Stardock has released DesktopX 1.2 to the general public. DesktopX is a program that allows users to build their own desktops. It does so by extending the user"s existing shell (Explorer, Litestep, etc.) to support true objects.
With DesktopX, you can easily create objects by having an object point to a .PNG file or .BMP and telling it what image to show with different states such as mouse over, mouse down, mouse away, etc. Additionally, users and themers can add their own states. So for instance, an object could change the way it looked depending on the time of day by having the object have time related states.
Version 1.2 is a major upgrade that delivers a brand new animation engine, enhanced in-memory compression so that themes use less memory, and a great deal of under the hood changes to give it a more internally object oriented design. The net result is that it should be a LOT faster than version 1.1.