This is not an official support channel. This is a USER supported forum. Official support is via support@stardock.com or the esupport system LINK

It's one overlooked line of code that completely breaks parts of our application. The number of lines doesn't really matter; the effect of the problematic code is what's important. One line of code can do a lot of damage.

If we don't warn people then they will just think our app is faulty. People have already thought this for the past several months, including people blaming us for it directly until we proved that it wasn't our fault. We have no way of knowing how many potential users we've lost because they loaded Opus and found it to be broken due to WB.

What's actually wrong with warning the users here? Why would you not want people to know that a problem exists, where the problem exists, and how to fix it (i.e. either hex-edit the DLLs or look for an updated version of WB)?

As I said, we would only show this warning if we detected the problematic DLLs. We are NOT going to put up a blanket warning for anyone using any version of WindowBlinds; only for the problematic versions. As soon as the problem is fixed, the code in Opus would stop showing the warning.

Anyone who has already hex-edited their DLLs, or who has installed the fixed WB version that Stardock will (presumably) put out at some point, wouldn't be shown a warning message. But, if the program is about to launch in a broken state then I think it makes sense to warn people.

Keep in mind that most people don't know the details of this problem. They'll run Opus and think it's broken. Even if WB is updated quickly, people still using an older version of WB will think there's a problem in Opus. So I think we can help our mutual users by telling them about the problem. (Of course, if someone sticks with both an old WB and an old Opus, then Opus will look faulty and none of us can do much about that.)

I'm not trying to be silly or difficult here; I honestly cannot see why anyone would object to the idea or why you'd prefer users or both programs be kept in the dark and that our program was left broken, by another program, without any explanation to our mutual users.

Our aim is not to make users choose between Opus and WindowBlinds. Our aim is to inform our users if we detect that something is wrong.

See my reply to Neil above.

Not sure why I'm being given the blame for things here, given the chain of events.

Leo: If you have other issues you have found please do contact me via PM so I can look into them.

String pooling is indeed why there is only one copy of that string in the dll.  It is worth noting that there will actually still be that string in the dll in the new fixed versions as we still have to detect you as you query the transparency support of a tab control.  The OS has always returned FALSE to this and a return value of anything other than this can upset some apps which assumed it would always be FALSE, but your app (and a couple of others) actively check for this value.  As it happens this doesn't help much as it seems it still does not paint transparency correctly but I don't believe thats our end.

The updated build should also fix a number of other issues that nobody has reported now that WB is exposing themes to the app.  In particular some strange menu painting issues (we paint a rectangle for one of the menu theme parts and you paint this on each line thus resulting in lots of rectangles rather than one - other apps act differently), some animated flashes when you mouseover some of the buttons in the panes and the above tweak to tab values, though as I say it doesn't fix the whole issue.

You will find there is still a menu issue with the sublime skin, but thats a DOpus bug with not asking for the right theme text colour for selected menu items.  You always ask for part 14, state 1 but mouseover is state 2.  I understand you mention that in one of your videos, but I have to confess I only viewed video 4 as I was aware of the fundamentals of the issue in terms of it being partially excluded.

Additionally we have sorted the focus issue with the keyboard in explorer.  This was actually specific to a specific set of themes.  Older themes designed for XP would have worked fine as would newer themes which used the 6 part selection image.  The only one that did not was the compact form 3 state image where the additional frames were simulated.

Regarding the resizing from the top corner, this turns out to be an OS level bug rather than WB itself.  The OS seems to have an internal bit of code that returns HTCLOSE for that area without sending a a WM_NCHITTEST message.  This is only a problem with the skins that have their own shadows as part of the border rather than using the shadow images.  I have tweaked the handlers for the other corners though to make them have wider hotspots.

On how that series of events happened, you must remember Stardock sold off the Impulse division of the company in May and while the sale was final as of May there were various agreements that required considerable internal resources to handle.  Because of this a few balls may have been dropped.  As some people on the forums may be aware there was a point where support were so overloaded it took two weeks to get a reply rather than the expected 48 hours.  I am pleased to say all the resources are now back to Stardock only.

