2. IBM showcased Object Desktop as one of the finest examples of object oriented technology in action. IBM’s leading advocate at the time, Dave Barnes, boasted that Object Desktop was the first thing he installed on any OS/2 system.
Specifically, what Object Desktop provided to OS/2 was:
A mechanism in which one could easily
organize and launch programs (Tab LaunchPad)
A mechanism to browse many types of
programs and have virtual desktops (Control Center)
A mechanism to seamlessly treat ZIP files
like a standard folder (Object Archives)
A mechanism to package up the object
oriented pieces of OS/2 into a single file (Object Package)
An object oriented file manager
(Object Navigator)
An integrated way to launch programs
via keyboard hotkeys (Keyboard LaunchPad)
And a host of seamlessly added
features to the OS itself including changing the look and feel.
Object Desktop on OS/2
In the case of OS/2, the OS already had plenty of flexibility, but it lacked structure. Just launching a program could require several clicks. There was no file manager available that worked with the object technology in OS/2 (i.e. nothing that could see “shadows” or “migrated objects”). There was no way of even really backing up your object oriented desktop or the objects themselves in the OS.
OS/2 Warp 4 without Object Desktop. IBM borrowed some ideas from Object Desktop and created the WarpCenter (top) and used Stardock’s recommendation to put the close button on the left side of the min/max buttons as Object Desktop did. But ultimately it is still difficult to get around in the OS compared to Object Desktop. Warpcenter also violates many of OS/2’s object oriented features. Also notice the two templates on the bottom left hand corner (new program, new folder). Without the structure Object Desktop provides to OS/2, users are left with having to clutter their desktop with short cut mechanism to do common things.
Compared with…
Notice how the OS/2 folder has a combo box? The user can type in a URL or switch to a different directory or FTP site similar to what is in Windows 2000. Control Center at the bottom provides both structure and flexibility while using OS/2’s object oriented technologies. Instead of a template, the user right clicks on the desktop and can create a new folder. Adding new items to this menu is merely a drag and drop into the “New item” folder in the Object Desktop folder.
The Conformity of Windows
Ironically, Windows has the exact opposite problem. Windows 95/NT/2000 is all structure but little flexibility. But flexibility is possible because Microsoft has provided the underpinnings there for developers to use. But the large developers are fixated on creating gigantic monolithic applications and the small developers are either too busy creating the same types of programs that have always existed or are busy trying to create things that won’t generate revenue but will generate lots of users over the internet.
How much conformity is there? Well, let’s see if we can describe your Windows 95/98/NT/2000 desktop:
1) You have a “Start Bar”.
2) This Startbar is on the bottom of your screen
3) On the right side of it is a clock followed by a ton of indecipherable tiny icons, half of which you don’t know what they do.
4) The left side says “Start”.
5) When you click on “Start” it brings up a menu, one of which says “Programs” that is filled with dozens if not more programs, most of which you never use and many of which you have no idea what they are.
6) On the LEFT side of your “desktop” you have at least 4 icons which are specifically labeled “My Computer”, “Network Neighborhood”, “Internet Explorer”, and “Recycle Bin”.
7) Additionally, you have possibly another few to a couple dozen icons flowing from the left side of your desktop making your desktop look like an unorganized mess.
Does this describe your desktop? Odds are it does. This is conformity in action and unfortunately, it is not the most productive way to run your computer.
The Problems with Windows
Users that spend any significant time on the computer are losing many hours per year due to wading through the Start menu or trying to figure out where some of these programs are physically located on the drive.
They also spend a lot of time wondering why some massive paint package is loading up when they double click their tiny scanned images.
If they deal with ZIP files, assuming they know what they are, double clicking on them launches some large multi-megabyte program that can do 20,000 different wonderful things with the ZIP file when in reality they simply want to launch a “Setup” program or extract the contents somewhere.
Even though the Start menu is full of what seems like thousands of programs, they only use about a half dozen (at most) most of the time. Windows 2000 is addressing this but the OS decides what you see and don’t see in these menus.
When they drag and drop an icon they feel like you have to use the Right mouse button because the user can’t figure out when it’s going to copy it, when it’s going to create a short cut or when it is going to move it. There is no way of configuring this.
