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:

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....

I want my paid for DX themes fixed free of charge. Stardock: Revenue $20+ million (2008) Employees 60+ (May 2008) They complain about only having a few coders. They say it is a community/skinner problem. Quit using the term "community" please. Who in the community brings in 20 mill a year? That's a lot of money. They can't fix a few DX Themes? Take care of the people who enabled you to bring in 20 mill a year. Crap like this is why there is no faith in the economy. Customers are a second thought to most companies anymore. Take the money and run! Spin Spin Spin.....Blahh Blahh Blahh......

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. 

I don't understand why you can't include a working widget that complies with the TWC license agreement and your moderation rules to skinners at least, if not your customers. It's a practical necessity, and there's no legal reason preventing you from doing so. Saying you aren't required to do so is giving the finger to the people that make all those free skins that give your customers a reason to buy Stardock/Wincustomize products. Without those free skins, there would be no reason to buy the products. I think you should reconsider that decision, and provide, by e-mail, if necessary, a sample to all the DX skinners so that they can get on with weather widgets as soon as possible. Weather may be a trivial use of DesktopX, but it's the king of DX, and without it, DX will die. I confess to being surprised at the decision.

sViz, a member of the community, is working on templates for using weather.com and weather underground feeds.  That's the way it's worked in the past.  The community helping the community.

A script is not the problem here.  The issue is TWC wants a logo placed on widgets, and several links as well.  It's not just a line of code that is a problem. 

ID, I still don't get it. I understand the logo and link necessity. Couldn't you give them a widget with that coded in, if that's how it's done? I think most of them need a template of some kind. Is that what Zubaz is referring to and sViz is doing?

I am looking into what we are able todo with our license.  yes.  I've tested a recent build and it works well while following the weather.com term of service.