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Windows Operating Systems Software

Longhorn Skinning A Reality 356

Posted by CmdrTaco from the eye-candy-is-fun dept.
AlphaAlien writes "AlphaAlien of HardwareGeeks.com has figured out how to skin all of Microsoft's upcoming Windows release codenamed Longhorn. We can now skin Longhorn in the same manner we can skin Windows XP. Here's a picture of a very early copy of the first ever non-Microsoft skin for Longhorn. The only possible issue at this point is that Microsoft appears to be planning to move away from BMP based skinning altogethor and move to PNG based skins in which case any skins made for Longhorn at this point in time will not work far into the future. Also the patch to allow the skins to be loaded may not work many builds from the present as well. But for now we'll be able to hack away at the skinning engine at our leisure. in co-operation with BetasIRC.net we will be releasing the first few longhorn skins and a guide on how to get started on creating your own Longhorn skins."
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Longhorn Skinning A Reality More

Longhorn Skinning A Reality

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  • Planning for the future? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lord Grey ( 463613 ) * on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:38AM (#8778486)
    Are you guys anticipating that Longhorn will be that butt-ugly? That you have to plan this far in advance on how to avoid its mind-boggling interface?

    That, more than anything, tells me a lot about how people feel about Microsoft's operating systems. Past, present, and future.

    To paraphrase Douglas Adams: "It is no accident that there is no single word in any language that means, 'As pretty as the Longhorn OS.'"

    • Re:Planning for the future? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by VertigoAce ( 257771 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:45AM (#8778555)
      I don't think it's really planning for the future. It sounds like a few people who have beta copies of Longhorn are interested in skinning them. These are the same kinds of people that would skin KDE or Gnome as soon as they got it as well (the fact that they have Windows set up to use Firefox as the default web browser is an indicator that they like to customize their system).

    • Re:Planning for the future? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Denyer ( 717613 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:50AM (#8778614)
      "It is no accident that there is no single word in any language that means, 'As pretty as the Longhorn OS.'"

      Oh, there is. It's just very difficult to pronounce unless you happen to be in the act of vomiting at the time...

      • I assume it is the language from the sig: "Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates R'chmd wgah'nagl fhtagn."

        Perhaps it is 'vrgwr!wrkp*rwq' (! is a glottal stop, * is a click), which is normally translated as "Gorge my eyes out with a spoon"

    • Many people - like I - probably feel insulted with the XP 'Fisher Price' interface. I mean they could at least pretend they've not designed it for users that have the computer knowledge of a four-year old.

    • Re:Planning for the future? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by swordboy ( 472941 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:57AM (#8778667) Journal
      The first thing that they teach students in a graphic arts class is to never use primary colors together. WinXP is just that (I'm not sure about Longhorn). And then Microsoft, with the billions of dollars in free cash, gives us all a WHOLE TWO FREAKING color schemes to choose from.

      Tell me again why monopolies are good?

      • Re:Planning for the future? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by junklight ( 183583 ) <mark.junklight@com> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @09:03AM (#8778713) Homepage
        And the reason they would spend time and money making skins when people will churn them out for free is?
        • They locked down the theme system for XP to prevent people from using non-standard themes in the first place. The only reason there are third-party themes out there is due to the fact s a unauthorized theme .DLL patch was created.
      • Actually, they give you 3 color schemes to choose from. Default (blue), Silver and Olive Green.

        But of course you change the entire color scheme yourself, fairly easily. Just go to the desktop properties.

      • Re:Planning for the future? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SubtleNuance ( 184325 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @09:21AM (#8778855) Journal
        The first thing that they teach students in a graphic arts class is to never use primary colors together.

        I hope they dont teach this in ART class. Who says you need to bind creativity? I dont need my Art spoon fed to me, let them design as they see fit... I dont need some group-think confining my options, in ANY regard.

        Absolute rules are to be broken absolutely.
        • And keep in mind that graphic arts is about melding discordant shapes and images in a seamless fashion. User interface design is about demarcating where one conceptual function ends and another begins.

          Which is the whole problem with skins. Skin artist makes this beautiful brushed metal design, and then can't figure out where his scrollbars are.

          Apple done it right. Backgrounds are dull whites or brushed metal, but foregrounds are bright, gaudy mixes of whitish and bluish with big colorful icons. Shit, the three window accessory buttons (minimize, resize and close) are red, yellow and green.

          XP is of course a mess, but not because of the colors. XP is a mess because it replaces the simple icons and buttons with a shitload of text and an obnoxious dog. People don't want to read a short novel and wrestle Bonzi Buddy just to install a printer.