The Windows user interface itself is hard coded to have 3 drab buttons up on the top right. There is no mechanism for adding additional buttons based on the user’s particular needs. They cannot configure the interface based on application either – for instance, MS Office applications do not have additional buttons in their title bars that might make working between them easier.
Their system has many gigabytes of data on it, most of which they have no idea where the data is actually located.
Object Desktop has been created to address the problems listed above. Not all of the issues of Windows will be solved immediately or even in the first version but it is quickly integrating solutions to these problems into the OS.
Don’t be too quick to blame Microsoft
Everytime Microsoft adds something to the OS, they get called a monopolist. And when they don’t add something to it, they get blamed for making a bad OS.
In the case of the long neglected desktop environment market, Microsoft can’t be blamed. They have put in the plumbing to do many incredible and wonderful things to the OS. And yet, for some reason, companies are not using it.
Other operating systems, notably OS/2, have an entire category of desktop environment enhancements. On Windows, “Desktop enhancement” typically means something that changes system sounds or wallpapers.
Object Desktop on Windows
So to conclude, Object Desktop is a set of OS features (called components) that integrate into Windows to address the short comings of Windows while also taking advantage of the underlying object model to provide the user the ability to make the OS look, feel, and behave as they want it to. There is nothing else quite like it.
In this simple screenshot the user has replaced the Start Bar with Control Center and used the enhanced Association to have 3 unique associations with the file. The traditional Object Desktop look is active which provides a roll-up button.
.
The Components of Object Desktop
One of the things that differentiates Object Desktop is how small its components are. A good Object Desktop component should use the features of the operating system as much as possible. A good component should look and feel as if it were originally part of the OS. It should contain as little extraneous graphics and other non-essential pieces. Almost every component of Object Desktop could fit onto a single floppy disk for each one. In an era where programs that do very little seem to take massive amounts of memory and disk space, Object Desktop goes the opposite direction.
On OS/2, Object Desktop’s integration was so tight that the user often was not certain what features were natively part of the operating system and what features Object Desktop introduced. That is the goal on Windows as well (generally).
The components mentioned here do not include all of them, only some of the major components.
WindowBlinds
WindowBlinds is the visual enhancement component of Object Desktop. Its job is to eliminate the boundaries of visual and functional customization of the user interface.
In a nutshell, WindowBlinds lets the user change the look and feel of the user interface as well as adding new functionality. A user can add new buttons, clocks, stock tickers, news tickers, web links, news feeds, roll-up buttons, animation, and anything else that they might want.
Think of it like this, WindowBlinds takes over the key areas of the user interface (the title bar and border areas, buttons, check boxes, etc.). What is put in those areas is up to the particular user or interface designer (aka “Skin author”).
One ironic thing about this feature is that based on our surveys, a large number of users simply change Windows to look like another operating system such as MacOS.
Windows and Macintosh merge with Object Desktop? WindowBlinds is the
component that changes the look and feel of Windows.
Because of the immense popularity of this component, Stardock has also allowed it to be distributed as a stand alone package.
Amazingly, the entire package can fit onto a single floppy. But don’t let the size fool you, WindowBlinds took over two years of development. It was not easy to make (hence why there are no programs that yet approach it in sophistication or reliability let alone support).
The configuration window of WindowBlinds
DesktopX
DesktopX is an object framework for Windows. In plain terms, this means that it allows for desktop extensions that can interact with each other, with the operating system, or external programs. It is heavily influenced by IBM’s OpenDoc (http://www-4.ibm.com/software/ad/opendoc/position.html).
The idea is to pre-package a set of very broad classes that can be inherited from to create an extremely flexible desktop interface. In the same way that OS/2 had the Workplace shell based on SOM (system object model), DesktopX will be a layer on top of Explorer that talks to COM and DCOM. Where OpenDoc was designed to allow developers to create parts that would be used in compound documents, DesktopX is purely focused on the desktop interface. This is on purpose – by limiting its scope, DesktopX can be used by end users to create DesktopX objects without the need for any programming by the user.
A DesktopX object can be anything as simple as a graphic layer or as complex as a miniature application created with little or no programming.
A DesktopX object in practice is designed to provide a context menu as similar to a Windows icon as possible. But notice that an object can be exported. In this way, users can trade objects back and forth.
Creating an object that is animated is trivial for a user.
DesktopX is powerful but it is also extremely easy to create an object that
simply has cosmetic properties such as animation, sound, alpha blending, etc.
