As many of you know from reading the forums over the past couple of days, that weather feeds being pulled in from DesktopX created widgets/objects have stopped working. To make a short story even shorter, TWC has shown a requirement put upon all widget creators and users, and anyone else accessing their data to abide by new and quite specific demands/rules. This goes for anyone using the feeds, not just WinCustomize users.
If you want to continue to use TWC weather feeds you will need to abide by their new rules, which includes a requirement to place a logo and links back to them. Several DX coders including sViz and Vad_M have been posting new feeds, and some code fixes to help others fix their weather objects.
An ongoing thread from sViz can be found here:
Which ever new weather feeds creators decide to use, they need to make sure they also abide by any rules or guideline imposed by the originating feed provider.
Starting Monday, July 20th, we will start removing broken weather widgets from the WinCustomize galleries that have not been updated and/or violate any ToS/ToU in regards to weather feeds. The WC moderators are going to keep a close eye on the DesktopX queues so that updates will be pushed through as soon as possible. When updating a current skin, please be sure to make a note in the description that it has been updated with a new weather feed. If authors are do not have a copy of their widgets and are not able to retrieve them from Wincustomize, they are available by request to an admin.
We understand this has caused quite a stir, but this is nothing that can be easily fixed as it’s an issue that is not in Stardock’s nor WinCustomize’s hands. Please keep an eye on the forums for updates from DX coders who are looking at alternative solutions.
Regards,
Spencer WC Admin
G3mpi3 ....you got it in one....
what a big help for us!
I really appreciate the understanding.
yeah i see.. thanks
Hey Zu,
We are not coders, we are skinners, we don't know how MS Windows work, but we can do a GUI.
WinCustomize is a skinning community!
The 99% of WC authors are skinners not coders! We expect some help on this problem, don't you think?
I'm removed all my dx widgets and themes from my wc gallery.
...this was my hobby, really enjoyed to made..
For my friends and downloaders: Thanks your alltime support, and kind of worlds!
so.... Im don't want to say Goodbye, but Thanks for the fish!
And we are getting it. Several coders are working on it. I can't believe all this over weather. As Jafo said, there was a day when a person wanted to know the weather, so they go open a webpage and check it. DX is not weather. DX does so much more than weather, we will all be fine if we just wait.
Hell, why don't all the naysayers here just email/petition weather.com and tell them how they owe us a weather feed and how they are neglecting us by leaving us high and dry with no forewarning.
Guys, I hate redoing all my work as bad as the rest of you, maybe even more, since I just did that a few months ago. I have to do it again, I don't like it, I have better things to do with my time, but I have to, that is just the way it is, so I will.
Please don't turn your backs on skinning or DesktopX over this. Stardock already pays little attention to DX, if we let this get out of hand, they may just scrap it and be done. That would certainly make me very sad.
I understand what you are saying, but what I make is not for putting on your desktop. It is for REPLACING your desktop.
A lot of people use DX Themes for more than weather. A DX theme that I make is a full fledged application launcher that does everything with style. With it, the user don't need a start menu, don't need Object Dock, rainlender, windows media player, or sysmetrix. My DX themes do all that those can do.Weather can be added easily enough, just as soon as they get it fixed, and they will.
My statement here is that DesktopX is about a lot more than weather. Everyone is acting as though the world is coming to an end because we don't have a weather widget. How did we get by without them before Stardock cme along? Or before the PC came along? Weather isn't everything and it's definitely not worth all this fuss.
Why doesnt this surprize me ? I'm sure you all knew about this and decided to do nothing. Now you can sell more matching Themes etc . None of us are needed here anymore so I'll just delete my Widgets myself. I have been here for years and you can say this is not a Stardock problem and that might be so but as a so called ' Community ' your making it quite clear that you don't give a rats ass about helping any of us....its just a figure it out yourself and you have 1 week to do so. No biggy. I'm sure the skinning world won't miss a few weather widgets. I was willing to fix each one of mine but all my weather widgets were packed as a widget pack so even to delete the weather requires rezipping the other widgets and making new previews. I have little enough time these days to worry about this when Stardock could care less.
Let's think about this.
For now it seems weather.com have recently changed their conditions of use. Why wanting to delete widgets / themes which have been done BEFORE these new rules ? new rules are not retroactive aren't they ?
Though Stardock have not to delete anything done in past. They have just to leave them alone. Though members can continue to download them. OK they won't work in the forms they are, but it will be the problem of each downloader to do what's necessary to make them work using fixes which have been purposed (or fixes which will be)
Is this not enough simple as this ?