        • Absolute rules are to be broken absolutely.

          You can't really break a rule unless you know it's a rule.

          We see the world through cultural and physiological biases, and those ever-changing biases have been studied for millenia by artist-scientist types. These teachings are employed by artist-engineer types to express a message as effectively as possible.

          For example, to add tension, you can use angular shapes, discordant color combinations, and uneven spacing. If tension is useful to your artistic messa

      • The first thing that they teach students in a graphic arts class is to never use primary colors together. WinXP is just that (I'm not sure about Longhorn).

        Am I the only one who actually likes the default winXP theme ?, do I need to hand back my /. UID now ?.
      • The first thing that they teach students in a graphic arts class is to never use primary colors together.

        Really? Are you sure about that? Because the guys who do the graphic design for McDonalds, Burger King, British Telecom and many more probably missed that day in school.

        I'm not even going to mention Wired magazine.
    • Are you guys anticipating that Longhorn will be that butt-ugly? That you have to plan this far in advance on how to avoid its mind-boggling interface?

      Well, is the iPod interface so horrible that people had to port Linux to it?

  • Open Formats (Score:3, Funny)

    by JaxWeb ( 715417 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:39AM (#8778500) Homepage Journal
    It's good to see Microsoft supporting free file formats! Along with using PNG, I predict that future versions of Microsoft Windows will use OGG .

    • Re:Open Formats (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AllUsernamesAreGone ( 688381 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:44AM (#8778547)
      I'll rejoice at them using open standards on the day they fix IE so that you don't need to use an arcane DXImage loader incantation when you put a png with an alpha channel on a site....
    • How is this news? It's almost made to look like Longhorn has this great new feature! But it's just able to have a different look for the controls/windows. Wow. that's pretty innovative!

      I mean, that's cool, Longhorn will be able to do this, but I still fail to see why this is a news story on Slashdot.

      What's next? "New DVD player from Sony will play music CD's also!!!!"

  • Wait.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by superhoe ( 736800 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:40AM (#8778502) Homepage
    Skinned Longhorn = Circumsized OS?

  • PNG, great. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by al.cx ( 732497 ) * <al AT al DOT cx> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:41AM (#8778512)
    Perhaps PNG support in IE will have been improved then; this is good news for web designers.

    ( http://entropymine.com/jason/testbed/pngtrans/ )

    • Re:PNG, great. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AKnightCowboy ( 608632 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:49AM (#8778602)
      Perhaps PNG support in IE will have been improved then; this is good news for web designers.

      IE's transparency support for PNGs is definitely screwed up. I made a transparent PNG and it looks absolutely beautiful in Mozilla, Safari, Opera, Camino, etc. Load it in IE and it's a light gray background... Damn, can't they do anything right? Now I've got to "fix" it since 90% of the people use IE so they'll think it's broke.

      • Woops, not Opera, I mean Firefox. Sheesh. Now that I think of it maybe I should test Opera. It's probably just a fluke that the Gecko engine renders it perfectly... hmm.

        • Re:PNG, great. (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Your problems solved! [ntlworld.com] Sort of, anyway - there's some caveats, and it's only for IE5.5 and above.

          I think modern versions of Opera support PNG with alpha - it's really just Internet Explorer that's 'special'.
          • Actually, Opera was one of the first to support it. I remember it was often the designers that targeted Opera that were having problems with IE in the Opera 6.x days. It was great to see "Best viewed in Opera, does not work in Internet Explorer" on some sites, especially when I was on Opera.
      • >Now I've got to "fix" it since 90% of the people use IE so they'll think it's broke

        now YOU are part of the problem. just have a browser detection, and have a message for IE that their browser is obsolete and point them to firefox.
      • Now I've got to "fix" it since 90% of the people use IE so they'll think it's broke.

        That doesn't help the problem at all. You should leave the image in its correct form and put a notice on your site saying that any problems are caused by IE and that they should switch to something better (Firefox, Opera, whatever) or complain to MS if they have to stick with IE.
      • Anyone else remeber what Microsoft tried to do with Java, by "adapting" it.

        Perhaps there is a new "better" way to get transparency in the microsoft implementation?

      • A Transparent Fix (Score:3, Informative)

        by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 )
        Try this fix [mongus.net]. It uses a CSS and some javascript to fix IE's handling of PNG images.

        It sucks that one has to play these shennanigans to fix such basic functionality. It also begs the question if javascript can fix IE's mishandling... what's the hold up from Microsoft themselves?

