Dev-Picayune

I’m still trying to figure out what roles I want my programs to play. In general, I like the idea of separate programs for everything. While Outlook is a decent program, I find I am frustrated because I am stuck with its pieces. If I don’t like the to-do list, I can’t just use a different one. If I don’t like the calendar, I can’t use a different one. Actually, not to say that I can’t but rather, I would be duplicating existing functionality that my computer is providing anytime I am running Outlook (which is “always”). So while it is neat to see folks try to make packages that do everything, it really is silly because chances are what someone really wants is just a small piece of the functionality. There are two drawbacks to this. One is that it consumes more system resources to run a bunch of separate programs. Second, it means a much less integrated environment. The great compromise here is that folks attempt to design software with Plug-Ins. This is nice, but when the plug-in you want doesn’t exist, you are stuck with finding a separate program or writing either a custom plug-in (which I have never done) or customer program (more likely for me).

Awhile back I found Xymantix Online — Sysmetrix. This is essentially a Dashboard type program that allows you monitor all sorts of things. Like a lot of the other programs I have seen, it now includes a ton of stuff. Most of the downloadable skins include things I am not interested in or can’t really use in my current environment. However, a few things of note about the program — it supports anti-aliased drawing so it looks very “tight” when combined with its skin and the skin-ability is extremely flexible yet doable for common folks like myself. When you look at the tremendous variety of skins for it you realize just how many different looks it can have. Kudos to the author (Nick Decker).

With all that in mind, I am planning on making my program launching program remain just that — a program launching program. There is not much reason to get carried away with fancy additional features so I will be focused on just effectively launching programs. As for other features, I think I will stick to separate programs. Since Sysmetrix uses about 15MB to run… I should be able to write my own (I’ve previously done my CPU monitor in Python). Another thought about some of the utils I have been looking at — the skins can often be quite nice (especially when done right) but at the same time I think it is important to realize that ultimately the OS is where most of the skinning should take place using stylexp or xp themes. That means that any program I write has got to be able to utilize the standard windows look so that it can be skinned from the OS level.