May be it would be a good help for skinners. But not for coders. I'm not a skinner. I'm a coder first of all. So I don't need any additions which I can't edit or modify. Sorry but I will never use this in my projects...
Dear bilbo1930 and Fairyy~,
I have no words to illustrate my bad feelings and how I understand you! Seems after a few days like this I will be ready to do the same...
From a consumers viewpoint,no. Visitors using trialware have a download cap. Imagine trying the currently non-working themes and widgets,download after download until that cap is reached. What would you do?
I believe most of us would simply uninstall the whole mess,never return to WC and never try another Stardock product.
How is that going to help anyone in the skinning community ?
We will be deleting all the weather widgets from SDN. We have contacted our biggest uploader and she understands. We are to small to get into any legal hassels.
I use a yahoo weather widget but its not skinnable, does come with a color pallete.
People...you are clearly NOT listening.
This is NOT about Stardock backing up software....this is about skinners making widgets that use a source of data that NOW WILL NOT WORK.
I cannot make it any clearer than that.
Back in 'the good old days' there was clearly less of a distinction between skinners and their coding BROTHERS. In fact, skinning actually MEANT altering code AND graphics...not JUST graphics.
The modern skinner...even those who are now Masters of the craft have had it easy...with programs such as SKS to assist with the 'coding' end of skinning.
These widgets are BUSTED because they used what is NOW SEEN as a bad source for their info...an unreliable source, just as if the site closed down and there was a 404 there instead of a data feed.
That's it. The world is NOT STATIC. SHIT happens.
The BETTER skinner will learn to deal...by one way or another correcting/repairing the problem.
Find another feed/site.
IT is SOLELY the responsibility of each skinner who wishes to distribute weather widgets [or any other] to ascertain that they will work, and are 'legal', just as with any other form of skinning.
No amount of bitching and moaning is going to do anything at all....other than annoy the crap out of people who are forced to endure it.
What will 'fix it' is intelligent and capable coders/skinners getting off their bums and putting their heads together to nut out solutions.
Whose fault is it that these widgets don't now work?
Not mine...I've never even used a weather widget.
Not Stardock .... they didn't make them.
Not the skinners....cos when they made them they DID work.
Ah....yes....that's right....it's the feed supplier. They altered the ground rules.
In the meantime, Wincustomize.com can end downloaders' disappointment by removing the widgets that no longer work....
neophil, no, it's really more appropriate that ideally what is available to download will work 'out of the box'. It is fairly unreasonable to expect the general user to know how, or be willing to alter coding or whatever to make something work.
That's why we have creatures called skinners. They make these things. Look at people like Fli7e .... he showed Nullsoft how to skin their own product - WinAMP.
If the modern coding languages were around when I was at school maybe I'd be able to help now....but school was 35 years ago. The extent of my 'coding' skill is knowing my way around .rc files as used in Litestep - 'the' alternate Shell for Windows. There coding is predominantly textual and can be extremely verbose the complexity is unlimited.
Hi Paul,Excellent speech, very well said!
Though, you said: People...you are clearly NOT listening.I say, have you tried to understand what the authors are trying to say?Authors are saying, with a few words, that we are the Skinning Community and at least we should share the problems and try to help each other, don't you think?It is a pity because I see no help intention from WinCustomize/Stardock in the air...
Yep, Adni.... I hear them....I got to the widget thread late...but still sat down and read ALL 13 pages.
Stardock is a finite entity. They have a few coders [obviously], but there are considerably more 'out there' within the community and beyond, and any and all people accessing TWC feeds will have struck similar problems and have to alter/redesign scripts. It's a community/skinner/widget-wide problem, yet it seems people simply say....oh...what is Stardock going to do to fix it? It was not of their making. Their responsibility is to fix their works/releases, not those of other people.
As with any new hurdle...the entire field has to jump over it, not just one horse....
What money have we taken? Does anybody read what has been posted? This is a problem with a WEATHER FEED!
I'm contacting the Master skinners about them fixing their paid skins, but it's their responsiblity to fix them, they created them!
Stardock lives and exits because skinners bring them skins on a website called Wincustomize.
Imagine whay happend if no more skinners give their work to be downloaded and if every skinner would delete all their work ?
Hummmfffffffff, how will you continue to pay your monthly credit payment for your Porshe ?
We are talking about weather widgets here, not the entire skin base.
We can't fix peoples skins for them, because we didn't create them. We didn't provide the weather feeds.
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