http://www.osnews.com/story/598/GUI_Olympics_2002_Officially_Begins Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:35:06 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Do people really think that user interface design consists of changing
colors and patterns with bitmap images ? Sat, 02 Feb 2002 10:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sounds like a typical smart-ass comment, since I am sure you know that their "user interface design" means something different than what you consider as "user interface design". Call it "user interface decoration" if you like, the great thing is that these people have fun doing what they do, regardless of your definitions. Sat, 02 Feb 2002 14:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I agree with Don Cox, it shouldn't be called a User Interface Design contest. If you start using words out of context they will loose their meaning. Next they will call it an OS Design Contest. Sat, 02 Feb 2002 18:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Does that mean that everyone that enters have to purchase window blinds to be able to make the "skin"? Or does entering in there just consist of sending in a neato jpeg that jimmy and his pal did?

Anyone know how window blinds works? The Windows look isnt controlled by explorer, thats just the shell. The only thing that runs before explorer is windows itself, which makes me wonder: does window blinds do abit of hex editing on the user's part? Whatever it does, it does it well, i've seen some damn nice WindowBlinds themes, but never in action. Sat, 02 Feb 2002 19:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? On an additional note, something fun for windows users to play with is an app called Ressource Hacker, it lets you open up any executable, dll etc... and see whats inside. In Windows2K, Microsoft put like 10 possible images to put in the start bar (that left side bar image), including one for "Windows Embeded", and "Windows Powered", they are actually pretty nice. You can change the graphs for the CPU monitor and everything. I have no clue where you could find it though, i suggest a quick search on google. Sat, 02 Feb 2002 19:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Does that mean that everyone that enters have to purchase window blinds to be able to make the "skin"?

After you register on Gui Olympics site, you will be asked which site you will want to represent. If you choose OSNews, there is an OSNews branded version of WindowBlinds and SkinStudio to download for free. The agreement for download it though is that you will have to submit one skin for the contest. Sat, 02 Feb 2002 19:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? For most of you people bashing WB, I doubt that you've actually used it. I'm not a huge proponent of WindowBlinds, but what they do is incredibly slick, and now with version 3.0, they do so with Microsoft's blessing. SkinStudio (formerly BuilderBlinds for those that remember it) can also create the theme files that work in Windows XP, so you can select it from your regular display properties.

You can do an amazing amount of customization, on par with or exceeding what you could do with say, Kaleidoscope, on the Mac. Your skin can make the window look like whatever you want basically, including animations, and plugins, such as buttons that let you control WinAmp, or display date/time properties. Also, the buttons can be conditional, changing function based on the state of the window (active/inactive, maximized/regular). I think it's pretty slick. Chroma used to be quite competitive, but now they've fallen by the wayside.

Combine this with something like LiteStep, GeoShell, Serenade, or similar, and you can have you Windows box looking like anything you can dream up, and much more stable (once you replace explorer.exe with a decent shell).

Just my $.02

-- Rob Sat, 02 Feb 2002 20:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? This competition is only open to people who use Microsoft operating systems isn't it? Sat, 02 Feb 2002 21:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? >This competition is only open to people who use Microsoft operating systems isn't it?

Yes, naturally. WindowBlinds & Skinstudio only run on Windows and this competition is only intended for Windows users. There used to be a similar version for OS/2 in the past, but it is not supported anymore. Sat, 02 Feb 2002 21:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? I'm going to design a Babya System 9 WindowBlinds skin. Sat, 02 Feb 2002 22:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://osnews.com/thread? http://osnews.com/thread? Sorry to say, this isnt a user interface design competition. Its a user interface modification contest.

User interface design would be to start from a clean slate.

However this contest is limited to coloring in window dressings like we used to do in kindergarten, and moving existing controls to the left, or right, or wherever in the small real estate of the title bar. Modification of a desktop with vertical applications doesn't really count either. Mon, 04 Feb 2002 00:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments