DailyApps » ui

Cairo – A Windows Shell Alternative

Karthik Kastury — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:33:13 +0000

Microsoft has always been loathed for creating User Interfaces with Windows, that aren’t much effective. And in that regard OSX has always come out on top for superior UI and usability. Well Microsoft did work hard with Vista, but the Usability of Vista has only gone from bad to worst compared to Windows XP. A bunch of developers are working on a Windows Shell Replacement called Cairo, that aims to provide a superior UI and rich usability compared to OSX.

Cairo has been in stealth development for quite sometime now, and it has gone much beyond a Windows taskbar replacement. But it’s since evolved into a complete replacement for the Windows shell, with a custom file explorer, favorites manager, and live file previews and more…

The totally revamped Shell aims at providing the best user experience and takes a completely different look at how you access your data. An Alpha release is a few weeks away, and I’m hoping that I get to play with it. Well here a few mockups, for you to feast your eyes upon..

Cairo is currently being developed with Windows Vista in mind, but the developer says that a Windows XP version may also be in the offing.

Vista Transformation Pack 8 Will Make Win XP Look Like Vista

Karthik Kastury — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:12:45 +0000

If you are a sucker for beautiful and organized desktop, then I’m sure you love the all new UI that Microsoft brought with Windows Vista. But I know a lot of you might not want to install Vista just for its looks, if you are one of those people who love the stability and features that Windows XP offers, but you want to have the Vista look, then Vista Transformation Pack is for you.

The Developers of Vista Transformation Pack have just released the latest in the series of the Transformation packs and this time, it makes your Windows XP install look like a complete ditto of Windows Vista Ultimate, with all the drop shadows, reflections, and all the other eye candy that you see in Windows Vista.

The latest version, i.e. version 8 brings a lot of new stuff. Some of the important additions are :

Added TrueTransparency 0.8.5 to bring Aero glass-like transparency effects
Added WinFlip 0.42 to emulate Vista Flip3D
Added CPU speed to welcome center
Updated Vista Sidebar to version 2.3 Lite

I installed it on my spare machine and it worked like a charm. But I would recommend that you set up a System restore before you install Vista Transformation Pack, just incase something goes wrong. From my past experiences with VTP, the uninstaller of VTP doesn’t work perfect, so you might to need to restore your system to a previous state to get back the Vanilla Windows look, incase you decide to remove Vista Transformation Pack..

Download Vista Transformation Pack 8 from any of the following Mirrors :

Firefox 3 to get Beautiful Tab Switching

Karthik Kastury — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 01:58:47 +0000

Mozilla continues to innovate with the Firefox browser. I believe that the upcoming version of Firefox will be the best ever release we will see from the Firefox team over at Mozilla. A Lot of new features and enhancements have been added to the core of Firefox 3. One of them happens to be Tab Switching that is gorgeous to look at and it kinda mimics the Alt -Tab feature in Windows. The only question is weather this piece of innovation will make it into the Firefox core.

Currently this feature is experimental but I am hoping that it makes it to the final release of Firefox. The new Tab Switcher is an ideal replacement for the existing Ctrl-Tab feature, as it is easier to switch to a Tab you need to go to. When you press Ctrl-Tab in Firefox 3 an overlay with thumbnails of all the Tabs that are open. All you need to do is Click and boom! you’re into the Tab you wished to go to.

Well all this eyecandy comes at a cost, and that is increased CPU usage when using the Tab Switcher. CPU usage spiked from 2-3% to 45-50% during high speed tab switching (that is, I kept Ctrl + Tab pressed for a while), but immediately went back to previous cool 2-3% usage. So you can expect a few things here and there to become unresponsive while switching Tabs.

What do you think of this new and redefined Tab Switcher for Firefox ?

and yeah if you wish to try out Tab Switcher on your existing copy of Firefox install this addon.