      • Re:PNG, great. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Etyenne ( 4915 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @11:12AM (#8779949)
        IE's transparency support for PNGs is definitely screwed up. I made a
        transparent PNG and it looks absolutely beautiful in Mozilla, Safari, Opera, Camino, etc. Load it in IE and it's a light gray background... Damn, can't they do anything right? Now I've got to "fix" it since 90% of the people use IE so they'll think it's broke.

        If you need a PNG with a fully transparent color (just like GIF), IE have no problem supporting it, as long as your PNG is indexed (aka PNG8). If you need partial transparency (aka alpha channel), then yes IE is broke.

        To index a PNG in The Gimp 2.x, choose "Mode" -> "Indexed" in the Image menu.

    • Re:PNG, great. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by OmniVector ( 569062 )
      Yes. it's ONLY TAKEN THEM 4 YEARS TO RELEASE AN EXTREMELY SIMPLE PATCH. *collective head banging of thousands of web developers across the world hitting their desks in frustration for this bug that has been overlooked for so damn long just to stifle the growth of png on the web thanks to the monopolistic microsoft*. ok. i'm done now. </rant>
  • I want to skin my windows crash screens, can I do that too? It'd be great to skin the crash screen to look just like the regular o/s, so I get the impression that everything is fine.

    • Re:Skin the crash screens, too? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:46AM (#8778559)
      I want to skin my windows crash screens, can I do that too? It'd be great to skin the crash screen to look just like the regular o/s, so I get the impression that everything is fine.

      I'm not sure if you're trolling or trying to be funny, but never mind.

      However, you can actually change the colour of the BSOD to make it more PSOD (pink screen of death) or maybe YSOD (yellow screen of death).

      Details are here [beemerworld.com] although many Slashdotters probably won't like to admit that on W2K/XP they might never actually see the fruits of their labour.

      • Re:Skin the crash screens, too? (Score:5, Funny)

        by EulerX07 ( 314098 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:56AM (#8778661)
        Details are here although many Slashdotters probably won't like to admit that on W2K/XP they might never actually see the fruits of their labour.

        I've got a bad dimm on ram on my desk that I guarantee will give you a blue screen. I will sell to anyone that needs to test their BSOD mods, for a slight fee.
      • Yeah, XP is actually fairly stable. It's still not an OS I would install in production, but it's come a LONG way. I would certainly consider it for desktop work if I didn't already use Linux everywhere, and that's a far cry from NT or 98 where I wouldn't have considered either OS for anything but gaming.

        Of course, if I were going to switch desktops at work, it would be to MacOS/X, at this point.

        At home I have the game box that runs nothing but XP and games, the laptop and two servers running Linux. They a
      • And it has no effect on NT-based OSes. Did you notice it went into 386enh? 386 Enhanced? That's Windows 3.0 (and deriatives). Actually, the blue screen was introduced in 3.1, and this hack will work on 3.1 and up. To test on 3.1, hit [CTRL]-[ALT]-[DELETE], and to test on the other OSes, write to a floppy, and midway through writing, pop it out.
    • No, that feature was removed when MS dropped DOS for good. However, every DOS-based version of Windows from 3.1 on can use BSOD Properties [toastytech.com], which will change the colors of the BSOD. Yes, you can have a P(urple with Green text)SOD.

  • PNG support (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MC68040 ( 462186 )
    I hope this means they will support full PNG transparancy in new versions of IE in preparation for this new feature - that would make it worthwhile for other purposes too.

  • The real issue.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kid Brother of St. A ( 662151 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:42AM (#8778526)
    ...for me isn't how pretty I can get an OS to look, but how well it works. If I can put all kinds of skins on Longhorn, but it runs as slow as molasses and crashes at the drop of a hat, then MS will have wasted their time developing this thing. On the other hand if Longhorn turns out to be a nice, stable, functional OS that happens to be skinnable then Linux will have some real competition (which is good for both OS's).
    • It's direct3D-9 hardware accelerated, so it'll be one of the fastest GUIs out there, much faster than anything in the UNIX world, simply through co-operation with the card manufacturers.

      There isn't much mud you can sling at longhorn that will stick ;)

      Windows 2000 & XP don't crash. I've been using it for years, and it's rock-solid. I rebooted my machine for the first time in a couple of months today (my work PC). All the old "wind0ze crashes!" stuff ceased to be factual when Windows 2000 appeared.