The Directory Opus fix should have been in the 7.3 history text but it is possible that got missed off as at the time we were working on Windows 8 support and had to make some very last minute changes due to changes in the public build.

Most of us who scan the forums looking for issues would use the recent posts list.  Unfortunately this means any posts older than a certain amount will get missed and a thread titled "Directory Opus issue remains with WB 7.3 - Please fix" is far more likely to get attention than a reply to an existing old thread.  When scanning a long list it stands out so much better.  It actually isn't my job to read the forums so if anyone needs my attention it is best to make it obvious (but not stupidly obvious).

Another way to get me is to send mail to support@stardock.com saying please send this over to Neil.

I will say that how you chose to handle this is extremely unfortunate as all it manages to do is cause ill feeling between our communities.  It really would have been better to contact support directly.  It would certainly be appreciated if you could update your blog once the update is out.

If we had told you to go away and we didn't care that would be one thing, but in this case you jumped to the wrong conclusion and forgot the most important rule.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

Anyway the important thing is we now know about the issue and have taken steps to resolve it and hopefully you now know how to let us know if you have problems in the future.

Bonjour,

Utilisateur depuis de nombreuses années de Directory Opus ainsi que de WindowBlinds, etc je me permet d'intervenir pour soutenir Leo dans sa démarche... J'admire sa patience

Il est simple d'obtenir un D.Opus avec WindowBlinds en modifiant une simple DLL...

Je commence à croire que ce problème est purement commercial... Quels sont les intérets de Stardock à bloquer D.Opus toutes ces années ???

Un choix économique??? des accords commerciaux et de développement avec Microsoft ???...

Tous ces posts sur ce forum qui restent sans solution concernant Directory Opus laisse à penser que le problème technique est dépassé depuis longtemps, le blocage est intentionnel et prouvé...

J'aime le travail de Stardock, Windowblinds c'est allégé et à évolué, Fences, Tiltes et Iconpackager etc.... sont des incontournables que je ne regrette pas d'avoir acheté...

Je regrette votre sectarisme et votre désinvolture et puisqu'il faut l'écrire votre malhonneté dans toutes les réponses fournies par les modérateurs et développeurs de Stardock concernant Directory Opus...

Je me passerai bien de la traduction dans la langue de shakespeare mais par respect pour vos utilisateurs la voici...

Hello

User Directory Opus thus that WindowBlinds, etc I allows me to intervene in support of Leo in his approach for many years... I admire his patience

It is simple to get a D.Opus with WindowBlinds by modifying a simple DLL...

I'm starting to believe that this problem is purely commercial... What are the interests of Stardock to block D.Opus all these years?

An economical choice? trade and development with Microsoft agreements?...

All these posts on this forum who remain without solution for Directory Opus suggests that the technical problem is exceeded for a long time, the blockage is intentional and proven...

I like the work of Stardock, Windowblinds it is Lite and to evolved, Fences, Tiltes and Iconpackager etc... are of compelling that I do not regret having purchased...

I regret your bigotry and your flippancy and because he must write it to your malhonneté the answers provided by moderators and developers of Stardock about Directory Opus...

I myself will be spending much of the translation in the language of shakespeare, but out of respect for your users is this... 

PatPat31: As Jafo stated please do not post things which are defamatory and wrong on our forums (or anywhere else for that matter).  Should you do so again we would be forced to take further action against yourself.

I am not going to respond to any more posts on this thread but I will leave you with one thought. 

If we were intentionally ignoring this issue and wanted to break that app why would we respond so quickly when it was finally raised with us?  I actually investigated the issue and worked on a solution on a Sunday.

In fact if we really wanted to mess with them we would have simply excluded the app for 7.3 and made it look ugly, or recommend alternatives.  We have done none of these things.

This issue came down to a serious of unfortunate issues which in isolation would not be such a problem, but combined together resulted in us being totally unaware the latest update had made matters worse and not resolved the problem.  Could this have been avoided at our end, sure with hindsight.  Could this have been resolved quicker had the developers of Directory Opus actually contacted us about it via the correct channels, sure.

As you can see unfortunately there is blame on both sides as to how this was handled.

We do not currently have any products that are in competition with Directory Opus and I am unaware of any plans to do make one, so there is no benefit to us to being incompatible with them.

We are never interested in having apps that are incompatible with any of our apps and work hard to resolve issues when we are made aware of them via the proper channels.  Our aim is to have as good compatibility as possible which oddly enough is why DOpus.exe got added to the internal list back in the XP days...

I second that.

(I've sent Neil a PM to let him know about this post, in case it would be missed otherwise.)


Okay, I've spent a lot of time on the Opus side of this over the past week and have done the following:

1. There is a list of visual-style issues which I have found when using Opus with WindowBlinds. Several of these issues are new, so please see the list.

2. Where issues can be fixed or worked-around on the Opus side, I have done so and the code is already committed for the Opus 10.0.3.1 release in about a week. I can provide an early copy if needed for testing/verification.

3. I can't fix some of the issues because they appear to be bugs in WB with no clear work-arounds. Please see the list for details.

4. The list includes detailed descriptions and screenshots/videos, so we all know we're talking about the same things. I've also put what I perceive to be the action points for Opus and WindowBlinds, with green points being done/solved, red ones needing work, and yellow ones being mostly solved with a few questions remaining.

5. I've written a long list of reasons why we strongly request that WindowBlinds stops detecting Opus or treating it specially. If there are problems in Opus, just tell us and we will fix them, in Opus. Please don't inject code into our application that we don't know about and that you don't test or review; it's not neccessary and it's how we got into this mess in the first place.

6. There's also a list of WindowBlinds issues I found which aren't related to Opus, for reasons explained on the page.

All of that is here:

http://leo.dopus.com/dowb/index.html

If anything needs adding, updating or correcting, let me know and I'll do it. It's a long page (I don't see to make any other kind ) so I'm sure there are still some mistakes.


Neil wrote:

I really think the exchange of incompatibilities serves both sides. But I also think this should have been kept on an internal level, as what I really hate is all the people spreading FUD about WindowBlinds again. I can't imagine any PC of mine without it since more than 10 years.

Leo, I didn't mean to offend YOU with my post. It is some peole in Your forums. And let's see the facts : WindowBlinds has to deal literally with thousands of programs and hindreds of different configurations. Given that fact we are speaking of 0,1 percent or something it may have issues with.

I also have SyncBack registered which warns me that WindowBlinds is installed and may cause problems. Only thing is, I don't have any problems using it on a daily base.

Please, I didn't intend to 'hide' anything, just t keep it fair. People claiming they don't understand how anyone could ever run WindowBlinds on his/her machine still just have no clue.

Today, after noticing the problems with WB and Opus via the Opus update panel news, I have read through this whole topic and related ones. Opus is essential, WB is visual candy. I like them both and hate the standard Win7 theme. I like the simplicity of the Sabertooth theme, not because it's Mac like, but because it's uncluttered and clear. I don't have any particular visual effects added to Opus. I have had Opus for years and years, WB since getting Win7, I also installed Object Dock Plus v2 which adds a nice visual dock system.

Opus is always regularly updated and keeps on top of things with a wealth of information and details available at any time with lots of constructive help from people like Leo, always there to help and get things sorted. From what I've noticed about WB and OD, things aren't addressed fully in forums, updates are infrequent and don't seem to address the issues that repeatedly come up. I for one get the small icons problem in Object Dock that I couldn't find a solution for in the forums despite it being mentioned for several years and I have noticed lots of WB incompatibility issues with some quite important programs that I have had to exclude from WB's visual ill-effects.