A DesktopX theme
example
WindowFX
WindowFX provides Windows with additional special effects, particularly under Windows 2000. No other program on any other OS can do some of the things it can do. For instance, it can give windows their own alpha blended shadows (see below).
It can make windows, menus, and other bits of the OS semi-transparent. It can animate windows and dialogs in unique ways giving the user an extra customized feel to their system.
WindowFX is the only program on any OS that can provide true alpha blended shadows to a window.
WindowFX, like WindowBlinds, is popular enough to be a hit as a stand alone program. And like WindowBlinds, it is a component that helps make Object Desktop a truly compelling product.
WindowFX in action…
ObjectZIP
ZIP files are fairly universal now on PCs. And with them comes a myriad of ZIP management programs ranging from Winzip to ZipMagic. Even Microsoft provides a semi-integrated ZIP management program for Windows 98 Plus! Users as well as Windows ME users.
So what is the point of ObjectZIP? ObjectZIP provides ZIP functionality as part of the actual operating system. It makes ZIP files look, feel, and behave like standard Windows folders without the need for adding a new file system (as ZipMagic does). ObjectZIP, by contrast, works as a file extension to Explorer which means that ObjectZIP works on all current versions of Windows and is likely to work on future versions of Windows without modification.
Additionally, because it is a file extension and not a file system, ZIP files are still treated like files and not folders from the command line. ObjectZIP initially will only support ZIP and CAB files. But its universal plug-in interface will allow for any compression format to be “plugged in” by third parties as well as by Stardock itself. Once a plug-in is installed, that format will be treated as if that compression format was natively part of the operating system.
Example
of ObjectZIP in action
Control Center
The Control Center is a little bit hard to explain in a short description. But basically, it allows the user to better control how they work on Windows. It can have virtual desktops, resource monitoring, program launching, and is highly configurable. If the only feature it had was virtual desktops, it could arguably be considered the best virtual desktop program around. But it’s much much more than that.
It is highly configurable, designed to allow several uniquely configured instances of itself be executed. One Control Center could be a launch bar, another be just virtual desktops, while still another be just a clock.
A picture is worth a thousand words: (next page)
This screenshot shows 4 instances of Control Center running. The clock on the top left, the launchbar on the left, the task browser on the top right and the virtual desktops on the right. We could also have added resource monitoring somewhere as well.
Object Desktop’s Control Center running as a single entity.
IconPackager
IconPackager has a pretty straight forward mission – allow users to change every icon on their system either by changing them individually or by applying an icon package. An icon package being a collection of icons contained a archive in which he icon has been pre-assigned to change a particular object on the system.
In short, IconPackager makes it easy for users to change every icon on their system in one swoop. IconPackager also links directly to another component called “Tweak Shell” which lets the user truly tweak the Windows 95/98/NT/2000 shell as much as any Power tweaking type utility would do.
IconPackager with 6 icon packages already available. Dozens of others are available for download on the Internet and on Stardock’s website.
Tab LaunchPad
Tab LaunchPad is one of Object Desktop's most popular features. The Windows 95/NT Start Bar seemed like a good idea at first. But, users have quickly found that after long use, the menus become a real headache to navigate through. Internet Explorer 4 can help a little by allowing you to add a few of your most often used programs be placed on the Start bar itself. But for users who want to make getting to their programs as easy as possible, there's no alternative to Object Desktop's Tab LaunchPad.
With the Tab LaunchPad, users can organize their programs by category and by clicking on the corresponding tab, get to the program they want to run. This saves valuable screen space as well making those programs much more accessible.
Tab LaunchPad also includes a filterable Tasks tab for quick and convenient access to the running applications on your system.
Tab LaunchPad can be a real life safer and productivity enhancer for users who deal with a lot of programs. It can be set to "activate" by moving the mouse to a corner of the screen. In practice, this means even if your desktop is full of windows, you can still get to your programs simply by moving the mouse to a corner of the screen and launching your programs.
Tab
LaunchPad in action.
BuilderBlinds
BuilderBlinds is arguably the most powerful skin design program available. Its purpose is to make skinning accessible to non-programmers. To attain this goal, BuilderBlinds has taken a visual development approach. It is sort of a cross between Visual Studio and Photoshop and the results have been nothing short of phenomenal. In May 2000 alone, BuilderBlinds was used by over 12,000 users.