      • Windows 2000 & XP don't crash. I've been using it for years, and it's rock-solid. I rebooted my machine for the first time in a couple of months today (my work PC). All the old "wind0ze crashes!" stuff ceased to be factual when Windows 2000 appeared.

        If by rock-solid you mean it doesn't crash as much then I agree. Windows 2000+ is much better than Microsoft's previous attempts at OSes. I have had Windows 2000 crash on me though from a buggy driver. This crash brought down the whole system btw. Mos
      • No, when XP Home appeared. 2000 is at least as stable as XP, but isn't a consumer version. ME was the home counterpart to 2000, and ME... sucked... total... ass.

      • Re:The real issue.... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by minus9 ( 106327 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @09:54AM (#8779144) Homepage

        It's direct3D-9 hardware accelerated, so it'll be one of the fastest GUIs out there, much faster than anything in the UNIX world, simply through co-operation with the card manufacturers.

        Will we be getting new direct3D-9 graphics cards included in the box? Cool!

      • It's direct3D-9 hardware accelerated, so it'll be one of the fastest GUIs out there, much faster than anything in the UNIX world, simply through co-operation with the card manufacturers.

        Hmm, you do realize that OS X (arguably a Unix) has been OpenGL hardware accelerated for nearly two years already (May 2002) and by the time Longhorn ships it will be even more hardware accelerated, and approaching four years of OpenGL acceleration.

        To claim it will be one of the fastest GUIs, *and* much faster than anythi
    • If I can put all kinds of skins on Longhorn, but it runs as slow as molasses and crashes at the drop of a hat

      I don't think they're gonna go backwards with this. XP isn't slow and doesn't crash (well in my use of it, anyway) and I don't think they will drop the bar.

      if Longhorn turns out to be a nice, stable, functional OS that happens to be skinnable

      Isn't that what XP is now?

      Anyway, I hate the whole idea of skinning. It's the worst possible thing you can do to software. It's like prostitution for soft

  • Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheVidiot ( 549995 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:43AM (#8778530) Homepage

    get started on creating your own Longhorn skins.
    How about I get the OS first?

  • what the... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Underholdning ( 758194 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:45AM (#8778553) Homepage Journal
    I don't get it. This is news about a feature in an OS that's not available yet, and when it's available, that feature will have changed? Excuse me, but what the heck is this about? (I'm not trying to sound like a troll - I'm really confused)

    • Re:what the... (Score:5, Informative)

      by dave420 ( 699308 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @09:01AM (#8778702)
      Windows XP uses a .DLL file (.so) for handling "visual styles" (skins). These skins are signed by microsoft, so you can only use their skins (to stop people from making virii or something, or to line their pockets). Since XP came out, people have been hacking this .dll file (uxtheme.dll) to allow custom, non-microsoft visual styles to be used. This is quite a coup as they've removed the need for signing before the OS is even released. It's not about the technology present in skinning, but the fact that they've circumvented MS's encryption/signing thingy 2 years prior to release.

      • Re:what the... (Score:5, Informative)

        by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @09:45AM (#8779063) Homepage
        It's not about the technology present in skinning, but the fact that they've circumvented MS's encryption/signing thingy 2 years prior to release.

        The current Longhorn releases feature the same UI system as XP, using static images for everything.

        The final release will have an Avalon-powered UI. Because it uses DirectX, its a safe bet they will use scalable vector graphics (more flash-like, no BMP/PNG/JPG) for everything possible. The ability to resize windows has already been demonstrated, and keeping the UI clean and un-pixely is probably a big priority for them.

        I would be *very* surprised if the Avalon UI uses the same theming system. All they've done is apply an old crack to old code. Nothing amazing there...

  • All part of The Plan(TM)(c) (Score:3, Funny)

    by KRzBZ ( 707148 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:47AM (#8778570)
    1. Buy Sun, use as tool to claim *nix compatability
    2. Release some unimportant software under open/shared source license
    3. Allow skinning of crappy m$ OS windowing environment
    4. Spread more patently false FUD about how Linux suX0rs, make outrageous claims saying m$ is better
    5. Have m$ OS be able to look like Linux
    6. $$$!

  • I just don't get skins (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dave-tx ( 684169 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {todhsals+80891fd}> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:48AM (#8778580)
    Maybe it's all due to my lack of any sense of aesthetics whatsoever, but I have never, EVER, had the urge to change "skins" on any software I've used.

    Is this feature really going to be popular? Honestly, I'd love to hear what makes customizable skins so desirable.

