WindowBlinds - History

History

WindowBlinds started in 1998 when lead developer Neil Banfield teamed up with Stardock. Stardock was looking for a developer to create a window skinning application, and Banfield had already created an application that he called "Window Blinds" in 1997. Previous attempts by Stardock had included "Object Look", a minimal skinning application, and "WindowFX", an application written in Delphi. That name would later be reused for WindowFX, also created by Banfield. For a short time there was also a scaled-back version of the original Window Blinds called "WBLiteFX", a name which was still present in WindowBlinds registry settings as of May 2006.

WindowBlinds (now re-branded as one word) quickly made its way to a 1.0 release, driven by the requests of users to add "freeform skinning" (customizable window border shapes), sounds, and animation. Scrollbars, the task bar, the start button, menu items, the menu itself, and other GUI elements were added later.

WindowBlinds 2 was a major redesign in C++ that added the following features:

• The "Basic" (UIS1+) format, which offered greater program compatibility in exchange for a restricted feature set.
• Compound skins (later known as "subskins") which made it easier to provide alternative versions of a skin. For example, a Macintosh skin could now have two subskins to offer control buttons at the left or right of the window.
• User skin recoloring.
• Scripting, though this was not widely used.
• Font and color sections for specific controls and states.
• Support for additional controls.

At this time, "BuilderBlinds"—re-branded as SkinStudio in February 2001—became a popular tool, as it enabled artists to create skins without spending a deal of time learning the intricacies of the UIS format. It also allowed experienced users to avoid trivial errors.

WindowBlinds 3 accompanied the release of Windows XP, which contained its own skinning system called "visual styles". It was thought that visual styles might deal a blow to commercial skinning systems. This proved not to be the case; in fact, sales of WindowBlinds rose, buoyed by a new set of users who had seen the changes offered by visual styles and wanted more. Even after modifications known as "uxtheme hacks" (named after the file they modified, uxtheme.dll) became available, WindowBlinds remained popular, since it had additional features that visual styles did not.

However, the program still contained flaws. WindowBlinds 3 had many new features, but with new features came new bugs, including compatibility problems. Additionally, performance was suboptimal. Interim releases addressed these issues and provided for those areas of the Windows XP user interface that could not initially be skinned.

By the time WindowBlinds 4 arrived, there were fewer problems, due in part to an increased focus on stability for DirectSkin clients. In addition, SkinStudio now provided a method to import the Microsoft msstyles format.

WindowBlinds 4.6 was released in August 2005, with the addition of mouseover "translucent glow" effects for the titlebar buttons, push buttons and other controls. Windowblinds 4.6 has now been renamed "WindowBlinds Classic", and is meant for non-XP Windows versions, which cannot run the new Windowblinds 5.

WindowBlinds 5, released in November 2005, extends translucency through per pixel alpha blending to the entire window frame, including the borders and taskbar.

WindowBlinds 6, released end 2007, adds Windows Vista-like blur effects on XP (although Microsoft said that such per-pixel alpha blending with blur is impossible to work on XP), later also Windows Sidebar skinning and more additional features. The configuration GUI was redesigned to a completely horizontal look.

WindowBlinds 7, released in late 2009, added native support for Windows 7. Amongst its new features is the ability to "skin Aero" by using colors and textures. Other new features include a new user interface, and various tweaks.