The BuilderBlinds visual skin development studio
DriveScan
DriveScan is a component that works either via the right-click menu on a folder or drive or as a stand alone program. It has been created to give visual feedback on where the user’s drive space has gone to.
DriveScan: Visually displays where all your disk space is going.
Component Manager
As will be discussed later, one of the ways of getting Object Desktop is through Stardock.net’s electronic subscription service known as “The Object Desktop Network”. Users that join it will be able to use Component Manager, a state of the art program manager that handles the installation, deleting, and management of all of the components.
When a user subscribes, they are given a serial number which they enter into the user information screen. Once this has been done, they click the Object Desktop icon which logs them onto the network and displays the Object Desktop components they don’t already have installed.
Component Manager turns the Internet into a virtual CD-ROM drive for the user.
The items on the left side of the screen represent the different choices available to the user. Component Manager allows the user to back up and restore components in the event of a disaster or if they simply want to transfer their components to a computer that does not have internet access.
Listing of already installed components.
Coming Attractions
In the Component Manager screenshot, you can see that we have only covered a few of the existing components of Object Desktop. Other components include Association Wizard which makes associating files with different programs a snap. Object Edit is a powerful editor that loads as fast as Notepad. Object Sweeper easily goes through your system and cleans up loose ends and broken short-cuts. Stardock.net GUI client is a simple chat program that is trivial to get going (just choose connect) where users can talk to other people around the world.
Other components on the horizon include:
Object Navigator – A powerful file manager that will
take advantage of NTFS’s extended attributes so allow users to deal with their
data in more ways than raw file location.
Object System Manager – Allows users to take control
over how the user interface behaves.
That is, what the mouse buttons will do, how drag and drop works, etc.
Object Package – Allows users to package up desktop
objects/programs. For instance,one
could package up their desktop for transfer to another system as well as
package up say MS Word so that if they reinstall Windows from scratch,
unpackaging it will restore all the registry settings automatically. (similar
to Object Package on OS/2).
SpringFolders – makes dragging and dropping a
file into a sub-folder in Windows a snap.
ObjectDock – a replacement for the Windows
task bar that provides far greater flexibility in how it is displayed.
SuperTray – a replacement for the system tray
that allows users to work with the system tray in any way they would like as
well as making it look the way they want it to.
ImageNavigator – integrates image management
into the operating system which in turn makes it much easier to manage the
growing number of graphic files a user typically has on their system.
Many other components are on the way that we cannot discuss at this time.
Stardock.net: The Object Desktop
Network
Stardock believes that in the future, more and more people will begin treating software as a service. Office applications, system maintenance, games, financial programs, and desktop enhancements are among the types of applications it expects people will eventually subscribe to.
To this end, Stardock launched Stardock.net as its Application Service Provider (ASP) which in turn allows users to obtain Object Desktop as a subscription instead of having to worry about version numbers.
Presently, it costs $49.95 to join and $34.95 to re-subscribe each year. However, Stardock plans to add the option to pay $3.99 per month after the first year for those users who do not want to have to bother with having to manually re-subscribe each year.
Availability
Object Desktop 2000
The CD version of Object Desktop was released in June of 2000. It comes with a 1 year subscription to The Object Desktop Network. Object Desktop 2000 has a list price of $49.95.
The Object Desktop Network
The Object Desktop Network was launched in December of 1999. The user simply visits www.stardock.com (or www.stardock.net) and subscribes to the service. It costs $49.95 for the first year and $34.95 for subsequent years.
As the pricing implies, Stardock is not penalizing users for choosing one method over the other. They cost the same and either way they get The Object Desktop Network service (though with the CD there may be shipping and handling charges involved depending on how they obtain it).
About Stardock Corporation
Stardock Systems, later renamed to Stardock Corporation was founded in 1994 originally to develop software for OS/2. In 1996, Stardock expanded into developing software for Windows.
It began developing Object Desktop for Windows in mid 1997 and created Stardock.net in late 1999.
It is located in Livonia Michigan and is self-funded through the sales of its software and services.
Stardock.net
Corporation Contact Information:
Stardock.net
Stardock.com
http://www.stardock.com
Phn: 734-762-0687
Fax: 734-762-0690
Email: info@stardock.com
17292 Farmington Rd.
Livonia MI 48152
Contact:
Brad Wardell