    • Heard of "Personal preferences"? (Score:5, Informative)

      by trezor ( 555230 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @09:05AM (#8778724) Homepage

      <obvious>

      Well, this might come as a shock to you, but I'll cite some examples:

      • Some people will get an iPod, rather than any competitor, simply because it is the smoothest looker.
      • Some people will buy a TV with fancy looking menus rather than a TV with simple, functional menus.
      • Some people care what colour their car, house or room is painted.
      • Some people like a sense of estethics when it comes to the full package, and that looks blend seamlessly.
      • Some might even also prefer WMP7+ before WMP6.4 because (suprise, suprise) they think it "looks better". Never mind the bloat and reduced funtionality when it comes to tweaking.

      Simply because you like your speakers in black, doesn't mean everyone does. I, for once, prefer mahogny.

      And as computers become a common thing, you might expect people to want to alter their looks and maybe even behaviour to suit whatever needs they may have.

      </obvious>

      If you really needed this answer, I think you spend way too much time alone in your room, boy. (Perhaps <obvious> as well...)

    • It's in wide use in XP. You can change how your entire OS looks. At work I do web design, so it's advantageous to have a neutral, minimal theme - so I use a light-grey theme with small fonts and clean buttons. At home, I'm more of a moody bastard so I have a dark blue/green theme with nice gradients and pretty fonts.

      It's hard to express, but these themes are so well put together they change the entire feel of your OS, not just the look. And, they do it in such a way that they always look built-in to th

    • Honestly, I'd love to hear what makes customizable skins so desirable.

      Now while only a few of us try to look like artificial intelligences most stay with artful.

      More seriously: If one is wedged between all sorts of constraints (taxes, work, family, put your favourite here, ...), having an own skin is at least a kind of resort.

      CC.
      • More seriously: If one is wedged between all sorts of constraints (taxes, work, family, put your favourite here, ...), having an own skin is at least a kind of resort.

        Ah, the opiate-of-the-people explanation: you're stuck in cubicle, IT management has locked down your desktop and forbidden you to use any of the freeware tools you've come to love, your web browsing is monitored and you can't even put mp3s that you own on the office hdd, because management assumes all mp3s are stolen.

        So you get to pretend

  • ...move away from BMP based skinning altogethor and move to PNG based skins

    Okay, I didn't RTFA.

    But, with monster monitors coming out and some people already squinting, aren't they planning to move to scalable icons?

    I recall hearing of SVG icons for Gnome and KDE and of some, uh, SVG-like XML language that MS was developing...

    • Who knows, but you can bet your bottom dollar that when Microsoft do adopt SVG Icons all the Microsoft zealots on /. will claim Microsoft invented it , and whine saying why does everyone copy Microsoft instead of creating something new ...
  • I don't know... maybe it's just me but... that looks like Windows XP with a different layout. It's not remarkably different. It doesn't even begin to approach true flexibility [freshmeat.net] in UI layout and functionality. When you can theme AND chrome Windows, call me.

  • But what about the new bits...? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Davez55 ( 455250 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:50AM (#8778610)
    While this is all very nice and pretty, if this is based on the PDC build of Longhorn (which is painfully slow on any of my systems, but that's besides the point...) then it doesn't have the new fangled hardware accelerated bits that are going to be part of Longhorn (Indigo? or is that something else). The GUI that comes with the Longhorn betas is just a testing one that won't be useful in the final release, so I can't really see what use skinning the gui in the beta that'll never actually be used is....

  • Microsoft finally adopts PNG? Microsoft becomes friendly with Sun? Microsoft releases WiX as open source...on SourceForge, no less? What the hell kind of bizzaro world did I wake up in today???

    Quick, someone check Bill Gates for a stylish alternate-universe goatee!

  • Can it be? (Score:5, Funny)

    by -kertrats- ( 718219 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:56AM (#8778664) Journal
    Slashdot posting a positive article about a Windows OS? [regardless of the fact its years away from release, and still in extremely early alpha stages]. Slashdot, this is so unlike you. Where are the backhand comments against M$? Where are the links with Better [linux.org] Operating [freebsd.org] systems? I'm ashamed of you. Where's your prejudice? Where's your bias?

  • Moo, Moo, Moo (Score:3, Insightful)

    by malia8888 ( 646496 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @08:59AM (#8778685)
    A Longhorn skin to me would just be plain cowhide to me. 'hits nuthin special. This led me to a train of thought (or cattle drive of thought) where I had never been before.

    My droning, long hours in highschool agriculture class covered the Longhorn cattle. Transporting anything with horns that big was dangerous and cumbersome. "Polled" or hornless cattle came into fashion in the cattle industry in short order.