I hadn't fully appreciated all the issues Leo has raised in the videos and notes, some I had come across myself, e.g. wondering why when I upgraded Opus that the Load button didn't work in Licence Manager and I'm seriously wondering what other random things I miss out on not just in Opus, but all programs. I'm no serious power user or expert in this field but I would have expected WB to be a bit more sorted out in terms of its efficiency and accuracy. The slow update cycle seems to be a major issue and I have been disappointed that updates are rarely available when I look at Stardock. There's also all that weird Impulse updater thing to contend with that seems to be on my system which as a non-gamer is just a pain and irrelevant. I have since realised this now is old or outdated and the last update I found to a Stardock program was after prolonged failed attempts via Impulse but then found elsewhere. This is the one of the problems with Stardock etc., not well documented and poor updating and irrelevant out of date information.

Reading all of the notes above and the related posts, it seems Stardock have still not quite yet understood what Leo has been trying to point out; WB should not be excluding Opus and if any issues are found that WB doesn't agree with, they will fix it almost immediately which by its nature precludes the need to be put on the exclusion list for 'special treatment'. A program such as WB that is only updated at what only seems to be as result of errors pointed out months after the issue was raised, really should not be trying to defend its position against another program that would identify, solve and update the issue with its users sometimes within a few days. QED, this whole issue and what can only be described as a defensive stance by WB developers. The points have been made and are justified, WB is doing some weird things and really should be on top of things a bit more with regular updates and fixes. Leaving Opus on some blacklist for years because of some incompatibility years ago really shouldn't be happening in a modern software development environment. WB undoubtedly does some clever stuff where Microsoft fails but as I say, it needs to be kept on top of which in some ways must be really difficult when dealing with various software developers and there odd workarounds, bodges and 'features' (Microsoft not excluded).

What perhaps surprises me with WB is that there isn't a user webpage or database of problem programs within WB and user-configurable suggested settings to use. If other program developers found themselves on this list then maybe some issues and disagreements might get sorted out quicker and perhaps in a more cooperative way. To embed undocumented 'fixes' into WB seems counter-productive and given the long update cycle it's no wonder stuff gets forgotten and errors reoccur.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming updates from both parties and hope that WB will continue to receive regular updates while its issues are sorted out.

Looking at my list of "Per application" exclusions, I have the following set to be excluded from WBs effects. I can't recall the exact reasons why each would have ended up on my list, suffice it to say it was probably a serious visual or functional elements problem that went away when excluded:

Artisteer.exe

Diskeeper.exe

iexplore.exe

thunderbird.exe (uses a different skin)

TrueImageLauncher.exe

TrueImageTools.exe

UltraRecall.exe

None of the visual settings/themes for the above software is altered from the general defaults beforehand. All my software is generally kept at the current/latest version on Win7 64bit.

With the Acronis TrueImage software I recall the problem was quite serious with missing panels and critical information missing. I seem to recall also some issues with WesternDigital MyBook software, I might be wrong with this one but there may again have been some missing or scrambled information. I don't currently have that installed to test again.

Aside from the above, the Opus issues described do exist on my system and having read through all the issues today, many of the unexplained visual and functional problems I've had with other programs over the last 9 months since purchasing WB have been ringing bells and could well be explained by WB's inbuilt exclusions of undocumented alterations and issues?  I use almost exclusively Adobe and Design/Creativity software and while I can't pinpoint any other particular issues with those at the moment, I do wonder if any of these programs might be on WB's current internal hit list of exclusions and if any of the odd problems I've had with those relate to WB's decisions and issues?  

Regarding thunderbird, there was an issue for a short period due to thunderbird switching to using your 3D graphics card to render all your mail.  This caused issues with WB until we set it to be detected as firefox (which it is basically)

Thunderbird does have a number of issues such as attaching a file can make the input cursor vanish in a mail, but these happen with or without WB.