Via Tech-Buzz and Mozilla Links

Firefox 3 to get a Visual Refresh

Karthik Kastury — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:38:50 +0000

The Mozilla team is working really hard to make sure that Firefox 3 will be the best browser we will ever see on this planet. Part of the plan is to enhance the UI of Firefox to make sure it blends with the host OS. Firefox 3 will come out with inbuilt skins that will integrate completely with Windows Vista, OS X and Linux. The Mozilla team posted some screenshots on what we can expect, and here the screenshots of the theme for Vista and OS X in action :

Well that was how Firefox 3 would look on Windows Vista. If you wondering what Firefox would look on Mac OSX then read on….

Well Mozilla team seems to have major plans, here is what Firefox developer Faaborg talked about plans for OS X on his blog:

For OS X we are following the new unified style that is used consistently throughout all applications on Leopard. Firefox will look the same on 10.4 as it does on 10.5, similar to iTunes, and iLife 08.

I am amazed by the amount of Work that is being put in to develop Firefox 3. I am eagerly waiting for Firefox 3 will offer Internet users worldwide, and I am pretty sure Firefox 3 will be the first step in making a big dent in the market share of Internet Explorer.

For More screenshots of Firefox 3 head over to Faaborg‘s blog.

10 Awesome UI Enhancement Apps for OSX

Karthik Kastury — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:30:07 +0000

If you are just wondering why would anyone need UI Enhancement apps for OS X then you got me at the right time. While being one of the most elegantly designed OS’es out there, OS X still lacks some stuff which these enhancements can fill up.

So go ahead and see how they work for you..

1. Backdrop

Backdrop is a useful application for taking screenshots with limited windows in the foreground so they are much more presentable to others.

Price: Free

2. CandyBar

Many great applications sadly have not-so-great graphic designers behind them, and often their icons for and within the application are not quite up to standard, CandyBar solves this by replacing icons. You can download iconsets produced by others or manually assign them yourself and you are not limited to just the applications installed on your system, but the system itself, you can all icons from the hard drive icons to the individual folder types.

Price: $12.95

3. Desktop Magik

Bored with static backgrounds? You can now set videos and websites as your desktop background.

Price: $12.95

4. Doodim

To help you concentrate on the task in hand, Doodim “dims” all but the current application window(s).

Price: Free

5. Shapeshifter

Tired of the standard OS X look or looking to try out a mock-up of a “illuminous” theme? Shapeshifter can restyle the whole user interface to however you want, and there isn’t a lack of downloads waiting.

Price: $20.00

6. MegaZoomer

When people switch to Mac OS X the first thing they tend to become annoyed with is the way in which you cannot usually “full screen” an application like you can on a Windows machine. MegaZoomer returns this power to the user.

Price: Free

7. MenuShade

With new monitors being brighter and brighter, the top menu bar can often distract or hurt your eyes, MenuShade allows you to fade it, or even totally hide it.

Price: Free

8. Spirited Away

Unless your on a nice big monitor your desktop can quickly get cluttered with application windows that you may not be using. Spirited Away hides windows that have not seen activity for a set amount of time.

Alternate link

Price: Free

9. Uno

One of my pet hates about Mac OS X is the way in which some applications have the brushed metal look, some have the smooth metal look, and so on. Uno solves this problem and unifies the user interface.

Price: Free

10. Virtue Desktops

If you simply cannot wait for Leopard to be released, you can get your hands on “Spaces”-type, multi-desktop functionality.

Price: Free

So get going and try these apps today and let me know how they work for you..

Firefox 3 Gets Smooth Tab Scrolling

Karthik Kastury — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 13:46:46 +0000

Firefox is improving everyday. Its get more user friendly with every passing build. The latest addition that has been added to firefox is the smooth tab scrolling. Instead of the rough tab by tab stepping, tabs now slide in a continuous soft movement whenever you scroll them with the mouse wheel, add a new one or change to a different tab beyond the current visible section.

See the following flash demo to see what Smooth tab Scrolling feels like,

I downloaded the latest copy, and you know what its a lot smoother than the video seems to make it.

If anyone wants to turn it off, set toolkit.scrollbox.smoothScroll to false in about:config and restart Firefox.