    Why has Microsoft's marketing team picked the name of an animal that was proven in the marketplace to be 1. difficult to transport (picture horns sticking out of cattle cars or OS boxes sticking out of Fed Ex trucks) 2. difficult to maneuver without being gored?

    I guess Longhorn isn't as new of an OS as we might have been led to think This is all beginning to sound rather familiar if you get my "point" :P

    • See. Was it the marketing department that picked this name out? Do you think that it will be called Longhorn when it's sitting on the shelf at the brick 'n' mortar down the road?

      Or was it the development team working on the project?

      Why are you guessing that Longhorn isn't as new of an OS as you've been led to think? Because of the 3rd party WinXP looking skin that appears on a beta (or alpha) test version a full two years before the real product hits? Or because cows are difficult to transport?
    • Why has Microsoft's marketing team picked the name of an animal that was proven in the marketplace to be 1. difficult to transport (picture horns sticking out of cattle cars or OS boxes sticking out of Fed Ex trucks) 2. difficult to maneuver without being gored?

      Um, I thought it was an, um, phallic allusion...

      Which probably tells you what MS's marketing drones hope "Longhorn" will do to Tux...

  • Terrible Practice. (Score:2, Informative)

    by pararox ( 706523 )
    It's been established previously in this thread: the supposed Longhorn skinning is ugly. Artistically speaking, it has some commendable points. That said, we who use and understand computers are generally rooted in logic and efficiency, and this set of schemes disregards that.

    I'm a firm believer in F/OSS and use Linux always. I still maintain a Windows partiton on the lappy for Uni-related projects &c. I'm very much partial to the Windows 2000 desktop. It's barren enough to be effecient, and compl

  • UFO's (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mr Guy ( 547690 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @09:24AM (#8778881) Journal
    See I totally thought this article would be about cattle mutilation, I hear it's up this year.

  • Why is PNG a good format to use? (Score:4, Flamebait)

    by stecoop ( 759508 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @10:06AM (#8779255) Journal
    Why is PNG a good format to use? This has already been discussed on slashdot [slashdot.org] but for those of you that are new to: PNG [libpng.org]s

    First PNG is an open standard that doesn't rely on proprietary formats like LZW for compression like in Gif that is owned by Unisys [gnu.org]. PNG has a better compresses algorithm than GIF anyway.

    PNG is a loss-less compression method meaning that you open and save and get back to original data. Think of it like a ZIP file, you can always get the data back from a ZIP files as you stored it in.

    PNG supports three main image types: true color, grayscale and palette-based. Good for Normal Pictures, Documents and Web Based Images.

  • What, no SVG ??? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Etyenne ( 4915 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @11:17AM (#8780012)
    I was under the impression that Longhorn would be using vector graphical extensively in its UI. Mind you, I don't follow Microsoft hype very closely so I may well be totally wrong.

    AFAIK, Gnome and KDE are both going toward SVG vector graphic for icons/UI elements (correct me if I am wrong). Building a UI on bitmap graphic in 2004 seem quite retarded to me.

    • It will (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bonch ( 38532 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @01:15PM (#8781482)
      I was under the impression that Longhorn would be using vector graphical extensively in its UI. Mind you, I don't follow Microsoft hype very closely so I may well be totally wrong.

      It will. This is one of the beta builds. I've seen at least three MSDN videos showcasing the technology...clearly, people on this site haven't been paying attention.

      All the questions and comments similar to this one in this discussion really reveal how absolutely uninformed about Longhorn Slashdotters are as they meanwhile bash it. Common knowledge about Longhorn seems to have not yet reached Slashdot--no doubt because Slashdot would rather post silly anti-"M$" article when meanwhile, great strides are taking place in their technology. Someone here actually implied you'd need a DirectX9 level card just to run the thing--obviously he didn't know Longhorn supports several tiers of operation, going all the way down to standard 2D like Windows 2000. You can choose a tier manually or let Longhorn decide for you according to system specs. This is just one example of bizarre posts that completely reveal how ignorant people are of this OS--they call it "vaporware" as though there is no information released about it. People, there is tons of info already known that Microsoft has given away freely in the past year.

      For crying out loud, visit WinSuperSite [winsupersite.com] and read up a little bit! :P

  • RiceOS (Score:4, Funny)

    by Seanasy ( 21730 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @11:22AM (#8780053)

    Skins are to user interfaces what Type-R and VTEC stickers are to Honda Civics.

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