A few months ago, ScreenTime (creators of the well-known screensaver authoring tool by the same name) released SWF Desktop, an authoring tool for creating Flash-based desktops. On a Flash desktop, you can place animated effects, live information updates, and interactive content, as shown in the examples posted here.
This is definitely an interesting use of Flash, but do you like the idea of an interactive desktop? Is it something a web agency's clients might want? What's a killer app for the Flash desktop? Multiplayer games like bridge or chess?
Posted by moock at July 24, 2003 10:20 PMIt could almost be used like Konfabulator. Which is an awesome app for Mac OS X.
Posted by: Wilson Wise at July 28, 2003 10:27 AMI've been using ActiveDesktop to put Flash on the desktop...but only for looks. If you design a nice bitmap background, and animate a small section of it using Flash, you can do some attractive stuff without sucking down all of your CPU. Putting an app in the desktop is not very helpful to me, since I always have so many things open all the time.
p.s. You can also put Flash in your file explorer if you edit the HTML inside the *.htt files in your windows/web directory and enable folder web views. (at your OWN risk, mind you)
Posted by: andy makely at July 25, 2003 04:29 PMWhy do you need to buy this software when you can just set a web page as your background manually in Windows using the Active Background feature, it uses a lot of memory though.
Posted by: c_2_g at July 25, 2003 02:09 PMI use my active desktop in win2k to run my own swf's which read rss, and fetch weather. (the weather uses sockets, and generaly alternate wrappers rarley stop you from using sockets or data fetch methods, I doubt this one would).
I agreee about the focus issue john brings up. But on the other hand I don't think I'd want to distribute an app that does such important things as money transactions on a desktop. I don't know anyone who would use it/trust it. there something comforting in closing that certificate securitied web site after your done ordering flowers for mum.
But an alert box if the desktop is not focused when clicked might not be a bad idea either.
Posted by: persist at July 25, 2003 01:44 PMI'm with Jed.. Central is on it's way, hopefully giving us all the desktop we need (I think).
But on a similar note, is "active desktop" still around? I remember first seeing it in windows98, where you could set your desktop to be a given web-page. It was as easy as pointing it to a page with flash if you wanted an interactive desktop. The problem was though, that the desktop isn't supposed to react, it just holds stuff. "Oops! I just clicked 'submit order' when I wanted to move that icon!"
Posted by: John at July 25, 2003 02:13 AMI think it's a great idea, but I'm hesitant to get too involved given that Central will soon be coming out with all kinds of "desktop" possibilities. No?
-Jed
I think you we because its local, ill test it tomorrow.
Posted by: ph at July 24, 2003 10:45 PMCan I use XmlSocket in my desktop app?
Posted by: Liguorien at July 24, 2003 10:27 PM