New DesktopX features

One major feature of the upcoming DesktopX is the option to use vector text, that's basically simple text painted over standard objects.
Previous text was bitmap based.

Here is the new config option:

And here how it looks:

It has some advantages and disadvantages over bitmapped text:
+ It usually provides crisper and clearer text, especially with small fonts.
+ It uses ClearType or standard antialiasing if enabled.
+ It doesn't use extra memory for allocating bitmaps. It loads faster.
- It cannot be shadowed or made transparent.
- Its background must be opaque (i.e. it's parent object must be opaque, or at least the region where the text child is). If it is not, it'll turned solid automatically.

Added scripting features to do the following things:

msgbox "Total objects:" & DesktopX.Objects.count
msgbox "First object name:" & DesktopX.Objects.item(1).name ' or .left or .ontop etc
msgbox "Test1 object name:" & DesktopX.Objects.item("Test1").name

For Each elem In DesktopX.Objects
msgbox "First object name:" & elem.name
elem.left = 50
'etc
Next

Simply put the returned item is identical to the references returned by DesktopX.Object("name"), NOT DesktopX.ScriptObject("name").
You can always do DesktopX.ScriptObject(elem.name) if you need.

There is an equivalent Object.Children collection as well.

Tutorials and documentation

We are putting more efforts in creating better support material for DX objects developers. We are updating the scripting guide (fixed some errors and added several explanations about core issues).

We are also preparing some fun step by step tutorials around specific techniques. You can preview them here:

http://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/docs/tutorials/index.html

Note: you need the DesktopX released today (Jan 5) because some of them does some complex things that didn't work before because of weak threading and callback support. That has been almost completely rewritten.