WindowBlinds: Living in a Whistler World
WindowBlinds over the past 2 years has become so popular that Microsoft has begun introducing some of its features into the next version of Windows known as Whistler. By doing so, they have created a new term in the customization world: "Visual Styles" - a term that will likely come to mean something between full blown skinning and simple color schemes. But the question on the minds of many in the skinning community is how will Whistler affect WindowBlinds.
Brad Wardell from Stardock thinks there are two possibilities:
"Well, WindowBlinds will either go the way of Adobe Type Manager or we'll follow the path of MS Word. In the days before True Type, Adobe used to sell something called ATM which provided scaleable fonts. They charged $50 for the privilege but many systems and programs were bundled with it. But when Windows 3.1 came out and included TrueType, ATM faded away because True Type was 'good enough' for everyone. However, the other possibility and the one we think is likely to happen is the WordPad to MS Word relationship. WordPad is actually powerful enough to do some basic word processing with. But people still buy Office, still buy MS Word and use MS Word. WordPad gets them a taste of what Word might offer and therefore helps Word. That's what we think will happen with Whistler and WindowBlinds. If cost was an issue, WindowBlinds wouldn't be popular now because there are tons of free 'skinning' programs that are more powerful than what is going to be in Whistler.
Plus, the other thing to bear in mind, Stardock isn't a large company. We don't have the marketing resources needed to have spread the word on skinning in general and WindowBlinds in particular to every PC user out there. By including visual styles in Whistler, a ton of people who have never heard of WindowBlinds will get a taste of customization. And as millions of people will tell you, once you get a little taste of freedom, they want it all. And those people will more than likely become WindowBlinds users."
While Whistler won't hit reach Beta 1 until next month and with a final release slated for Q3 2001, Stardock already has a plan. The goal will be to integrate Visual Styles into their system. Whistler Build 2257 implements skinning in the exact way WindowBlinds does. The only difference between the two are the features supported and the formats. When Whistler arrives, Stardock's plan is to make WindowBlinds completely seamless with that version of Windows.
"We really think that hard core skin creators will want to take advantage of the kinds of things WindowBlinds can do that Whistler is not likely to be able to do - not to mention to have the ability to be able to have their skins be used by Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows 2000 users. So as long as we make it so that a Whistler user doesn't have to choose between which to run, that they can use both at the same time, it'll be merely a matter of what skins they prefer at a given moment," said Wardell.
Microsoft's Visual Style specification is remarkably similar to a weakened down version of Stardock's UIS1+ specification (the "Basic" skin format). It is powerful enough for skin authors to create customized title bars but there are limitations on the size of borders, title bars. UIS1+ goes much further than Whistler in its ability to add functionality (new buttons) to a window. So in terms of evolution, it would be Visual Styles leads to UIS1+, which leads to UIS2 (enhanced format skins which is what most people use in WindowBlinds).
It is still too early to tell what is going to happen. Microsoft may drop Visual Styles before Whistlers hits RTM, but WindowBlinds looks poised to benefit greatly from Microsoft's embracing of skinning if they do leave in Visual Styles.
For more information on WindowBlinds, read the BetaNews preview of version 2.0.